Tim Walz slams Trump for calling Minnesota’s Somali community 'garbage': 'Unprecedented'

By Fox News · Fox News

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz , a Democrat, criticized President Donald Trump on Thursday for describing the state's Somali community as "garbage." Walz said Trump's statements of contempt for the state's Somali community were "unprecedented for a United States president." "We’ve got little children going to school today who their president called them garbage," the blue state governor said. Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the country, with about 84,000 people in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area of Somali descent. Nearly 60% of Somalis in the state were born in the U.S., while 87% of the foreign-born Somalis are naturalized U.S. citizens. TREASURY SECRETARY LAUNCHES PROBE INTO MINNESOTA TAX DOLLARS ALLEGEDLY FUNDING AL-SHABAAB TERRORISTS Trump's comments about Somalis in the state have intensified after the City Journal, a conservative news outlet, claimed last month that taxpayer dollars from defrauded government programs have been sent to the Somali militant group al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida. The alleged ringleader of the fraud scheme is white, but dozens of people in the Somali community have reportedly been involved. On Thanksgiving, Trump said Minnesota was "a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity " and that he was terminating Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in the state. On Tuesday, the president said at a Cabinet meeting that he did not want Somali immigrants to remain in the U.S. "We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country," he said. During the meeting, he also called Somalia-born Rep. Ilhan Omar , D-Minn., "garbage" and said Somalia "stinks." On Wednesday, Trump said Minnesota had become a "hellhole" because of the Somali community. "Somalians should be out of here," he told reporters. "They’ve destroyed our country." The Trump administration launched immigration enforcement operations targeting migrants living among Minnesota's Somali community. "Demonizi…