Donald Trump on Sunday warned darkly of the danger posed by Somali migrants in Minneapolis, a deeply segregated city that has the largest Somali-American community.
“Here in Minnesota, you’ve seen first hand the problems caused with faulty refugee vetting, with very large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval,” the Republican nominee told a rally in the solidly Democratic state, two days before the presidential election.
He then claimed: “Some of them [are] joining Isis and spreading their extremist views all over our country and all over the world.”
“Everybody’s reading about the disaster taking place in Minnesota,” he added, before claiming, falsely: “You don’t even have the right to talk about it.”
Trump has made warnings about refugees a staple of his stump speech, though he has most commonly targeted Syrians fleeing the five-year civil war that has devastated their country.
Three Somali Americans, two US citizens and one a lawful resident, plead guilty in June to trying to join the terror group Islamic State, or Isis. Law enforcement officials have said that more than 30 young men from Minnesota have left the county to join Isis or al-Shabaab, which operates in East Africa.