U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer is calling for the deportation of Somalis linked to fraud cases in Minnesota, while FBI Director Kash Patel has threatened suspects with “denaturalization and deportation proceedings where eligible.”
Emmer, a Republican representing Minnesota’s Sixth District, said in a post on the social platform X that even naturalized citizens should have their citizenship revoked and then they should be deported. He said he would be willing to pass legislation making it legal.
“I have three words regarding Somalis who have committed fraud against American taxpayers: Send them home. If they’re here illegally, deport them immediately; if they’re naturalized citizens, revoke their citizenship and deport them quickly thereafter,” Emmer’s post read.
A University of Minnesota law professor says deportation and denaturalization are matters for the courts, lengthy processes and typically draw legal challenges. He notes it isn’t the first time America has considered such measures.
“They need to have these cases go to trial,” said Richard Painter, a who previously worked as an ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “You don’t just get deported, you should be incarcerated, that needs to be the priority.”
University of Minnesota Law School Professor Richard Painter. (Dave Orrick / Pioneer Press)
A number of those charged in various fraud cases in Minnesota — from Feeding Our Future to others involving child care and Medicaid funds — are from the state’s Somali population. That has prompted attacks from President Donald Trump including his statement “they contribute nothing.”
Among those running schemes to get funds for child nutrition, housing services and autism programs, 82 of the 92 defendants are Somali Americans, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota.
An estimated 260,000 people of Somali descent were living in the U.S. in 2024, according to the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey. The largest population is in the Twin Cities, home to about 84,000 residents, most of whom are citizens.
Almost 58% of the Somalis in Minnesota were born in the U.S. Of the foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota, an overwhelming majority –- 87% — are naturalized U.S. citizens. Of the foreign-born population, almost half entered the U.S. in 2010 or later, according to the Census Bureau.
Painter said singling out an entire community isn’t right, though it has historical precedent.
“I do not like to see this become an excuse for racist attacks on the Somali community,” he said. “The answer to finishing the mafia was not to deport all the Italians. We always have people who do fraud.”
Painter noted that during the Red Scare following World War I there were calls for deportations of suspected radicals, often foreign-born labor leaders, using laws such as the Sedition Act. The Russian Revolution of 1917, labor strife and acts such as a bombing on Wall Street that claimed dozens of lives fueled calls for deportations. Among those targeted were Italians or Eastern European Jews.
From November of 1919 to January of 1920 U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer launched what came to be known as “the Palmer Raids,” to apprehend those suspected of being socialists, anarchists and communists, and subject them to deportation.
“We’ve been through this before,” Painter said. “It’s an undemocratic and dangerous approach to fraud.”
Painter said blame needs to be focused on the Minnesota’s governor and his administration as well as those suspected of fraud.
“I think what needs to be discussed is the failure of the Walz administration and the DFL being too long in power,” he said. One-party control of state governments can often lead to scandals and fraud, Painter said. “It’s happened down in Texas with the Republicans, it’s happened in Illinois with (the Democrats),” he said.
Walz and his administration have maintained they have worked for years to address fraud and proposed a series of anti-fraud measures ahead of the last legislative session. Recently Walz appointed the former head of the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to focus on fraud prevention.
Critics have not been silenced, though. A number of GOP state lawmakers have called on Walz to resign over the matter.
This story contains information from the Associated Press.
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