America Will Not Survive Many More Minnesotas

America has long been a beacon for migrants fleeing tyranny and poverty, but our recent habit of blindly importing entire cultural enclaves risks making America a place where tyranny and poverty spread. Nowhere is this danger more obvious than in Minnesota, where a rapid influx of Somali refugees has created parallel societies resistant to assimilation.

While many Somalis are undoubtedly hardworking and law-abiding, the sheer scale of this migration, unchecked by even the slightest cultural compatibility standards, has succeeded primarily in importing criminality, fraud, and anti-Western sentiments. The result is a Balkanized region where American values of individualism, transparency, and civic unity clash with tribal loyalties and Islamist extremism.

Consider the explosive scandal unfolding in Minneapolis: taxpayer dollars, funneled through welfare programs, are being siphoned back to Somalia to bankroll Al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda affiliate terrorizing East Africa. As detailed in a recent City Journal investigation, Minnesota’s welfare fraud epidemic, which exceeds billions under Governor Tim Walz’s watch, has seen Somali-led schemes remit millions via informal networks.

The Feeding Our Future nonprofit, run by Somali community members, bilked $250 million from federal child nutrition funds by inventing phantom meals and invoices, with proceeds spent on luxury cars and overseas properties. Even more insidious, the Housing Stabilization Services program ballooned from a projected $2.6 million to over $100 million annually, largely through fictitious Somali-owned companies billing for nonexistent services. Federal sources bluntly confirmed that “the largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.” At least 28 such scandals have erupted since Walz’s 2019 election, often shielded by accusations of racism whenever scrutiny is applied.

Compounding this is the fraud racket alleged against a Somali man in Minnesota for preying on vulnerable families while exploiting Medicaid through a nonprofit set up to assist people with autism. In a September indictment, Asha Farhan Hassan, a 28-year-old Somali-American, was charged with wire fraud for masterminding a $14 million scheme through her company, Smart Therapy LLC.

This isn’t just isolated crime; it is a cultural mismatch with clan-based networks wiring funds abroad for real estate deals in Kenya or Somalia. Such schemes not only bankrupt the system but erode faith in public institutions. Worse still, Somali youth gangs have metastasized in “Little Mogadishu,” the Cedar-Riverside enclave of Minneapolis, driving a 56 percent spike in violent crime from 2010 to 2018.

Gangs like the Somali Outlaws and Hot Boyz engage in assaults, drug trafficking, and brazen attacks such as beating a high school student with a tire iron during a basketball game or shooting up a University of Minnesota graduation. Yet local media, cowed by an obsession with diversity, remains eerily silent. Twin Cities media outlets ignore these turf wars, fearing the “Islamophobia” label, leaving communities in the dark while perpetrators recruit more disaffected youth.

Politicians exacerbate the rift through shameless pandering. Walz, whose administration oversees these frauds, has deep ties to the Somali lobby. He has aides and donors linked to the indicted figures, and he has offered vocal support for refugee resettlement, which swelled the Somali community from 44,000 in 2008 to over 80,000 today. Then there is Minnesota’s Somali-born U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who may be America’s most ungrateful immigrant. After the U.S. rescued her from a UN refugee camp, she has spent much of her time trashing America and suggesting she is in Congress to represent the interests of Somalia. When American norms are optional, many foreigners retain allegiance to their home countries.

Migrant tribalism isn’t limited to Minneapolis. In Dearborn, Michigan, a similar Muslim-majority enclave elected Abdullah Hammoud, the first Arab-American mayor. During a September 2024 council meeting, resident Ted Barham protested a street sign honoring publisher Osama Siblani, citing his pro-Hamas rhetoric. Hammoud’s retort? “You’re not welcome here,” vowing a parade when Barham leaves, while branding him a “bigot” and “Islamophobe.” In America’s highest-percentage Muslim city, a public servant dismissed a constituent’s concerns and rejected the melting pot philosophy in favor of establishing a no-go zone for dissenters. This is what awaits Americans on a macro scale when their nation no longer encourages assimilation and immigration is permitted to go unchecked.

Importing tens of thousands to a community in just a decade, via family reunification chains rather than merit-based selection, overwhelms all prospects of integration. Large numbers of immigrants eliminate incentives to learn English, fostering enclaves where Sharia sympathies and clan feuds supersede the Constitution. Good people get lost in the tide, and those in the criminal fringe—gangbangers, fraudsters, even Al-Shabaab recruiters—thrive.

Until we reform immigration to prioritize cultural affinity and assimilation—through English mandates, value-based vetting, and caps on chain migration—we court national suicide. A country without shared language, values, and patriotism isn’t a nation, but a hodgepodge of feuding tribes, ripe for conflict. Minnesota’s Somali saga is our warning: heed it or watch the American experiment splinter into irreconcilable shards.

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/america-will-not-survive-many-more-minnesotas