He said it four times in seven seconds: Somali immigrants in the United States are “garbage.”
It was deliberate. President Donald Trump’s attacks on immigrants have escalated since he accused Mexico of sending “rapists” during his 2015 campaign launch. He has used language once echoed by Adolf Hitler and infamously described African nations as “s—hole countries.” Closing a two‑hour Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump intensified that rhetoric and abandoned any pretense that his policies only target people in the country illegally.
“We don’t want em in our country,” he said five times referring to the nation’s roughly 260,000 people of Somali descent. “Let ‘em go back to where they came from and fix it.” Cabinet members applauded; Vice President J.D. Vance pumped a fist and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Trump on camera, “Well said.”
The brief finale offered a stark display in a nation founded and enriched by immigration, though also marked by slavery and exclusion. Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and deportations have reignited deep debates over who can be American, with tens of thousands of U.S. citizens among those affected because of their family origins.
“What he has done is brought this type of language more into the everyday conversation, more into the main,” said Carl Bon Tempo, a history professor at SUNY Albany. “He’s, in a way, legitimated this type of language that, for many Americans for a long time, was seen as outside the bounds.”
Questions about who belongs in America have a long history. Nativist sentiment surfaced during the late 19th-century anti‑Chinese campaigns and in the World War II incarceration of some 120,000 Japanese Americans. Trump, re‑elected with more than 77 million votes last year, has pursued a whole‑of‑government effort to curb immigration: he has moved to end birthright citizenship — contending children born to parents in the U.S. illegally or temporarily are not citizens despite the 14th Amendment — a move now before the Supreme Court. He has largely frozen asylum processing, sharply reduced refugee admissions and halted immigration applications from migrants tied to 19 nations affected by past travel bans.
Immigration remains a central issue for Trump. A November AP‑NORC poll found about 42% of adults approved of how he handles the issue, down from roughly half in March, and his administration has followed up with near‑daily enforcement actions.
Research suggests Trump’s rhetoric is harsher than most of his party. A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzing some 200,000 congressional speeches and 5,000 presidential communications on immigration from 1880 to 2020 found that from 1973 through Trump’s first term the most influential terms were administrative and security‑focused — words like “enforce,” “terrorism” and “policy.” The authors concluded Trump was “the first president in modern American history to express sentiment toward immigration that is more negative than the average member of his own party.” That finding preceded his recent remarks about Somalis.
In his closing remarks, Trump said Somali Americans “come from hell,” “contribute nothing,” “do nothing but bitch,” and that “their country stinks.” He also attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar, D‑Minn., calling her “garbage” and saying “her friends are garbage.” His comments drew shock and condemnation from Minneapolis to Mogadishu.
“My view of the US and living there has changed dramatically. I never thought a president, especially in his second term, would speak so harshly,” Ibrahim Hassan Hajji, a resident of Somalia’s capital, told The Associated Press. “Because of this, I have no plans to travel to the US.” Omar called the president’s “obsession” with her and Somali Americans “creepy and unhealthy.”
Scholars and civil‑rights experts say presidential rhetoric matters. “Trump specialises in pushing the boundaries of what others have done before,” said Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez, a civil‑rights law professor at Ohio State University. “He is far from the first politician to embrace race‑baiting xenophobia. But as president of the United States, he has more impact than most.” Domestically, his support among Republicans has proven durable; internationally, his style has inspired like‑minded politicians.
Across Europe, anti‑migrant sentiments have also hardened in recent years. Britain’s debate since Brexit has hardened attitudes toward migrants from Eastern Europe, and figures like Nigel Farage have warned of an “invasion.” France’s National Rally built its base on anti‑immigrant appeals decades before Trump, though its current leaders often frame the issue in policy terms. Public insults based on national origin that Trump made about Somalis would likely be illegal under France’s hate‑speech laws if spoken by anyone other than a head of state.
Trump appeared unconcerned by criticism of his increasingly polarizing immigration rhetoric. “I hear somebody say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct,’” he said. “I don’t care. I don’t want them.”
