Students, teachers and other community members gather in Portland on Dec. 3, 2025, to protest the detention of two high schoolers and their family. (Photo by Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
Over the last few days, President Trump launched a vicious, brazen, and hate-filled attack on Somali immigrants — and by extension, on a fundamental ideal of America itself. In a White House Cabinet meeting, he repeatedly referred to Somalis as “garbage” and demanded they be expelled.
“Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage,” he said. “These are people who do nothing but complain…When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let ’em go back to where they came from and fix it.”
Then: “Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don’t want them in our country.”
He doubled down later: “We could go one way or the other — and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
These aren’t misremembered paraphrases. These are disregarded human beings, stripped of dignity, reduced to “garbage” in front of the world.
Why this attack is not about policy — but about hate
Trump’s tirade is not a reasoned critique of immigration policy. It is a naked display of bigotry, racism, and dehumanization. By singling out an entire ethnic and religious group — immigrants from Somalia, including a U.S. citizen elected to Congress, Ilhan Omar — he broadcasts a dangerous message: that people of certain backgrounds are disposable, undeserving of the rights and dignity that define America.
It aligns with his broader ideological agenda — white-nativism, exclusion, and an effort to mobilize his political base through fear, hatred, and division. This isn’t about integration or assimilation; it’s about erecting walls — physical, social, and moral — around whiteness and Christian-majority America, while casting people of color, Muslims, and immigrants as threats to the nation’s identity.
It’s no coincidence that such contempt comes amid aggressive crackdowns: reports suggest his administration is preparing Immigration and Customs Enforcement “strike teams” for mass deportations targeting Somali communities in Minnesota.
By dehumanizing Somalis, Trump lays ideological and rhetorical groundwork for systematic repression, erasing the line between “immigration law enforcement” and ethnic cleansing of whole communities.
A cruel irony: Trump’s own family’s immigrant roots
It’s an ugly hypocrisy that the man leading this crusade against immigrants descends himself — through marriage, naturalization, and private business — from immigrants. His wives, too, were not part of some ancient American founding class. Yet here he stands, calling other immigrants “garbage.”
That bitter irony exposes the argument for what it really is: not about law or national security, but about ideology — white nativist ideology, which sees immigrants of color as inferior, unwelcome, un-American.
Maine’s Somali community: real people, real contributions
The state I call home, Maine, is itself home to a growing Somali community, centered in cities like Portland and Lewiston, Maine. According to the most recent census data, there are roughly 3,000 Somali-born residents in Maine, many of them living in Portland or Lewiston.
In these cities, Somali immigrants and their families have worked tirelessly to build lives, businesses, and communities. They established community centers, helped one another navigate social services, found jobs, paid taxes — and despite hateful myths and scapegoating, they have contributed concretely to the state’s social and economic life.
Take Safiya Khalid, who came to America as a seven-year-old refugee from Somalia, grew up in Lewiston, and in 2019 became the first Somali American elected to the Lewiston City Council — and the youngest ever.
Or consider Deqa Dhalac, born in Mogadishu, Somalia, she immigrated in the early 1990s, moved to Maine, worked as an interpreter and community organizer, and eventually became the first Somali-American mayor in U.S. history when she was elected mayor of South Portland in 2021. Today she serves in the Maine House of Representatives.
These are not political tokens. They are mothers, workers, organizers, people whose lives reflect the best of what America can be: a home for refugees, an opportunity for immigrants, a chance to rebuild, contribute, and belong.
Yet Trump’s words treat them like trash.
Why this scorched public rebuke matters
Because when a leader of a nation mocks entire communities as “garbage,” it emboldens racists, bigots, and xenophobes to act. His words are not benign, they are poisonous.
Because the president’s rhetoric attempts to strip Somali Americans, and all immigrants of color, of their identity, agency, and humanity, reducing them to stereotypes for political gain.
Because Maine’s Somali community — and communities like them across the country — deserve to be honored for their resilience, their contributions, and their humanity.
Because America was built on immigration. On hope. On the idea that people seeking refuge, safety, dignity should be welcomed, not vilified.
If Trump does not immediately retract his words, if the administration proceeds with raids, deportations, or policies targeting entire communities, it will be complicit in a moral atrocity.
We cannot stay silent. We cannot treat this as “just politics.” This is a moral crisis. And we — citizens, neighbors, voters — must speak out, demand accountability, and insist: immigrants are not garbage. Immigrants are America.
