During a cabinet meeting Tuesday, President Donald Trump went on a lengthy tirade against Somali immigrants - many of whom have chosen to live in Ohio. He continued his diatribes the next day.
“It’s a hellhole right now, and the Somalians should be out of here, they’ve destroyed our country, and all they do is complain, complain, complain,” Trump said Wednesday, just one of his many comments made.
He said that of Minnesota, which has the largest community of Somali and Somali American people living in the United States. The title for second-largest community belongs to Ohio.
Migrants from the country in east Africa, fleeing civil war, started calling the city of Columbus home in the 1990s. Columbus now totals anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 residents, most of whom are U.S. citizens, according to data from Ohio State University.
In 2022, Reps. Ismail Mohamed (D-Columbus) and Munira Abdullahi (D-Columbus) became the first and only Somali Americans elected to the Ohio House.
When he was five, Mohamed’s family left Somalia, taking refuge elsewhere in Africa before they settled in north Columbus
“Calling an entire people garbage, it really doesn’t get any worse than that,” he said in an interview Friday. “(Trump’s) sort of hit rock bottom.”
U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno left his home country of Colombia when he was five, too. The GOP senior senator from Ohio is one of Trump’s most aggressive allies on immigration issues.
“We have to make certain that we vet the immigrants that come into our country very carefully, that we’re careful about the quantity of immigrants that we bring at one time,” Moreno said in an interview Thursday.
Earlier in December, Moreno introduced a bill outlawing dual citizenship, which he said he sees as creating “conflicts of interest.” Moreno denounced his own Colombian citizenship after turning 18.
He believes any immigrant coming to the U.S. in 2025 should be a skilled worker ready and willing to learn English, he said.
“Assimilation is critical,” Moreno said. “It doesn’t mean you reject your previous culture, it means you understand you have a duty to be part of the American fabric. Otherwise, what’s the point of coming to America? If you’re leaving a country and coming to the United States and are not going to assimilate and not learn our language and not renounce your citizenship, then why did you come?”
The Statehouse News Bureau asked Moreno about Trump’s comments about Somali-Americans. “I’m not stereotyping any group, nor should anybody stereotype any group,” Moreno said.
Mohamed does not hold dual citizenship, but he takes issue with Moreno’s bill. “We say that it’s unsavory when it’s countries that are either black or Muslim-majority,” he said.
He worries more broadly that Trump’s “dehumanizing” comments have become normalized—and that normalization could lead to government action targeting communities like Columbus’s.
