US President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened that his administration would revoke US citizenship from naturalized migrants from “Somalia or any other country”, who perpetrate fraud on Americans. He made this statement at a meeting of the Detroit Economic Club. TASR writes about it according to the Reuters agency.
Fox News previously reported that Trump plans to revoke the protected status of thousands of Somalis living in the United States. According to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Neomova, the situation in the war-torn country has improved so much that the law allowing the granting of temporary protection no longer applies to Somalis.
In November, Trump announced plans to end temporary protection from deportation for Somalis living in Minnesota, ending a program that had been in place since 1991, when Somalia’s civil war broke out. The head of the White House subsequently criticized Somali immigrants in the United States. At a meeting of his cabinet, he drew attention to the extensive problems of this East African country and declared that Somalis bring nothing to American society.
Recently, Trump and other representatives of his government have been increasingly harsh towards Somalis in the US. The U.S. government’s stance was fueled by the Minnesota scandal, where a billion dollars earmarked for welfare programs was embezzled during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several people from the local Somali community were allegedly involved in the fraud, and the Ministry of Finance is investigating suspicions that some of the embezzled funds also ended up in the hands of the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab.
