A scandal has erupted in Minnesota. According to a City Journal investigation, generous social support schemes put in place by the ruling Democratic Party have fallen prey to large-scale welfare fraud schemes operated by the sizeable Somali community.
As per the City Journal report, autism-related services have been targeted with particular enthusiasm in the period from 2018-2023, when autism funding claims skyrocketed from $3 million to $399 million:
“[T]he number of autism providers in the state spiked from 41 to 328 over the same period, with many in the Somali community establishing their own autism treatment centers, citing the need for “culturally appropriate programming.” By the time the fraud scheme was exposed, one in 16 Somali four-year-olds in the state had reportedly been diagnosed with autism—a rate more than triple the state average.”
Worse still, some of these ill-gotten gains have – along with the more traditional economic remittances – aided the cause of the murderous Al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Shabaab. Again, City Journal puts it well:
“According to multiple law-enforcement sources, Minnesota’s Somali community has sent untold millions through a network of “hawalas,” informal clan-based money-traders, that have wound up in the coffers of Al-Shabaab.”
President Trump has responded to the news forcefully by announcing that he is ending temporary deportation protections for Somalis in Minnesota.
Large-scale immigration has had a remarkable impact on a state once known for its Scandinavian heritage, and which now contains a Somali community of around 80,000 people.
Consider the political impact. In 2006, Minnesota elected America’s first Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison. Since then, the rapid growth of the Somali community in Minneapolis has led to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar becoming a fixture in national politics.
This year’s mayoral election in Minneapolis was spiced up by the candidacy of the Somali-American Omar Fateh, who secured Ilhan Omar’s endorsement while challenging the incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey.
Frey prevailed narrowly, but the fact that he began his victory speech by speaking Somali rather than English shows the direction of travel in local politics.
Paradoxically, the increasing Somalisation of Minneapolis may have actually counted against Fateh, as anecdotal evidence suggests inter-clan hostilities deterred some Somali voters from supporting him.
In and of itself, there is nothing new about an ethnic or religious group gaining predominance in an American city or institution where their sheer numbers and political skills give them strength.
The Irish were the traditional masters of big city machine politics in places like New York (where Irish Archbishops have reigned continuously since 1850, to the annoyance of Italian-American Catholics).
Ilhan Omar’s 2024 speech where she said “that the U.S. government will do what we [i.e., the Somalis] tell the U.S. government to do” was controversial, but it was hardly that different to how Irish-Americans used to act in relation to the North during the Troubles.
What makes the Somali situation different is the vast cultural distance which exists between Somalia and the West, which in Minnesota has resulted in a level of systematic fraud which immigrants from societies which are not clan-based would have struggled to pull off.
Large-scale abuse of the Minnesota’s Department of Human Services is a sign of a deeply ingrained predatory mentality within parts of this community (though certainly not all of it).
Given Somalia’s status as a failed state plagued by feuding clans which dabble in piracy and Islamic extremism, it is no surprise that such a mentality would exist in some quarters.
Hopefully, this will be overcome in time as members of the Somali community prosper economically and truly become part of America’s melting pot.
It will not be easy though and nor will the assimilation process in Ireland, where Somalis were the fourth largest category of asylum seeker in 2024.
One of the most balanced and insightful books about immigration in recent times was ‘Exodus,’ authored by the Oxford University Professor Sir Paul Collier.
In it, Collier describes how the presence of a large immigrant community attracts more arrivals (who benefit from having a community of compatriots in place), while also making clear that immigrant groups which are more culturally distant are assimilated into the general population more slowly.
The more different the newcomers are, the longer it will take to absorb them. The longer it takes to absorb them, the more the community will grow, as fresh arrivals add to their ranks while long-term immigrants remain somewhat detached from native life.
In Minnesota and elsewhere, it is hard to escape the conclusion that some immigrant communities are transforming the existing social and political culture rather than adapting to it.
As the source of immigration to Ireland shifts to countries which are ever more distant geographically and culturally, we need to have the most difficult conversation of all.
Not about numbers, or processes, but about the type of country Ireland is (culturally Christian, with an important Gaelic tradition and one where most people have egalitarian attitudes towards gender) and the nationalities which would find it easier to adapt to our Irish way of life.
It will be an unavoidably awkward discussion, but the best time to have it is right now, and not a decade or more from now as future politicians struggle to cope with a country that no longer feels quite like home.