President Donald Trump announced Friday evening that he is ending deportation protections for Somalis living in Minnesota, stating the move is “effective immediately.”

In a post on Truth Social, the president said, “Minnesota, under Governor [Tim] Walz, is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity,” before declaring, “I am, as President of the United States, hereby terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota.”

The TPS program has allowed Somali nationals to live and work legally in the United States due to ongoing dangerous conditions in Somalia.

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Minnesota has one of the largest Somali populations in the country, and the program has long been a central factor in the community’s presence in the state.

In his announcement, Trump alleged that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER! President DJT.”

His statement referenced several recent fraud cases in Minnesota, including the high-profile Feeding Our Future scheme, which involved hundreds of millions of dollars in embezzled COVID-19 funds.

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The Feeding Our Future case has been the subject of ongoing state and federal scrutiny.

Multiple defendants have already been convicted or pleaded guilty in what authorities described as one of the largest pandemic-related fraud cases in the country.

Prosecutors said the scheme involved false claims for federal meal program reimbursements, with large amounts of money diverted from intended food assistance purposes.

The president’s announcement also followed the release of a new investigative report from the Manhattan Institute, a conservative policy organization.

The report was authored by Ryan Thorpe and Christopher F. Rufo, who said they uncovered a network of fraud tied to Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program, Feeding Our Future, and additional entities.

According to their findings, the alleged fraud involved millions of dollars in improperly obtained funds.

Thorpe and Rufo said federal counterterrorism sources confirmed that some of the stolen money was transferred to Somalia.

They reported that investigators believed the funds ultimately reached Al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based terrorist group.

The authors said their findings connected stolen U.S. taxpayer money to the foreign organization through transfers routed from Minnesota.

The fraud allegations described in the report come after several years of increased scrutiny surrounding nonprofits and organizations operating within Minnesota’s Somali community.

Prosecutors in the Feeding Our Future case said the scheme involved falsified documentation, fabricated meal counts, and coordinated efforts to divert federal money intended for pandemic assistance.

Those investigations remain ongoing, with additional cases expected to move forward.

Trump’s decision to end TPS protections marks a significant policy shift affecting thousands of Somali nationals in Minnesota.

As of Friday evening, federal agencies had not released additional information about the timeline for implementing the termination or how the decision will affect current TPS holders.

The Department of Homeland Security has previously overseen TPS renewals and expirations under various administrations, but Friday’s announcement reflected a direct directive from the president.

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