From Cold War Proxy to “Garbage”: How U.S. Policy Created and Then Terrorized Somali Refugees
We Created Refugees. Now We Punish Them for Surviving.
What Was Being Built
Through consulting work on a project in Somalia, I had the opportunity to learn about programs that a year ago were finally shifting from emergency response to something more sustainable. Programs were moving beyond emergency cash transfers toward jobs and resilience, representing genuine progress toward longer-term approaches that could reduce dependency on aid. The Somali government was beginning to take ownership. International support was functioning as a bridge, not permanent dependency.
The progress was fragile and contested, but it was real. Trust was being built. Capacity was being developed. The possibility of self-sufficiency was not theoretical but actual, happening in specific places with specific people doing the work.
Then, at this critical moment, nearly at the tipping point, it stopped.
In January 2025, the Trump administration terminated over $183 million in U.S. humanitarian and development assistance to Somalia, halting the vast majority of American humanitarian funding to the country. Stop-work orders were immediate. Organizations that had mobilized resources, hired staff, and made commitments to communities were told to cease operations. Programs that had been years in development were halted mid-implementation.
Over 60 percent of NGOs operating in Somalia counted on USAID as their leading donor, and more than half received stop-work orders. The sectors most affected (health, nutrition, water and sanitation, food security, education, protection) are the sectors that restoration depends on. Over 121 health facilities were forced to close or scale back services, and food assistance decreased by 56 percent. The Somali government cannot replace what international actors were providing. If drought intensifies, there is no real possibility of large relief packages coming to the country, which means Somalia will only appear in the news after a crisis has already occurred, by which point it would be too late to prevent collapse.
The restoration that was beginning, the shift from dependency to self-sufficiency, was stopped before it could take hold.
Operation Metro Surge
While the Trump administration was cutting aid that keeps millions alive in Somalia, it was simultaneously sending federal agents to terrorize the diaspora community that fled previous collapses of support. In early December, approximately 100 ICE agents descended on the Twin Cities as part of what the Department of Homeland Security called “Operation Metro Surge.” The New York Times reported it was an operation specifically targeting the Somali community.
This came days after President Trump called Minnesota’s Somali community “garbage” and said he didn’t want them in the country. Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the United States, roughly 80,000 people. The vast majority are either American citizens or legal permanent residents. In several high-profile incidents, Somali Minnesotans were pulled from cars, dragged out of businesses, stopped on the street and questioned. Even U.S. citizens found themselves detained, held until they could produce documentation proving their status.
On a Tuesday afternoon in December, Karmel Mall in south Minneapolis should have been bustling. The Somali shopping center usually hums with activity: women browsing colorful garments, men getting haircuts, families sampling sambusas and rice dishes while the call to prayer sounds softly over the loudspeakers. Instead, the mall fell quiet. Shopkeepers reported immediate drops in foot traffic. Some businesses curtailed their hours. People who did venture out carried something extra in their pockets and purses: passports, birth certificates, green cards, any documentation of legal status.
The fear was immediate and pervasive. Children watched their parents worry about leaving the house. Families made contingency plans in case someone didn’t return from work or an errand. Some parents instructed their children on what to do if ICE agents came to their home. Fewer people went to mosques. Medical appointments were skipped. Families ran out of food because they didn’t want to step outside their apartments.
The connection between these two scenes is not metaphorical. The Somali grandmother in Mogadishu watching her grandchildren grow thin as programs shut down and the Somali family in Minneapolis afraid to leave home exist in relationship. What happens to one reverberates through the other.
This is not coincidence. It is the completion of a cycle that started decades ago.
Let’s step back a moment and understand how Somalia got to where it is. The truth is that the United States contributed significantly to the collapse.
How We Broke Somalia
The pattern starts in the Cold War. The United States poured military aid into Somalia to counter Soviet influence in the Horn of Africa, supporting the dictator Siad Barre for over a decade with weapons and training that he used to consolidate power and brutally suppress opposition. His regime was particularly vicious toward clan-based resistance movements, including the Isaaq clan in the north, where his forces killed tens of thousands in what many consider genocide. Barre’s military power depended on American support, and armed clan-based opposition groups had been fighting him throughout the 1980s.
When the Cold War ended and U.S. strategic interest evaporated, we left entirely, with no exit strategy, no transition plan, no peacekeeping, no effort to prevent the chaos we knew was coming. Barre’s regime, stripped of the American military support that had sustained it, couldn’t hold against the opposition. By January 1991, clan militias had driven him from Mogadishu. But because these were competing clan-based groups rather than a unified opposition, they turned on each other for control. Somalia descended into civil war. The state disintegrated. What followed was one of the worst famines of the twentieth century, with an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Somalis dying of starvation and disease between 1991 and 1992.
So we came back. In December 1992, President George H.W. Bush launched Operation Restore Hope in the final weeks of his presidency, sending thousands of troops to secure humanitarian corridors and distribute food. The intervention did save lives initially, but President Clinton inherited the mission when he took office in January 1993, and the mission’s scope quickly expanded from humanitarian relief to nation-building and actively hunting Mohamed Farrah Aidid, a powerful warlord whom the U.S. blamed for killing Pakistani peacekeepers and obstructing aid efforts. The mission had shifted from feeding people to taking sides in the clan warfare.
In October 1993, U.S. forces raided a Mogadishu hotel to capture Aidid’s lieutenants, and the operation went catastrophically wrong. Aidid’s militia shot down two Black Hawk helicopters, eighteen American soldiers were killed in the urban battle that followed, and images of a dead American soldier being dragged through the streets shocked the nation. When it got messy, we left again. Clinton ordered a withdrawal. Within months, U.S. forces were gone, and by March 1995, all international peacekeeping forces had left Somalia. Over a million Somalis fled the country, seeking safety wherever they could find it. Many spent years in refugee camps in Kenya before eventually making it to the United States through the refugee resettlement program that continued under both Clinton and George W. Bush. Minnesota, with its existing mutual aid networks and social services, became a primary destination. They arrived as refugees because we helped create the conditions that made them refugees.
Building Community, Building Resentment
Somali families began arriving in Minnesota in the early 1990s through the refugee resettlement program, settling primarily in Minneapolis. They came with nothing, having spent years in refugee camps after fleeing the violence and famine we helped create. Minnesota offered what many other states did not: existing mutual aid networks, robust social services, and a tradition of welcoming refugees that dated back to earlier waves of Hmong and Vietnamese resettlement.
The community grew quickly. By the early 2000s, Minneapolis had the largest Somali population in the United States, eventually reaching roughly 80,000 to 100,000 people. Somali immigrants opened businesses along stretches of Lake Street and in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. They built mosques. They started community organizations. They became cab drivers, opened restaurants and grocery stores, worked in meatpacking plants and hospitals. They were doing exactly what America claims to want from immigrants: working hard, building businesses, contributing to the economy, raising families.
And they became politically active. In 2016, Minnesota voters elected Ilhan Omar to the state House of Representatives, making her the first Somali-American legislator in the United States. In 2018, they elected her to Congress. The community that had arrived as refugees was now claiming political power, becoming visible in ways that made some people uncomfortable.
That visibility came with backlash. Conservative media began running stories about Somali communities and welfare fraud, often conflating isolated incidents with entire populations. There were legitimate cases of fraud in daycare assistance programs, and these became fodder for broader narratives about Somalis draining public resources. The fact that Somali immigrants used social services designed to help refugees resettle was reframed as dependency and exploitation. The pattern emerged: Somali Minnesotans working service jobs and building businesses drew little attention. But when the community organized politically, when they demanded representation, the narrative shifted to resentment and suspicion.
Targeting the Diaspora
The resentment that began with welfare fraud narratives escalated through Trump’s first term. During his 2016 campaign, he called for a ban on Somali refugees, warning that Minnesota was experiencing problems because of them. After Ilhan Omar was elected to Congress in 2018 as part of “the Squad,” she became a frequent target of Trump’s rallies, where crowds chanted “send her back.” Throughout his first presidency, Trump threatened to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Somalis, though the threats didn’t materialize into mass enforcement. When he won reelection in November 2024, the threats are becoming policy even before he takes office.
In early December, Trump called Minnesota’s Somali community “garbage” and said he didn’t want them in the country. On December 1, approximately 100 ICE agents descended on the Twin Cities as part of what the Department of Homeland Security is calling “Operation Metro Surge.” The New York Times reported it is an operation specifically targeting the Somali community. In several high-profile incidents, Somali Minnesotans have been pulled from cars, dragged out of businesses, stopped on the street and questioned. Even U.S. citizens have found themselves detained, held until they could produce documentation proving their status.
The fear is immediate and pervasive. On a Tuesday afternoon in December, Karmel Mall in south Minneapolis should be bustling. The Somali shopping center usually hums with activity: women browsing colorful garments, men getting haircuts, families sampling sambusas and rice dishes while the call to prayer sounds softly over the loudspeakers. Instead, the mall is quiet. Shopkeepers report immediate drops in foot traffic. Some businesses have curtailed their hours. People who do venture out carry something extra in their pockets and purses: passports, birth certificates, green cards, any documentation of legal status.
Children are watching their parents worry about leaving the house. Families are making contingency plans in case someone doesn’t return from work or an errand. Some parents have instructed their children on what to do if ICE agents come to their home. Fewer people are going to mosques. Medical appointments are being skipped. Families are running out of food because they don’t want to step outside their apartments. The community that has built businesses, raised families, elected representatives, and contributed to Minnesota’s economy for three decades is now living in fear of the government that invited them as refugees.
The Logic Throughout
The pattern that connects these moments spans decades, but the logic is consistent: intervene when it serves U.S. interests, extract what is useful, abandon when it becomes costly, and punish when visibility becomes uncomfortable.
We backed Barre’s dictatorship because it countered Soviet influence, then left with no exit strategy when the Cold War ended. We returned with humanitarian intervention when the famine images became politically untenable, then expanded the mission to nation-building and warlord hunting. When American soldiers died, we left again, abandoning the country to the chaos our interventions had helped create.
The refugees who fled that chaos were resettled in the United States through programs designed to serve both humanitarian and economic purposes. They worked jobs Americans needed filled: meatpacking, driving cabs, healthcare support, service work. They paid taxes, started businesses, revitalized neighborhoods that had been struggling. This was considered acceptable as long as they remained relatively invisible, as long as their contributions were economic and their demands were minimal.
But when Somali Minnesotans began claiming political power, when they elected representatives who spoke back to power, when they became visible in ways that challenged the narrative of grateful refugees, the backlash intensified. The community that had been invited to fill labor needs was recast as a burden, as criminals, as people who didn’t belong. And now, as the Trump administration cuts aid that keeps millions alive in Somalia while sending federal agents to terrorize the diaspora in Minnesota, the cycle completes itself with a brutal efficiency.
The same administration that halted programs designed to help Somalia become self-sufficient is simultaneously working to deport Somalis from the United States. The message is clear: we will intervene in your country when it serves us, we will create the conditions that force you to flee, we will accept you when we need your labor, and we will demonize and deport you when you claim the rights we promised.
The Distance Between Here and There
The Somali grandmother in Mogadishu watching programs shut down and the Somali family in Minneapolis afraid to leave their apartment are not living in separate crises. They are living in the same one, connected by decades of American policy that has treated Somalia and its people as expendable.
The restoration that was beginning in Somalia, the shift from emergency aid to sustainable development, the programs that were finally building toward self-sufficiency, all of it stopped at the moment it mattered most. And at the same time, the community that fled previous collapses is being terrorized in the place they were told would be safe.
These are not natural disasters. They are not the inevitable results of failed states or immigration enforcement. They are choices. The choice to terminate aid without considering the consequences. The choice to send federal agents into Somali neighborhoods. The choice to call American citizens and legal residents “garbage.” The choice to treat an entire community as a threat because they became visible, because they organized, because they demanded representation.
The pattern has been consistent for decades: we intervene when it serves our strategic interests, we extract what is useful, we abandon when it becomes inconvenient, and we punish when people refuse to remain invisible. We helped destroy Somalia through our support of dictatorship and our abandonment without transition. We created the refugee crisis. We accepted those refugees when we needed their labor. And now we are punishing them for surviving, for building lives, for claiming the rights we told them they would have.
We created refugees. Now we punish them for surviving.
Anthralytic is a strategy and evaluation studio that helps mission-driven teams clarify and amplify their impact. We bring warm skepticism to questions of accountability, asking not just whether programs work but whose interests they serve.
