President Trump has disparaged Somalis and other Africans since his first administration. In 2018, he notoriously referred to African nations as “shithole countries.” In December 2025, he upped the ante, making scathing, xenophobic remarks about Somali immigrants and their US-born descendants. Labeling them “garbage,” he told reporters that he wanted to expel Somalis from the country—and that they should go home and “fix” their problems. The dehumanization of targeted populations was a tactic employed by the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany to justify their murder.
In particular, Trump has villainized Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a US citizen who was born in Somalia, accusing her of “political crimes” and declaring that she should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which [she] came.” Omar has been plagued by death threats since Trump began targeting her.
Subjected to a series of travel bans during the first Trump administration, Somalis have again been targeted during his second term. Following a tirade about Somalia’s inability to drive al-Qaeda and Islamic State elements from their country, Trump announced that he would end the TPS status of nearly 2,500 Somalis, who would then be subject to deportation.
What caused the turmoil in Somalia that drove so many people from their homes, and what role has the US played? Since an abortive US military mission to Somalia in the early 1990s, the country has most often been featured in the US mainstream media as a terrorist haven that launches attacks on neighboring countries or as the source of piratical raids on international shipping routes in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.
Much of this coverage gives readers the impression that Somalia’s problems are self-generated and that the rest of the world has been trying to save it. In reality, there is a protracted history of outside interference in Somali affairs that has worsened its long crisis. From the Cold War to the “war on terror,” the US has turned Somalia into a battleground for its geopolitical schemes, with profoundly destructive consequences for the Somali people.