 "Trump has made immigration enforcement a central pillar of his second term, significantly expanding ICE operations and deportation efforts in recent months. Photo: File/Reuters")
Escalating his rhetoric against illegal immigration, US President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at American airports if Democrats don’t not agree to what he called making the country ‘free and safe again.’
The latest warning from Trump comes amid a lingering budget standoff that has left regular security personnel going unpaid.
Writing on his social media platform, Trump said that if Democrats didn’t immediately sign a funding agreement, “I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before.”
Trump warned that ICE agents would carry out immediate arrests of undocumented immigrants at airports, with particular focus on people from Somalia.
He singled out Minnesota, blaming the state’s Democratic leadership, including its Governor Tim Walz, the Attorney General, and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, for what he described as the destruction of ‘he once great state of Minnesota.’
The post is the latest in a long-running campaign by Trump against Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest in the US. According to a report in Al Jazeera, Minnesota is home to an estimated 80,000 people of Somali origin, a majority of whom were born in the US, and of those born outside the country, 87 percent are naturalised citizens.
Trump has previously accused Somali immigrants of being responsible for up to 90 percent of alleged social services fraud in Minnesota, as reported by NBC News. He also called for them to be sent back to Somalia.
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View AllCongresswoman Ilhan Omar, who came to the US as a refugee from Somalia, has been a frequent target of Trump’s attacks. Previously, he called her a ‘fake Congresswoman’ who ‘hates the USA’ and suggested that she should be sent back to Somalia.
Trump’s latest threats seem to be part of a broader pressure campaign on Democrats to approve DHS funding and back his administration’s immigration policies. Trump has made immigration enforcement a central pillar of his second term, significantly expanding ICE operations and deportation efforts in recent months.