Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris‘s vice presidential pick, once thanked the state’s Somali community for changing the culture and demographics of the North Star State.
In an address on July 1, 2021, to mark Somali Independence Day, Walz boasted Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the U.S. and that Somalis have made “vast contributions” to the state, explaining that “the Somali community’s footprint on the cultural and demographic landscape of our state is invaluable.”
Gov. Walz has long courted the Somali community in the state, to the extent that some have accused him of changing the state’s former flag to look more like a Somali flag in 2023.
The official narrative is the traditional flag, featuring a Native American brave and a white farmer, was too offensive to remain. Democrats imposed the new flag without the assent of any Republican lawmakers in the state.
Representative Ilhan Omar, born in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, is perhaps the most famous Somali in Minnesota. She has often expressed her loyalty to her ethnic group, saying in a speech to fellow Somalis in January that they are “people of the same blood, people who know they are Somalis first, Muslims second, who protect each other.”
She went on to brag she was “here to protect the interests of Somalia from inside the U.S. system.”
Census numbers have shown Somalis have the highest rates of unemployment of Minnesota’s five largest immigrant groups in the past.
