IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “At a suburban supermarket a few days ago, Warda Abdi, a Somali-American, was approached by a white woman she had never met, who said: ‘We love you guys. We want you to be here.’ A far different message was left on Friday on the voice mail of Mukhtar M. Ibrahim, a journalist in Minnesota who was born in Somalia: ‘Go back to where you came from,’ the caller said, ending the message with a racial slur. It has been nearly a week since President Trump visited Minneapolis for a campaign rally. There, the president boasted to thousands of cheering supporters about curbing the flow of refugees into the country, and labeled Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee, ‘a disgrace.’ When he described how Somalis had previously come to Minnesota in large numbers, some in the crowd booed. Protesters and supporters who traded angry taunts outside the rally have long since gone home, and the arena has gone back to hosting basketball. Still, the president’s rhetoric about this city’s large Somali-American population has lingered, bringing forth new displays of compassion but also of hostility.”
–Mitch Smith and Christina Capecchi, “Trump Rally Turns Spotlight on Minnesota’s Somali Community,” The New York Times online, October 15, 2019