It was a reunion of sorts as former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino relaunched his podcast and brought in the man who tapped him for the federal job — President Donald Trump — for an interview.
Bongino and Trump talked about a variety of issues, including Minnesota, where Trump’s administration has sent some 3,000 immigration enforcement officers, prompting a backlash, especially after the deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Minneapolis, the focus of the enforcement effort, is home to many Somalis, most of whom are U.S. citizens, either by birth or naturalization.
During the interview with Bongino, Trump referred to Somali immigrants in Minnesota.
“These are people that don’t work,” Trump said. “These are people that are just not an asset to our society, to put it mildly. And we’ve got to get them out. … Ninety-two percent don’t work. They have an unbelievable corrupt system of welfare. You know, many of them drive Mercedes Benzes. They had nothing when they came over.”
Federal data shows that Somalis are poorer, on average, than other Minnesotans. But the notion that 92% of them don’t work is unfounded; official government data shows far lower percentages.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson did not provide support for the 92% figure. “Aliens who come to our country, complain about how much they hate America, fail to contribute to our economy, rip off Americans, and refuse to assimilate into our society should not be here,” she said.
Statistics for Somalis in Minnesota
The immigration enforcement buildup came after Trump criticized a spate of fraud cases involving Somalis in Minnesota, which have been prosecuted under former President Joe Biden and Trump. Since 2022, federal prosecutors have charged about 98 people with defrauding the federal government. The majority have been convicted; many cases are pending.
There are about 108,000 Somalis in Minnesota, representing roughly 2% of the state’s population. Most Somalis came to the state in the 1990s, fleeing civil war in their home country. Some came as refugees — an immigration category for those fleeing persecution — while others were sponsored by family members or moved from other states.
Census Bureau data from 2024 estimates that for Somalis in Minnesota, the labor force participation rate — that is, the share of the population 16 and older that is either working or looking for work — is about 72%. That means that about 28% of the Minnesota Somali population is not employed and not looking for work — less than one-third of the 92% share Trump cited.
The rate of labor force participation is higher for Somalis than it is for Minnesotans overall. In December 2025, Minnesota’s overall labor force participation rate was 68%; that would make the non-working rate about 32%, or four percentage points higher than for Somalis.
The Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors low immigration levels, produced a December report that details demographics of the Somali community in Minnesota using Census data.
The report found significant economic and social challenges, including that 52% of children in Somali immigrant homes in Minnesota live in poverty, compared with 8% of children in homes headed by U.S.-born people. It also found that about 39% of working-age Somalis have no high school diploma, compared with 5% of U.S. natives, and that half of working-age Somalis who have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years cannot speak English “very well.”
But the report found that when it comes to employment, Somalis in Minnesota measure up relatively well.
“Somali joblessness is not as common as one would predict based on their population’s low education level,” the report said. “Employment is therefore a bright spot in the data for Somalis, relatively speaking.”
The report’s author, resident scholar Jason Richwine, told PolitiFact he suspects Trump’s 92% figure results from “a common misunderstanding about welfare and work.”
Richwine said his research found that about 9 of every 10 Somali immigrant households with children receive means-tested, anti-poverty benefits — but that doesn’t mean that 90%, or 92%, don’t work. That’s because most welfare programs are available to workers, including food stamps and Medicaid.
Richwine said the economic challenge associated with Somali immigration “isn’t so much that they don’t work. Rather, it’s that their marketable skills are in many cases insufficient to raise their families out of poverty. As a consequence, they use a lot of welfare.”
Our ruling
Trump said that among Somalis in Minnesota, “92% of them don’t work.”
The most recent data shows that about 28% of Somalis in Minnesota aren’t working — a far lower number than Trump’s 92%, and a smaller rate than for Minnesotans overall.
About 9 in 10 Somalis receive some form of public assistance, but these programs typically allow low-wage workers to participate; receiving public benefits does not mean someone isn’t working.
We rate the statement Pants on Fire!
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This story originally appeared on PolitiFact
