PRESIDENT Donald Trump told a Minnesota rally on Friday that Joe Biden would turn the state into a “refugee camp” with people from Somalia like Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
Speaking in Bemidji, Trump said: “Biden has promised a 700 percent increase in the importation of refugees from the most dangerous places in the world.”
“Every family in Minnesota needs to know about sleepy Joe Biden’s extreme plan to flood your state with an influx of refugees from Somalia and from other places all over the planet. That’s what’s happened, and you like Omar a lot, don’t you?” he said.
In a further jibe at the Democrat, Trump said he would deport criminals so that they could “complain” in their own country and riffed on rumors she committed immigration fraud by marrying her brother.
“We talk about AOC being crooked … Look at Omar,” he said.
“She came in here. Did she marry her brother? Where’s that writer? The writer should be given the Pulitzer Prize.”
“You will be overrun and destroyed,” Trump warned.
Trump’s visit to Minnesota’s Iron Range region is part of a strategy to flip the state, which he lost to Hillary Clinton by a few percentage points in 2016.
In his speech, Trump played up his record on trade, saying his tariffs on Chinese imports had bolstered Minnesota’s steel industry.
But he mostly stuck to cultural arguments, drawing a contrast between the Iron Range, which has swung conservative in recent years, and the state’s solidly blue cities, home of Omar, a frequent target for Trump.
Minnesota is home to a Somali refugee population of more than 50,000– and Omar herself, now a US citizen, came to Minnesota as a refugee.
Trump also touted his administration’s willingness to deport a number of Somali refugees – a move that drew criticism from Omar and immigration lawyers.
“Today we deported, as you know very well, dozens of Somali nationals charged or convicted with very grave crimes including rape, assault, robbery, terrorism and murder,” he said.
“These hardened criminals are back in their country, where they can do all the complaining they want, and your children are much safer as a result, thank you President Trump.”
What Trump described as “Sleepy Joe’s plan to flood your state with refugees” is likely a reference to Biden’s promise to admit 95,000 refugees a year if elected, up from 18,000 a year under Trump.
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That would represent a 400 percent increase, but would leave the US trailing smaller countries such as Turkey and Germany.
The United States was home to 347,000 refugees in 2019, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
That represents one-tenth of one percent of the US population.
A 400 percent increase would bring that number to half of one percent of the US population.