Somali Americans Brought Tea to Protesters Despite Being Targeted by ICE

Minnesota’s Somali community—shaped by war, displacement, and resilience—faces fear and trauma, yet shows up with tea, sambusas, and solidarity in the streets.

Ilhan Omar speaking at worker protest against Amazon in 2018/ Photo: Fibonacci Blue from Minnesota, USA

In the days after federal immigration agents flooded Minneapolis, Somali families brought thermoses of tea and trays of sambusas to ICE protestors standing in the cold. They handed out food while staying largely indoors themselves—afraid to drive, walk or draw attention.

Minnesota is home to roughly 84,000 people of Somali descent, the largest Somali population outside Somalia itself. Most arrived in the 1990s and early 2000s, fleeing a country that collapsed after the fall of its military government in 1991. Civil war, famine, and clan-based violence killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. Many spent years in refugee camps in Kenya before being resettled in the United …