US President Donald Trump launched a sustained attack on Somali migrants during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, calling them "garbage" and saying he did not want them in the United States.
"I don't want them in our country. I'll be honest with you, OK. Somebody will say, 'Oh, that's not politically correct.' I don't care. I don't want them in our country," Trump said near the end of the lengthy meeting.
"We can go one way or the other, and we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country," he added.
Trump's remarks came days after his administration announced it would halt all asylum decisions following the shooting of two US National Guard soldiers in Washington.
The suspect in last week's incident is originally from Afghanistan, but Trump used the moment to raise questions about migrants from other nations, including Somalia.
"They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country," Trump told reporters. "Their country is no good for a reason. Your country stinks and we don't want them in our country."
The US president urged Somalis to "go back to where they came from and fix it", specifically targeting Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who emigrated from Somalia in 1995 as a child.
Trump for years has criticised Omar, but he intensified his attacks on Somalis on social media last week after Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, published unsubstantiated allegations in City Journal magazine, citing unnamed sources, that money stolen from Minnesota programmes has gone to al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked militant group that controls parts of Somalia.
According to US media reports, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been instructed to target undocumented Somali migrants in Minneapolis and St. Paul, known as the Twin Cities. The area is home to one of the largest Somali communities in the world.
CBS News reported hundreds of people are expected to be targeted when the operation begins this week.
Trump has pledged to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Somalis living in Minnesota, triggering fear in the state's deeply rooted migrant community and raising doubts about whether the White House has the legal authority to enact the directive as described.
The move drew immediate pushback from state leaders and immigration experts, who characterised Trump's announcement as a legally dubious effort to sow suspicion towards Minnesota's Somali community.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called Trump's message "wrong" and said Somali migrants have helped improve his community.
The move would affect only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of Somalis living in Minnesota. A report produced for Congress in August put the number of Somalis covered by Temporary Protected Status nationwide at just 705.
Somalis have been coming to Minnesota and other states, often as refugees, since the 1990s. Trump made no distinction between citizens and non-citizens.
On Tuesday, Omar responded on social media, saying: "His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs."
