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By Edward Welsch, Chronicles, January 2026
Edward Welsch is the executive editor at Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
When my German immigrant ancestors arrived in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, they were refugees fleeing a homeland devastated by war. They were also drawn by the promise of opportunity in the newly formed territories of the American Midwest. They were poor, spoke limited English, and formed ethnic enclaves where they settled, eventually putting down permanent roots in Minnesota. At least in these respects, they share a superficial similarity to a more recent group of Minnesota immigrants hailing from the Horn of Africa.
That is where the similarities between Somalis and American immigrants of the past end.
Unlike my ancestors, the Somalis did not come to the United States to work. They came to America to become government dependents and clients of the Democratic Party. The overwhelming majority of the roughly quarter-million Somalis in the United States are an economic drain on the states where they reside. In Minnesota, more than four-fifths of Somalis are dependent on welfare, compared with only one-fifth of the native population. Nearly three-fourths are on Medicaid, compared with 19 percent of the general population. …
