Why Tucker Carlson’s Racist Narrative About Somali Americans Does Not Hold Up

In the theatre of American political commentary, immigrant communities are often reduced to symbols rather than understood as people. Few commentators have relied on this tactic more consistently than Tucker Carlson. When Carlson invokes Somali Americans — particularly those living in Minnesota — he presents them as a cautionary tale: proof, he argues, that the United States has admitted people who neither assimilate nor contribute, and who therefore undermine the nation from within.

This narrative is not merely flawed. It is constructed through omission, exaggeration, and a selective reading of reality. When examined against economic data, professional participation, civic life, and historical precedent, Carlson’s claims unravel. What emerges instead is a far more familiar American story — one of displacement, adaptation, labour, and long-term contribution.

Understanding the Premise: Refugees as a “Mistake”

Carlson’s argument begins with a moral judgement disguised as policy critique. Somali refugees, he suggests, were “rescued” by the United States and failed to show adequate gratitude. This framing misunderstands both the refugee system and American history.

Refugees are not admitted because they are immediately useful or culturally seamless. They are admitted because international law and American policy recognise an obligation to protect those fleeing war, persecution, and state collapse. Somalia’s prolonged civil war, famine, and instability did not occur in isolation from global politics. The United States, like other Western powers, has long positioned itself as a guarantor of humanitarian refuge.

To later describe those refugees as inherently suspect is not a policy critique; it is a retroactive moral test never applied to earlier arrivals.

Every major immigrant group in American history faced this same suspicion. Irish Catholics were once portrayed as violent and disloyal. Jewish immigrants were accused of clannishness and economic manipulation. Vietnamese refugees were described as unassimilable after the Vietnam War. In each case, time revealed the flaw in the argument: integration is a process, not an instant outcome.

Minnesota as Evidence, Not Anecdote

Minnesota is the most revealing place to test Carlson’s claims. It has the largest Somali population in the United States and decades of experience with Somali settlement. If Somali Americans truly represented a failed experiment, Minnesota would be struggling under the weight of it. Instead, the state’s economy, workforce, and civic institutions depend on Somali participation in ways that are increasingly visible.

Somali Americans are not a marginal presence in Minnesota’s labour market. They are embedded within it. They work long hours in sectors that underpin daily life — healthcare, education, transport, logistics, manufacturing, retail, and service industries. These are not symbolic roles; they are functional necessities.

Healthcare: Labour That Sustains Life

One of the most striking gaps in Carlson’s narrative is healthcare. Minnesota’s hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes employ large numbers of Somali professionals. They are doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, medical interpreters, home health aides, laboratory technicians, and pharmacy staff.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Somali healthcare workers were on the front lines — often while facing disproportionate risk themselves. They cared for elderly patients in long-term care facilities, staffed understaffed wards, and served communities that struggled with access and trust. This is not dependency. It is contribution under pressure.

In a state confronting chronic shortages in healthcare labour, Somali workers are not beneficiaries of the system alone; they are what keeps it functioning.

Education: Integration in Practice

Education is another area where rhetoric diverges sharply from reality. Somali Americans are teachers, classroom aides, school administrators, and education advocates. They work in public schools across Minnesota, often serving as cultural and linguistic bridges between institutions and families.

Somali parents, frequently portrayed as disengaged, are among the strongest advocates for their children’s education. Community-run tutoring programmes, mentoring initiatives, and after-school centres — many led by Somali educators — address achievement gaps and support academic success. These programs benefit not only Somali students but entire school communities.

Somali students themselves are enrolling in colleges and universities in increasing numbers. This generational shift mirrors patterns seen in earlier immigrant groups: the first generation stabilises; the second advances educationally; the third reshapes institutions.

Professional Sectors and the Myth of Stagnation

Carlson’s portrayal freezes Somali Americans in time — as if they remain perpetually trapped in entry-level roles. This is demonstrably false. Somali Americans are engineers, software developers, data analysts, accountants, architects, project managers, and consultants. These careers require education, certification, and long-term planning.

The presence of Somali professionals in technical and managerial roles reflects a broader truth about immigration: mobility occurs over generations, not overnight. To deny this trajectory is to ignore both data and history.

Entrepreneurship: Economic Agency in Action

If one wanted the clearest rebuttal to claims of dependency, one need only walk through Somali-owned commercial districts in Minneapolis, St. Paul, or St. Cloud. Somali entrepreneurs operate grocery shops, transport companies, restaurants, cafés, clothing stores, childcare centres, cleaning firms, pharmacies, logistics businesses, and technology start-ups.

These enterprises create jobs, pay taxes, revitalise neighbourhoods, and circulate capital locally. In many cases, Somali businesses filled economic voids left by disinvestment. This is not a story of entitlement. It is a story of risk, labour, and persistence.

Entrepreneurship is one of the most recognizable forms of American economic participation — and Somali Americans have embraced it.

Civic Life and the Fear of Participation

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Carlson’s rhetoric is his discomfort with Somali political engagement. When Somali Americans vote, organize, or run for office, he frames it as evidence of ingratitude or subversion.

This position contradicts the core principle of democracy. Civic participation is not conditional on silence or ideological conformity. It is a right of citizenship. Somali Americans who engage politically are not rejecting American values; they are exercising them.

The election of Somali officials reflects trust from voters — many of whom are not Somali. It signals representation, not takeover.

The Problem With Collective Blame

Like all communities, Somali Americans face challenges. Poverty exists. Crime exists. Instances of fraud exist. Carlson’s error is to transform social problems into collective moral indictments.

This logic is never applied evenly. No serious commentator argues that corporate fraud defines all business owners, or that crime in rural areas defines all rural Americans. Yet when it comes to immigrants, particularly Muslims and Africans, collective blame becomes politically convenient.

What Carlson ignores is the extensive work Somali community leaders already do to address social issues — through education, religious institutions, advocacy, and social services. These efforts do not fit the narrative of dysfunction, so they are excluded.

Why This Narrative Persists

Carlson’s argument persists because it simplifies complexity into suspicion. It trades evidence for emotion and substitutes fear for analysis. It also appeals to an idea of American identity rooted in exclusion rather than participation.

The danger of this rhetoric lies not only in its inaccuracy, but in its consequences. Somali children hear these messages. Somali workers feel their effects. Neighbors absorb the implication that some Americans are provisional.

History suggests this pattern is temporary. The same accusations once levelled at other immigrant groups now appear absurd. The question is not whether Somali Americans will be recognised as contributors — they already are. The question is how long it will take public discourse to catch up with reality.

Conclusion: The Evidence Is Already In

Tucker Carlson’s claims about Somali Americans rely on a narrative that collapses under scrutiny. Minnesota’s experience shows a community working, studying, building businesses, caring for the sick, educating children, and participating in civic life.

This is not the story of a failed immigration experiment.

It is the story of America repeating itself.

Somali Americans are not outsiders waiting to prove their worth. They are already doing so — quietly, persistently, and across every sector of society. The failure, if there is one, lies not with them, but with those who refuse to see what is directly in front of them.