As Somali refugees in Minnesota waged gang wars and engaged in child sex trafficking, Governor Tim Walz pushed for even more refugees to be resettled in his state.

Walz, whom Vice President Kamala Harris tapped as her running mate this week, petitioned the Trump administration to send more refugees to Minnesota in 2019, even though the state already had the highest number of refugees per capita in the United States. The call came as Somali refugees, a large and growing population in Minnesota, resulted in gang warfare, child sex trafficking, and later, hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud.

“Minnesota has a strong moral tradition of welcoming those who seek refuge. Our state has always stepped forward to help those who are fleeing desperate situations and need a safe place to call home,” Walz wrote in a letter to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “I offer my consent to continue refugee resettlement in the State of Minnesota.”

Walz’s request was a response to former President Donald Trump’s move to allow states and localities to deny increased refugee resettlement in their communities. Walz, who had previously pushed for Minnesota to become a sanctuary state, has a long record of supporting unfettered immigration. His record on immigration has come under increased scrutiny after Harris named him to the Democratic presidential ticket.

“Refugees strengthen our communities. Bringing new cultures and fresh perspectives, they contribute to the social fabric of our state,” Walz said in his letter to Pompeo.

But Somali refugees brought more than fresh perspectives to Minnesota. Since at least 2009, members of Minneapolis’s Somali refugee community have formed gangs along the same clan lines that plunged Somalia into civil war. Members of the gangs — many of whom fled Somalia to escape clan warfare — engaged in what appeared to be targeted murders against one another. In 2008 the Minneapolis Police Department created a special Somali Liaison position in an attempt to stem the violence.

In 2012, authorities uncovered a Somali child sex trafficking ring operating out of Minneapolis and St. Paul, as well as Columbus, Ohio and Nashville, Tennessee. Multiple girls under the age of 14 had been forced into prostitution by three different Somali gangs, resulting in the 30 different defendants — many of whom were allowed into the United States as refugees — being charged by federal authorities.

Violence between rival Somali gangs has continued to plague Minnesota in recent years, particularly in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, now referred to as “Little Mogadishu.” Violent crime in the area soared a whopping 56 percent in 2018, with authorities attributing the rise to gangs like the Somali Outlaws, the Somali Mafia, the Hot Boyz, and Madhibaan with Attitude.

A YouTube personality visited Minneapolis this year to document the gang warfare interviewed a bail bondsman and bounty hunter who said that “Somali gangs are taking over.”

During Walz’s tenure, Somali migrants in Minnesota defrauded the government out of a quarter of a billion taxpayer dollars intended to feed impoverished children. Nearly 50 defendants created a fraudulent organization called “Feeding Our Future,” and multiple subsidiary organizations that defrauded $250 million from a coronavirus relief program. Only $50 million of those funds have been recovered.

Somalis were the largest refugee population in the North Star State as of 2023. The overall number of refugees set to be resettled in 2024 is expected to surge from 1,500 to 2,400. Over 13,000 Somali refugees were accepted into Minnesota between 2005 and 2018, and the state had 69,000 Somali residents as of 2019, accounting for about 40 percent of all Somalis residing in the entire United States.

Recent public opinion surveys have found that immigration is one of the most important issues for voters heading into the November election, and that an increasing share of Americans are in favor of slashing immigration and ramping up mass deportations.