Trump accused of endangering children with Islamophobic post about Twin Cities kindergarteners

Twin Cities community members are speaking out on Wednesday against what they're calling growing anti-Somali and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

This comes in the wake of a social media post earlier this week by President Trump featuring a video of several Somali American children celebrating kindergarten graduation at a K-8 school in St. Paul, Minnesota. WCCO has blurred their faces in the attached video.

Mr. Trump included a caption from another account that says "Every girl is in a hijab ... in kindergarten."

Faith and community leaders, including those from the Somali community, gathered Wednesday morning at Karmel Mall in Minneapolis to condemn the politicization and public targeting of Somali students.

"The highest level of our government is attacking children. Imagine that," said Imam Yusuf Abdulle, executive director of the Islamic Association of North America.

They say they're tired of showing up for moments where Muslims are attacked, from threatening voicemails to a school bus fire back in May that came after a federal raid of daycares and autism resource centers suspected of fraud. They say it all points to an increasing climate of hostility.

"We are here not because of one incident, but a pattern," said Malika Dahir, executive director of Reviving Sisterhood. "We have stood at podiums like this before. Just a couple of months ago, we stood right here after a school bus was set on fire, yet here we are again because this has become a pattern, a pattern that should trouble every one of us."

Minnesota's chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says the president has put lives at risk by posting the photo on a global platform, and that it puts a target on them and the school.

Dahir says she wants people to stand together, regardless of political party, and say children deserve protection.

Also this week, Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said a small number of Somali youths in gangs are responsible for over a dozen homicides in the metro. Abdisalam Adam, principal at East African Elementary Magnet School in St. Paul, addressed the dangers of correlating ethnicity and culture to crime.

"Lumping the Somali community together and naming everything Somali is a big problem that we need to call out," Adam said.

On Tuesday, Minneapolis City Council Vice President Jamal Osman also responded to Fletcher's comments, which he says were disappointing.

"Somali youth deserve investment, dignity, opportunity, and respect — not public officials using their platform to stereotype them," Osman said.

Source: CBS News