President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has fueled years of political debate. Critics say it has also emboldened some of his supporters to take matters into their own hands.
For one woman and her family trying to buy a home, that shift from political messaging to personal confrontation appeared to play out in real time.
The family was Somali-American, part of a community that has increasingly found itself under suspicion in the wake of the sprawling child-care fraud scams..
Recently, federal prosecutors unraveled one of the largest: the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud.
Trump used the scandal to justify a massive immigration crackdown last November. The person convicted of masterminding it? Aimee Bock, a white woman. She was sentenced on May 21 to 42 years in prison.
Dozens of co-conspirators from Minnesota’s Somali community have also been convicted.
But the damage hasn’t ended there. The fallout has ripped through the community, landing on people who had nothing to do with the fraud. Somali immigrants and American-born Somali descendants have found themselves targets of insults and racist jabs simply for existing in public.
The June 23 viral video is the latest example. A white couple, Brian and Jen Wagner, accused the Somali-American woman on the street of “stealing” and smelling bad.
She wrote in the caption: “Neighbors in Shakopee, MN ran outside to harass my Somali family born in America for house shopping. Accused them of stealing money. Said they don’t belong. These people don’t want us here, and they’re not hiding it anymore.”
Wearing a ball cap emblazoned with “USA,” Brian Wagner stood on the sidewalk several feet away from the woman and unleashed a litany of insults. “Nobody wants you here,” he told the house shopper. “I can smell you from here.”
Soon, his wife, Jen, joined him on the sidewalk and continued to insult the other woman. “You guys steal money,” she said. “We work for our money.”
The Somali-American yelled back, “So do I.”
At one point, the house shopper expressed her confusion. “Why are you so worried? Why are you so pressed?” she told them. “Nobody bothered you guys; you guys decided to be in people’s business?”
The video has racked up tens of thousands of views on X, and commenters are split.
Some have turned hostile, with calls to “run them out of your neighborhoods,” and “kick all these Somalis out of the country.”
But hundreds of others were fed up with hate and racism.
“Enough is enough. Trump made these idiots think it’s ok to harass innocent people for no reason! I’ve had it,” wrote one commenter.
Another added, “I can’t wait to go back to the day when being racist was shameful, and they had to hide and keep their hate inside.”
The Wagners have since hired a lawyer, claiming the video lacks “critical context” and that they were the ones racially targeted.
Their attorney called the woman “a provocateur… capitalizing on political tensions to play the victim, rather than the primary aggressor,” while describing the couple as people who “believe in the dignity and equal worth of every human being.” They’re reportedly considering legal action.
