Saturday July 11, 2026
Minneapolis (HOL) — St. Louis Park Mayor Nadia Mohamed has defended her recent trip to Somalia after facing criticism that the visit coincided with the July 4 Independence Day holiday in the United States.
The St. Louis Park city government said the trip was not related to municipal business and that Mohamed paid all travel expenses herself.
City officials said the trip was personal and not conducted on behalf of the municipality.
In a video posted on X on July 8, 2026, Mohamed, the first Somali, Muslim and Black woman elected mayor of St. Louis Park rejected criticism of the visit, saying she had used vacation time and a federal holiday to visit family members she had not seen in 10 years.
“Allow me to offer my sincerest apology for daring, for having the audacity to take vacation time to go see family members I have not seen in 10 years,” Mohamed said sarcastically in the video.
She said she had worked for six years serving the people of St. Louis Park and had used her time off to visit her grandmothers.
“How inconsiderate of me,” she said. “How treacherous was it?”
Mohamed also said her meeting with Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was not the first time she had met a foreign head of state, noting that she had previously met the former president of Switzerland without facing similar scrutiny.
“Nobody asked me about that one,” she said. “I would have loved to tell you about that. I would have loved to have an entire news article written about that.”
Mohamed accused critics of using anti-Somali sentiment to generate attention online.
“They literally get their clicks and views off of hating Somali people,” she said. “The minute they mention Somali people, their clicks and views go up.”
The criticism of Mohamed’s Somalia visit comes amid heightened tensions involving Somali and Muslim communities in Minnesota.
Community leaders in the Twin Cities recently condemned President Donald Trump after he shared a social media post featuring Minnesota kindergarten students, including Somali children wearing hijabs, prompting concerns about rising anti-Somali and anti-Muslim rhetoric.
