How many Somali-born residents in Minnesota are U.S. citizens as of 2024-2025?

1. What exactly is being asked — and why that matters

The question targets Somali‑born residents of Minnesota who are U.S. citizens, which is a narrower group than “people of Somali ancestry” or “all Somali residents”; it excludes U.S.-born Somali Americans and it includes only those born in Somalia who later naturalized, a figure that must be derived from separate measures of foreign‑born counts and naturalization rates ^{[1] [2]}.

2. The pieces available from reliable reporting

A frequently cited figure for people born in Somalia living in Minnesota comes from demographic summaries showing about 43,000 Somalia‑born residents in the state in 2018 (used as a baseline in many profiles) ^[1]. More recent reporting and ACS‑based summaries estimate the overall Somali‑ancestry population in Minnesota in 2024 at roughly 107,000–108,000 people, and they also note that about 58% of Minnesota’s Somali population were born in the United States (which implies the foreign‑born share is roughly 42%) ^{[3] [6] [7]}. Separate reporting states that an “overwhelming majority” of foreign‑born Somalis in Minnesota — about 87% — are naturalized U.S. citizens ^[2].

3. How those pieces translate into a numeric answer

Using the older country‑of‑birth baseline (≈43,000 Somalia‑born in 2018) and applying the reported 87% naturalization rate for foreign‑born Somalis yields an estimate of about 37,000 Somalia‑born U.S. citizens in Minnesota (43,000 × 0.87 ≈ 37,410) ^{[1] [2]}. Using the 2024‑era ACS total (≈108,000 Somali‑ancestry residents) combined with the reported 58% U.S.‑born share implies roughly 45,000 foreign‑born Somalis (108,000 × 0.42 ≈ 45,360); applying the 87% naturalization rate to that foreign‑born subtotal yields about 39,500 Somali‑born U.S. citizens ^{[3] [2]}. Taken together, those two reasonable approaches produce a narrow range — roughly 37,000 to 40,000 naturalized Somali‑born citizens in Minnesota — depending on which population baseline and definitions are used ^{[1] [3] [2]}.

4. Conflicting figures and why they exist

Different outlets and analysts emphasize different denominators: “Somali ancestry” versus “Somalia‑born,” decennial census counts versus ACS estimates, and state demographer tallies versus third‑party databases ^{[3] [4] [5]}. Some sources report total Somali populations in Minnesota as low as ~64,000 and others as high as ~108,000, reflecting methodology, year, and whether children of Somali parents are included under ancestry questions ^{[4] [7] [8]}. The 87% naturalization figure and the “58% U.S.‑born” share are separately reported claims that must be combined to estimate the number asked for — a valid technique but one that compounds sampling and definitional error ^{[2] [3]}.

5. The accountable bottom line

Based on published counts of Somalia‑born Minnesotans (an older 43,000 benchmark) and/or 2024 ACS‑era totals for the Somali community combined with the widely cited 87% naturalization rate for foreign‑born Somalis, the best supported estimate is that roughly 37,000 to 40,000 Somali‑born residents of Minnesota are U.S. citizens ^{[1] [3] [2]}. The range reflects uncertainty in the underlying population counts and the need to apply a naturalization percentage to a foreign‑born subtotal rather than to a single direct measure ^[5].

6. Caveats readers should keep in mind

None of the provided sources gives a single, direct 2024–2025 published table that states “X Somalia‑born Minnesotans are U.S. citizens”; instead, the number above is an explicit synthesis (multiplying foreign‑born counts by reported naturalization rates) that depends on definitions and survey sampling ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Alternative interpretations — for example using different population baselines or newer administrative records if they exist — could shift the estimate several thousand up or down ^{[4] [9]}.