How many Somali immigrants and refugees moved to Minnesota each year since 2005?

1. No single public source lists annual Minnesota arrivals since 2005

The documents in the search results do not include a ready table of Somali arrivals to Minnesota for every year beginning in 2005; available reporting supplies totals over stretches of years or state population estimates rather than consistent year‑by‑year resettlement counts ^{[1] [2] [3]}. If you need strict yearly breakdowns, current sources do not provide them.

2. What federal refugee data do show: multi‑year aggregates

Fact checks and reporting relying on the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center indicate 54,514 Somali refugees arrived in the U.S. between Jan. 20, 2009 and Jan. 19, 2017, and of those about 6,320 were resettled in Minnesota over that same period ^[1]. Reuters’ review of Refugee Processing Center archives found that between 2012 and 2017 the maximum number of Somali refugees resettled in Minnesota was 5,524, underscoring that counts vary by the time windows used ^[4].

3. State counts capture secondary/moving‑within‑U.S. arrivals imperfectly

Minnesota’s Department of Health Refugee Health Program reported being notified of 3,740 “secondary arrivals” of Somalis from 2010–2016 — people who first resettled elsewhere and later moved to Minnesota — but the state acknowledged notifications undercount true secondary migration because it is not always informed when people relocate ^[2]. That means combining federal primary resettlement data and state secondary arrival notifications still underestimates total movement into Minnesota.

4. Population estimates complicate the picture

Various Minnesota and national sources offer widely different counts of how many Somalis live in Minnesota — ranges from about 36,500 foreign‑born Somalis (2019 estimate) to tens of thousands more, with some totals cited at roughly 58,800 (2018 ancestry), 64,354 (2025 estimate), 86,610 or even historic figures like 87,853 in 2008 depending on the methodology ^{[5] [3] [6] [7] [8]}. These divergent population figures reflect differences between ancestry vs. foreign‑born counts, census/ACS sampling, and other estimation methods ^{[3] [7]}.

5. Why annual counts are hard to assemble from public sources

Three practical reasons explain the gap. First, the federal Refugee Processing Center publishes nationality arrivals but reporting windows and state attribution change by time period and archive availability ^{[4] [1]}. Second, many Somalis move within the U.S. after initial resettlement; state agencies record some “secondary arrivals” but not comprehensively ^[2]. Third, population estimates mix foreign‑born, ancestry, and self‑reported categories that are not equivalent to arrivals per year ^{[3] [7]}.

6. How to get the closest thing to yearly numbers

To reconstruct annual Minnesota arrivals since 2005 you would need to combine several data streams: (a) the State Department Refugee Processing Center yearly nationality tables to capture primary refugee placements by destination; (b) Minnesota Department of Health and resettlement agencies’ records of secondary arrivals and local intakes; and (c) U.S. Census/ACS year‑of‑entry microdata to estimate Somali‑born residents by year of arrival. The sources displayed here point to the first two types (refugee center aggregates and Minnesota secondary arrival notifications) but do not supply a full annual series in isolation ^{[1] [2]}.

7. Competing interpretations and common misinformation

Some social posts and claim lines have overstated Minnesota’s share of Somali refugee arrivals — for instance, an internet claim that 70,000 Somalis were resettled in Minnesota under one administration was debunked; Reuters and FactCheck note far smaller totals to Minnesota (thousands, not tens of thousands) and emphasize 54,000–54,514 Somali refugees to the U.S. during the Obama era with roughly 6,320 going to Minnesota in that period ^{[4] [1]}. Be wary: population totals (how many Somalis live in Minnesota now) are not the same as annual arrival counts ^{[4] [7]}.

8. Bottom line and next steps

There is no single publicly available source among these results that lists Somali immigrant and refugee arrivals to Minnesota for every year since 2005. The best‑documented figures in these records are multi‑year aggregates and population estimates: 54,514 Somali refugees to the U.S. in 2009–2017 with ~6,320 to Minnesota ^[1], and 3,740 secondary Somali arrivals notified to Minnesota in 2010–2016 ^[2]. If you want a year‑by‑year table I can outline a concrete data request and stepwise method to assemble it from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center archives, Minnesota DHS/MDH notifications, and ACS year‑of‑entry tables — current sources do not already present that series ^{[1] [2] [3]}.