Let me tell you what I’ve seen of the Somali community in Maine.

My Somali neighbors are people with deep faith, families they cherish and determination to secure a better future for their children and grandchildren, much like every immigrant who came before them.

I’ve gotten to know many people with roots in Somalia, some who came to Maine as children or young adults, others who were born here to parents who fled the incessant warfare of the East African land that remains a troubled and often lawless place.

Many of them work almost every day from early to late — not just to make ends meet but to earn enough to buy homes and cover the cost of tuition.

At a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, with his vice president egging him on, President Trump called my Somali friends and neighbors in Lewiston “garbage.”

Somali immigrants, who live and work all around me, “are people who do nothing but complain,” said Trump, himself renowned for griping constantly about everything from the 2020 elections to the size and layout of the White House.

“I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you, OK. Somebody will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from.”

His sickening rant hits home here in Lewiston and Auburn, particularly, where we are lucky to have thousands of Somali-Americans who have chosen to make this place their home.

For Trump to say Somalis don’t want to work is, on its face, absurd. They’re working all over Maine, a crucial part of an economy that desperately needs people willing to do the jobs that an aging workforce can’t do.

I feel proud when I watch young Somali-Americans so eager to participate that they run for public office — and convince many of their white neighbors to back them.

When Safiya Khalid won a City Council seat in Lewiston and Mana Abdi emerged victorious in a state House run in Lewiston, most of our community felt proud.

Most. For years, I’ve listened with disgust to homegrown racists whining about seeing Black people on the streets of Lewiston, never mind in the halls of government. They sound like the nativists who made the same comments in the past about waves of immigrants arriving from Quebec and Ireland.

As it has before, history will shame them, prove them wrong. And their descendants will wonder why they were so angry and foolish.

But Trump’s raving is something different. He is the president of the United States, twice elected as the leader of our nation, and responsible for upholding the rights and dignity of every American. He has a duty to refrain from vulgar assaults on vulnerable people. Instead, he serves as a stain on the nation’s honor.