Minnesota was a cozy, quiet environment before the introduction of massive Third World immigration, but that has changed with the arrival of Somali refugees, according to former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann.

“Minnesota is no longer the state I moved to in the mid 1960s,” Bachmann told WND in an exclusive interview. “Then, we were a well-ordered society with a high-functioning population.”

Now Minnesota has the largest Somali [mostly Muslim] community in the United States, with Census numbers putting the population around 40,000.

“It’s the biggest Somali community in North America, possibly in the world outside of East Africa,” Arthur Nazaryan, a freelance photojournalist told CNN. “It’s like the cultural hub of the Somali diaspora, you could say.”

“Minnesota is a super liberal state. … They have that whole history of accepting refugees from I think initially Vietnam and then the Hmong and then the Bosnian crisis. So they have this whole infrastructure set up already, in terms of nonprofit agencies and NGOs, where their primary purpose is resettling refugees,” Nazaryan continued.

But this community of Somali refugees has effectively disengaged from American society, according to Bachmann, leading to the denigration of the culture of Minnesota as well as a host of other social problems.

“This is a failed multicultural experiment that is killing people and destroying the future of the West,” Bachmann added.

“Parallel societies kill assimilation from the Third World and create havoc in American societies,” Bachmann said, noting that the Somali population in Minnesota has chosen to largely ignore assimilation into American culture, seeking instead to live in completely Somali communities.

The recent shooting of Justine Damond by a Somali-refugee cop Mohamed Noor, an officer hired during a campaign for a diverse police force, demonstrates the “havoc” Third World immigration can bring to the United States, Bachmann believes.

“Somali women in Minnesota are almost always covered with clothing from head to toe,” Bachmann claims. “There is very little evidence in Minnesota of Somali women adopting Western dress and Western ways. In fact, Mohammad Noor was photographed with three females from his family, all of whom were covered with traditional Somali clothing.”

Bachmann said this drastic cultural rift could have contributed to Noor’s decision to shoot Justine, positing, “Was Noor acting like the Muslim religious police, maintaining strict adherence to keeping women’s bodies covered when he shot Justine? Was he acting from a cultural instinct?”

The facts remain unclear because the officer hasn’t cooperated with investigators, but apparently, as Damond approached the police car she called for because she heard what sounded like an assault going on, he drew his gun, fired across his partner, through a car door. His bullet killed Damond.

The possibility is there, according to Bachmann, and she believes “it’s prudent to ask whether police officer Noor shot Justine due to a Somali/Shariah mindset.”

The “Shariah mindset” is rife among Somalis in Minnesota, as evidenced by a history of female genital mutilation, Shariah enforcement groups and Islamic terrorism.

A Michigan doctor was charged with the genital mutilation of two Minneapolis girls this year, and the investigation suggests there were “multiple” other victims, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

WND previously reported on “Shariah cops” in Minneapolis, a group called the General Presidency of the Religious Affairs and Welfare of the Ummah that pays regular visits to Somali households to enforce Shariah law, including prohibition on the use of alcohol and restrictions on dress for women.

The group’s leader, Abdullah Rashid, is a convert to Islam who married a Somali woman and moved to Minnesota. Rashid has said he wants to turn a Muslim enclave of Minneapolis into a “Shariah-controlled zone,” where Muslims are required to submit to Shariah law and non-Muslims are “asked to respect” it.

“In Minnesota, Somali households live as they do in Somalia, only with improved living standards,” said Bachmann, noting that these living standards come from subsidies funded by taxpayers. “There is evidence of continued practice of [female genital mutilation], of domestic abuse of women, and of polygamy.”

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a stabbing attack on a Minnesota mall in 2016, in which a 20-year-old Somali refugee injured 10 people.

FBI Special Agent Richard Thornton in charge of the investigation told reporters that “one could reasonably conclude his actions were consistent with the philosophies of violent, radical Islamic groups,” adding that he may have been “radicalized,” possibly with the help of others.

Problems such as this were unheard of before the large-scale resettlement of Somali refugees.

“As people from Third World, impoverished, dysfunctional, war-torn countries establish communities anywhere in the world, from the tiny island nation of Nauru to Minnesota, we see that transplanting the followers of Islamic Shariah law brings with it the continual problems of Islamic Shariah,” Bachmann opined.

“There are no success stories of mass Islamic migration anywhere in the world.”

In order to prevent the continued existence of “parallel societies” such as with the Somali population of Minnesota, Bachmann believes immigrants must assimilate completely into American culture.

“Immigrants must know it is a condition of entry to the U.S. to assimilate into Western society by adopting allegiance to Western law,” Bachmann said. “Immigrants should also be required to adopt Western dress, and be informed they must abandon the illegal aspects of following Shariah law.”