Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) likened the US government’s conduct on immigration enforcement to that of countries like Somalia that she left, saying in impassioned remarks Friday that she never thought she’d experience such conduct in the “goddamn” United States.
“I don’t want to curse, but those of us who escaped places like that, the one place where we thought we would never experience this is the US [sic] goddamn states,” she said at a Democratic field hearing in St. Paul, entitled, “Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Deadly Assault on Minnesota.”
“And we should all be ashamed that it is the United States that is allowing for this to take place, and it is being… broadcast to the rest of the world, where people are calling and saying, ‘Are you sure this is America?’ I am ashamed, and we must do everything that we can to bring back the America we all escaped into.”
Omar, who was born in Somalia and whose district covers much of Minneapolis, has been outspoken against the Trump administration and its deployment of ICE agents amid crackdowns on illegal immigration and fraud in the city and state. With the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent as a flash point, critics say ICE agents are engaging in strong-arm tactics meant to intimidate the populace.
Minneapolis and St. Paul are already hosting some 3,000 federal agents deployed there after a massive fraud scandal rocked the state late last year. President Donald Trump has floated invoking the Insurrection Act to quell unrest in the state, although he appeared to back off the idea on Friday.
Omar’s comments sparked ire from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and other conservative figures online. Lee posted on X, “No member of Congress should *ever* refer to our country as the ‘U.S. Goddamn States.’ What should be the consequence of saying that?”
Billionaire Elon Musk replied, “Whatever the penalty is for treason,” which can be as severe as execution.
Fox News Digital reached out to Omar and Lee’s offices for additional comment.
Omar also said Friday that Republican colleagues were comfortable with their own constituents facing what she called an “occupation that is terrorizing people in Minnesota that live in Minneapolis and St. Paul.”
“When my constituents call for help, we don’t ask them who they voted for, because that is what it means to be an elected U.S. representative,” she said. “So it is appalling for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to be OK for the president to carry out retribution here in Minnesota.
“It is appalling for our Republican colleagues to be OK for there to be cell detentions in ICE for American citizens,” she went on. “It is appalling for them to be OK for there to be checkpoints in American cities where people are asked for their papers. And it is appalling for Americans to have to carry their citizen papers only to be told they are not sure those papers are correct.”
Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom and Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.
