Just hours after President Donald Trump went after Rep. Ilhan Omar for her Somali roots, the Minnesota lawmaker has fired back. Trump on Tuesday attacked Omar yet again for her origins, saying that the Somali American who came to the U.S. as a child is “telling us how to run our country.”
“How about Omar of Minnesota?” Trump said Tuesday at a rally in Moon Township, Pa., outside Pittsburgh. “We’re going to win the state of Minnesota because of her, they say. She’s telling us how to run our country. How did you do where you came from? How’s your country doing? She’s going to tell us — she’s telling us how to run our country.”
37-year-old Omar quickly responded Tuesday night to the president’s racist remarks. “Firstly, this is my country & I am a member of the House that impeached you,” Omar wrote on Twitter.
RELATED STORIES
“Secondly, I fled civil war when I was 8. An 8-year-old doesn’t run a country even though you run our country like one.”
Born in Mogadishu, Somalia, Omar emigrated to the U.S. settling in Arlington, Virginia. Her family later moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minnesota is also home to the United States’ largest Somali immigrant population. Currently representing Minnesota’s fifth congressional district, Omar has been an American citizen since 2000.
Yet, Trump has always found ways and means to throw jabs at her while suggesting she is not an American. Being one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, the Somali American lawmaker was recently asked by Trump to go back to where she came from, a comment that was criticized as racist.
The president even went as far as calling on Israel to block Omar’s entry to the country due to her support of the BDS movement, a pro-Palestinian group which protests Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Omar has often indicated that her criticisms of Israel’s government are based on policy differences.
The wife and mother of three who has been steadily making waves in politics became the first Somali legislator in the U.S. in 2016. Omar was also the subject of a documentary by Norah Shapiro titled, “Time for Ilhan” which chronicled her 2016 run for the Minnesota Representative position.
Omar has always been for social progression. Her additional titles include public organizer, social activist, Director of Policy and Initiatives of the Women Organizing Women Network – geared towards ending childhood marriages in Minnesota.
