MINNEAPOLIS — Members of Minnesota’s growing Somali community, including a city council member, tore into President Donald Trump and his administration when speaking with Fox News Digital after Monday’s raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., residence.
“Somalis — we all feel attacked by President Trump,” Jamal Osman, the Somali-born vice president of the Minneapolis City Council, said of the impact of the raid carried out by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents.
“Our president has broken the law many times. ICE [is] terrorizing our community … and we’re not surprised such action has taken place,” Osman continued in reference to the search of Omar’s home.
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“We have seen the threats, the horrific language he uses against my community. It’s unacceptable, and we’re hoping this could stop,” Osman said.
A 37-year-old social worker and Minneapolis resident named Abdi, who declined to give his last name or be interviewed on camera, had even harsher words for the president. He, like Osman, said he was born in Somalia.
“I feel like raiding a congresswoman — it feels like Donald Trump and his regime wanted to use their power to dehumanize and also humiliate someone that is part of the Congress,” Abdi said.
He claimed that Trump “hates Somali people because of Ilhan Omar.”
Abdi said Trump created “hate” and a “fight” with Somalis in America and claimed that they are being followed and harassed in the streets because of the president.
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“It’s personal,” he said. “And Ilhan Omar — he doesn’t treat her as a congressmember — he treats her as someone who’s below him.”
“If they take the citizenship away from her, then I will say, ‘Are we in a dictatorship?’ That’s using power to use against an American citizen, then maybe the thinking we have for the United States is completely different.”
Osman said the raid is proof of what the Trump administration is willing to do.
“We live in the United States, which is the land of the laws. I don’t expect Trump or anyone in this matter to break the U.S. Constitution,” he continued. “There’s laws. He can, of course, threaten, but there’s a court process, there’s due process. He can’t say he’s gonna deport her, he’s gonna deport me, thousands of Somalis.”
Osman’s message to the president was simple: “Stop it.”
“We’re American citizens like everyone else,” he said.
A third person, a 22-year-old Somali American woman who declined to be named or filmed, told Fox News Digital that she wasn’t surprised about the raid on Omar’s home.
“I thought it was bound to happen soon enough,” she said. “They’ve been talking about her in a negative manner. The government [has been] constantly questioning her immigration status and her naturalization in the country. So it was bound to happen for them to investigate her soon enough.”
When reached about the comments from the Minneapolis Somali community, the White House pointed Fox News Digital to the president’s public reaction to the raid on Monday.
“I’ve always found her to be totally crooked, personally, but that has nothing to do with me,” Trump brushed off. “I think she’s a terrible person. Just a complainer. She comes from a country that is a non-country, and then she comes over here, and she complains about our Constitution.”
“I think she’s a terrible person, but that’s really up to the DOJ. I have nothing to do with it.”
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HSI, the principal investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), executed a search warrant at Omar’s home in the nation’s capital early Monday morning, as first reported by Fox News Digital.
Sources confirmed to Fox News Digital that the raid stems from an investigation into whether Omar or her late father, Nur Mohamed, fraudulently filled out her citizenship paperwork decades ago. The investigation, the sources note, could lead to the congresswoman’s denaturalization.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Omar’s phone, passport and computers were seized in the raid — it is not clear which other items or materials were taken from her residence, if any.
Omar has not been seen since the raid, but offered her reaction to the unfolding investigation on social media Monday afternoon.
“This raid by Trump’s DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies. For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back,” she said.
“Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid. The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong. No president should be able to use the power of the federal government to intimidate his political enemies.”