Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Congresswoman from Minnesota, compared recent events in the United States to her experiences growing up in Somalia during an interview on Democracy Now! this weekend. Omar expressed concern over actions by the Trump administration, particularly regarding immigration enforcement and military presence in American cities.
Omar said:
“Armed men who are in plainclothes that are snatching people off the streets, unwilling to identify themselves. You have the military being deployed in our streets. My God, this is America. You have states’ rights being disregarded. You know, the constitutional crisis that’s being created in front of our eyes.
And the same week where we have a president who has deployed the military, who are trained to kill our enemies, not Americans, but our enemies, are in our streets. It’s the same week that we are going to have a military parade. Can you imagine that image that is going to be coming out of our country?
I mean, I grew up in a dictatorship. And I don’t even remember ever witnessing anything like that. To have a democracy, a beacon of hope for the world, to now be turned into one of the worst countries where the military are in our streets without any regard for people’s constitutional rights.
While our president is spending millions of dollars prompting himself up like a failed dictator with a military parade. It is really shocking and it should be a wake-up call for all Americans to say this is not the country we were born in, this is not the country we believe in, this is not the country our founding fathers imagined, and this is not the country that is supported by our constitution, our ideals, our values.
We should all collectively be out in the streets rejecting what is taking place this week.”
Omar’s comments come amid debate over federal policies involving mass deportations and law enforcement measures implemented under President Trump’s administration.
Omar and her family arrived in the United States as refugees from Somalia in 1995 after their compound was attacked by armed men during ongoing conflict there. At that time Somalia was experiencing significant instability; its central government had collapsed years earlier and violence among rival factions was widespread across much of the country.
Somalia remains affected by conflict and insecurity today according to international assessments.
