WASHINGTON—The Minnesota AFL-CIO and House Democratic leaders slammed one of the more-brazen pre-election acts of the GOP Donald Trump regime, a pre-dawn Homeland Security Department raid on the D.C. home of outspoken Rep. Ilhan Omar, DFL-Minn.
Agents banged on Omar’s door at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. on October 12, yelling “Open the door! Open the door!” Neighbors, awakened by the racket, later saw agents cart away boxes of possessions from Omar’s home.
One agent told a reporter they were carrying out a judicial warrant. The New York Times later reported the warrant alleged irregularities in the Omar family’s immigration papers.
Omar, who represents Minneapolis and a few suburbs, is campaigning for a fifth two-year U.S. House term in the deep-blue area. She was defiant, outraged and called the accusations lies.
“I will not be silenced,” Omar tweeted on the social media platform X.
“I’m OK. Make no mistake: This is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.”
Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham and House Democratic leaders leaped to Omar’s defense. They all blasted Trump’s political motives and Burnham termed the raid an attack on all Minnesotans as well.
“Minnesota’s labor movement stands with Congresswoman Omar,” said Burnham. “She is a former union member and we believe an injury to one is an injury to all. If Donald Trump can do this to her, he can do it to any other American citizen.
“Disagreeing with a person’s political view is a sign of a healthy democracy, but abusing our federal government’s resources to attack a political opponent goes against everything our nation and Constitution stands for.
“It’s no coincidence this latest action, coupled with the president’s recent calls for violence against the Somali-American community”—which the state AFL-CIO denounced on October 9—”comes just three weeks before an election his party is expected to lose. This is a desperate attempt to sow division and hate, and Minnesotans won’t fall for it.”
“Trump is desperate. He’s trying to incite violence and sow division…because he knows working people across the country have had enough of high prices, increasingly unaffordable healthcare, and rampant corruption in his administration. He tried to divide us this past winter when he brought violence and chaos to our homes, but Minnesotans stood firm with nonviolent resistance and solidarity with our immigrant neighbors.
“Violence has no place in our democracy, and we refuse to let Donald Trump or anyone else disrupt our proud tradition of free and fair elections.”
As a child, Omar and her family fled from war-torn Somalia and spent several years at a Kenyan refugee camp before legally immigrating as refugees to the U.S. in 1995. After graduating from public schools and universities, she became a community organizer and political activist.
Omar, 44, is the first Somali-American elected to Congress, and Trump has made her and Minnesota’s Somali community a particular target of his hate.
And Trump Homeland Security Secretary MarkWayne Mullin, alleged on a right-wing talk show weeks before the raid that there were unspecified problems in the immigration papers Omar’s late father signed. If true, Mullin said, she’d be stripped of her citizenship and deported—a first for a member of Congress.
The top three House Democratic leaders, in a joint statement, insisted Trump’s raid on Omar was retaliatory and had a political motive. Omar is an outspoken member of “The Squad,” particularly on foreign affairs in general and the Trump-Israeli war on Palestinians in particular.
The agents’ invasion of Omar’s home “raises serious questions about the continued corrupt weaponization of the federal government against Donald Trump’s adversaries,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Whip Katherine Clark,, D-Mass., and Conference Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.
“For years Donald Trump and far-right extremists have relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Omar with vile personal attacks and baseless accusations,” the three posted on social media. “Now, less than 30 days before the midterm election, his violent mass deportation machine has descended upon the home of a duly elected member of Congress and her family.”
“Donald Trump is desperate,” Burnham concluded. “He’s trying to incite violence and sow division a little more than three weeks before Election Day because he knows working people across the country have had enough of high prices, increasingly unaffordable healthcare, and rampant corruption in his administration.
“He tried to divide us this past winter when he brought violence and chaos to our homes” through his Metro Sweep and its massive, violent, vicious migrant roundup, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizen observers. “But Minnesotans stood firm with nonviolent resistance and solidarity with our immigrant neighbors.”
The search of her home so close to an election only weeks away is highly unusual and is almost never something the Department of Justice does. House and Senate Democratic leaders condemned the action as such.
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