TST. BREAKING: Ilhan Omar Blasts Trump’s New Travel Ban as “Blatantly Racist” — Says He Wants a White Nationalist America

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said President Trump ramps up his attacks on immigrants and other communities when negative news about his administration runs. 

“When things aren’t going well for him … cue the bigotry,” the Minnesota lawmaker told The Guardian in an interview published Tuesday. 

“It’s the same playbook and he just goes back to it; he doesn’t know anything else,” she continued.

Omar, a Somali immigrant, is no stranger to Trump’s insults. The president recently said the lawmaker does “nothing but b—-.”

“She’s always complaining. She comes from her country where, I mean it’s considered about the worst country in the world,” at a Cabinet meeting earlier this month. 

Trump has repeatedly suggested that Omar be deported. She said the attacks have caused increased death threats and, at one point, resulted in a need for a six-person security detail. 

“We’ve had people incarcerated for threatening to kill me,” she told The Guardian. 

“We have people that are being prosecuted right now for threatening to kill me and so it is something that does stay in the back of our minds. But I also worry about those people finding someone who looks like me in Minneapolis or across the country and thinking it is me and harming them,” she added.

Her concerns follow the killing of former state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D-Minn.), her husband and dog earlier this year, which officials investigated as being “politically motivated.”

Despite the recent uptick in political violence, Omar says she remains committed to her work at the Capitol and in reinforcing democratic institutions. 

“His presidency has exposed some weaknesses that exist and it has certainly taught us that, while our institutions are strong, they are fragile to a dictatorship-like ruler,” she said. 

“We must do more to create stronger guardrails to make sure that the independence of our institutions remains.”

Ilhan Omar Claims Son Was Pulled Over by ICE and Forced to Prove Citizenship as Trump Targets Somalis in Minnesota

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said her son was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents over the weekend and asked to provide proof of citizenship.

In an interview on Sunday, Dec. 14, with WCCO-TV in the Twin Cities, Omar — an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump — said her son had been pulled over by ICE agents after visiting a Target store. She said that after he showed them his passport ID, which he always carries with him, they let him go.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, said in a written statement to PEOPLE that the agency has “absolutely ZERO record of its officers or agents pulling over Congresswoman Omar’s son” and accused her of trying to “unfairly demonize” its officers.

In a recent letter to the Department of Homeland Security, Omar accused federal agents of “blatant racial profiling” and “an egregious level of unnecessary force” in the Twin Cities, which Lyons also denied in his written statement.

“Allegations that ICE engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE,” he said. “A person’s immigration status makes them a target for enforcement, not their skin color, race or ethnicity. Law enforcement uses ‘reasonable suspicion’ to make arrests, as allowed under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

In response to Lyons’ statement, a spokesperson for Omar tells PEOPLE the congresswoman stands by her account that her son and others had been “pulled over by ICE, racially profiled, and forced to prove their citizenship with a passport.”

“ICE has long operated as a rogue agency beyond reform,” the spokesperson said. “It’s no surprise that an agency known for disappearing people also can’t keep its records straight. ICE now claims it has records of all the stops, and our office would welcome the opportunity to review them.”

Earlier this month, Trump, 79, called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said he does not want them in the U.S. His remark also targeted Omar, who came to the U.S. from Somalia as a refugee and became an American citizen in 2000.

“These are people that do nothing but complain,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting at the White House.

“When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country,” the president also said. “Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”

He also said of Omar and “her friends”: “These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’ “

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After his remarks, the Trump administration launched an immigration enforcement operation targeting undocumented Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, according to The New York Times, which said it had obtained documents about the operation.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz denounced the Trump administration’s plans in a Dec. 2 social media post. “We welcome support in investigating and prosecuting crime,” he said on X. “But pulling a PR stunt and indiscriminately targeting immigrants is not a real solution to a problem.”