Ilhan Omar Vows To Be Donald Trump’s ‘Nightmare’ As She Returns Home To Minnesota
Ilhan Omar walked through the electronic doors at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Thursday night, after returning from Washington, D.C., and was greeted by an overwhelming crowd.
“Welcome home, Ilhan!” chanted more than a hundred supporters as the freshman Congresswoman arrived in the airport terminal after enduring a week of attacks from President Donald Trump, according to The Hill.
The president has been amping up his rhetoric against Omar and three other Democratic Congresswomen, known as “The Squad.” Trump unleashed a series of tweets in which he told the four women of color to “go back” to where they came from, reported The Inquisitr.
Three of the women, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, were born in the U.S. Omar came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia when she was a child, and is a U.S. citizen.
Omar has been his biggest target.
Wednesday night at a North Carolina rally, Trump reveled in his ongoing battle with The Squad.
“They never have anything good to say, that’s why I say, hey, if they don’t like it let them leave. Leave, let them leave,” he said.
The crowd broke into chants of “send her back” about Omar.
On Thursday, Trump claimed that he tried to stop the chants at the rally, according to The Daily Mail.
Last night, I was with @IlhanMN when we heard people at Trump's rally were chanting “send her back."
She was unfazed. Sadly, she said, this racism isn't new.
Ilhan has incredible courage. She won’t back down to Trump’s hate, and neither will we. https://t.co/APxYmEJSOT pic.twitter.com/4BJefURuwP
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 18, 2019
Video of the event shows that Trump made a pause in his speech, but made no attempt to interrupt the crowd.
Well-wishers in the crowd at the airport were carrying signs saying “Stand with Ilhan” in support of their representative.
“It sure feels good to be home!” she said.
Defiantly, Omar spoke to her supporters criticizing Trump’s “fascist” policies, and promised to continue standing up for her beliefs.
.@IlhanMN met a warm welcome in her home state as a crowd of supporters greeted her at the airport following days of racist remarkshttps://t.co/CzkPXgezvs pic.twitter.com/C4Ysz6NRZS
— MPR News (@MPRnews) July 18, 2019
“His nightmare is seeing a Somali immigrant refugee rise to Congress. We are going to continue to be a nightmare to this president, because his policies are a nightmare to us,” she said.
“We are in the ring, we are in the people’s house… we are going to continue fighting until we have the America we all deserve.”
At the airport in Minneapolis, in the congressional district Omar represents in the U.S. House of Representatives, there was a police presence, as well as a few protesters.
Omar, who was part of the historic wave of women elected to Congress in 2018, is the first Somali-American in the U.S. house, and the first black woman from Minnesota to represent the state.
The Congresswoman’s district sits in the lower eastern region of the state and includes the city of Minneapolis. The district has a 16 percent foreign-born population, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Minnesota is home to the largest Somali community in North America, according to ABC News.
