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By Mandy Taheri
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Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents pulled over her son over the weekend but released him after reviewing his paperwork, in a Sunday interview with local station WCCO.
ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons told Newsweek in an email on Tuesday, "ICE has absolutely ZERO record of its officers or agents pulling over Congresswoman Omar’s son. It speaks volumes that Congresswoman Omar is leveling this accusation with absolutely zero proof. This ridiculous effort to unfairly demonize our law enforcement officers is directly contributing to the more than 1,150% increase in assaults and 8,000% increase in death threats against my officers and agents."
Why It Matters
Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that ICE agents have arrested “some of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” in Operation Metro Surge in the Minneapolis area. The immigration enforcement campaign comes as President Donald Trump has escalated his rhetoric about Minnesota’s Somali community.
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Trump has pledged to launch the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history and has used law enforcement to crack down on crime and illegal immigration. The administration has deported and detained tens of thousands, although some people with valid visas and green cards have also been reportedly swept up in the raids.
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What To Know
"Yesterday, after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents,” Omar said about her son in an interview with WCCO Sunday Morning.
She continued: “Once he was able to produce his passport ID, they did let him go.” She says he always keeps a copy of the document on him.
The congresswoman also noted a previous incident when ICE agents reportedly entered a mosque where her son and others were praying, saying, “I had to remind him just how worried I am, because all of these areas that they are talking about are areas where he could possibly find himself in and they are racially profiling, they are looking for young men who look Somali that they think are undocumented."
Trump has used charged language against the Somali community, including Omar, saying during a December 2 Cabinet meeting, “They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country...We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage.”
The following day, he told reporters at a White House event, “Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country.”
Refugees from Somalia have been welcomed to Minnesota since the 1990s, and the state is home to the nation’s largest Somali population, with about 84,000 people of Somali descent living in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, many of whom are U.S. citizens.
Just under 60 percent of the Somalis in Minnesota were born in the U.S., and of the foreign-born Somalis there, 87 percent are naturalized U.S. citizens, according to the Associated Press. Omar came to the U.S. as a child and was granted citizenship in 2000.
Earlier this week, Susan Tincher, a 55-year-old U.S. citizen, said she was arrested by ICE agents in Minnesota after she reportedly approached an officer who told her to “get back.” A spokesperson for the DHS told ABC affiliate 5 KSTP that Tincher "was arrested after she assaulted a federal agent, tried to break through a security perimeter set up for public safety, ignored lawful commands, and became violent."
What People Are Saying
Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, wrote in a letter to DHS and ICE on Friday: "It is clear to me that this surge came in direct response to Trump's racist comments about Somali people, and about me in particular.”
**ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons told Newsweek in an email Tuesday: "**Allegations that ICE engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE. 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.”
President Donald Trump said in a November 27 Truth Social post: "...the worst 'Congressman/woman' in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how 'badly' she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc."
Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner wrote in an X post on Sunday: "Yesterday, I stood in solidarity with my fellow Mainers to denounce the vile targeting of the Somali community. We will not tolerate hate in our communities."
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said during a Cabinet meeting in early December: "You told me to look into Minnesota and their fraud on visas and their programs—50% of them are fraudulent, which means that that wacko Governor [Tim] Walz either is an idiot or he did it on purpose."
What Happens Next?
Immigration efforts in Minneapolis are ongoing.
Update 12/17/25, 9:29 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons.
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