Ilhan Omar: The US Democrat targeted by Donald Trump

"Ilhan Omar, whatever the hell her name is, with the little – with the little turban, I love her. She comes in, does nothing but bitch."

"Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. […] These aren't people that work. These aren't people that say, let's go. Come on, let's make this place great. These are people that do nothing but complain."

"She comes in from a country without laws, without police, without military, where all they do is shoot each other. And she comes into our country, and she says, 'I have a constitutional right.' She's telling us about the constitution, and she comes from one of the worst countries anywhere on the planet."

These are just three of Donald Trump's many attacks on US Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Few people have been targeted as ferociously by the US president. But why has Trump singled her out for such hostility?

Who is Ilhan Omar?

Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, 44, was born in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. She fled the civil war in the country while still a child, and spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. She finally came with her family to the US in 1995, at the age of 12, and became a US citizen in 2000. She joined the Democratic Party, and made a career as a politician on the party's left wing. Since January 2019, she has served as representative for the state of Minnesota and one of the first two Muslim women to enter the US Congress.

Ilhan Omar is a practising Muslim who wears a hijab, and Congress altered a 180-year-old rule for her that prohibited head coverings in the chamber of the House of Representatives. Politically and socially, Omar champions progressive values, and often makes a connection between her faith and her commitment to social justice, human rights, and the protection of minorities.

Omar campaigns on issues such as universal health insurance, increasing the minimum wage, climate protection, and the cancellation of student debt. She is also one of Donald Trump's most prominent and outspoken critics, repeatedly accusing him of racism and systematically fomenting hatred against minorities, immigrants, and Muslims. She has frequently condemned raids by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), which she describes as a "militarized campaign of fear." She has also accused the president of corruption in office.

Criticism of Israel and accusations of antisemitism

Young, outspoken, female, Muslim, and a left-wing Democrat – politically, Ilhan Omar is almost the polar opposite of the 80-year-old Republican Trump. But she is also a controversial figure within her own party.

Omar is one of the fiercest critics of Israel in US politics, and has repeatedly called Washington's support for the country into question. She has been accused of antisemitism, and of supporting the movement BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), which encourages people to boycott Israeli businesses. Omar has defended BDS as a legitimate form of non-violent protest and freedom of expression. In 2019, she even introduced a resolution in the US Congress that aimed to strengthen the right of Americans to boycott, with a view to countering laws that restrict what the BDS movement can do.

In early 2023, Republicans removed her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over a number of controversial tweets, including a comment she made in 2021 that seemed to equate the actions of the US and Israel with those of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Palestinian group Hamas. The latter is classified as a terrorist organization by the US and many other countries around the world.

Accusations of embezzlement and immigration fraud

Her critics also tried to link Omar to a corruption scandal in her home state of Minnesota. During the COVID-19 pandemic, around $250 million (€220 million) were misappropriated from a government-funded food program for children. Omar had previously called for the rules of the program to be eased.

Many of those convicted were from the state's Somali community, something that political opponents, including Trump, seized on to claim Omar was involved. No law enforcement authorities have ever accused her of any wrongdoing.

The most recent accusation against Omar concerns her immigration to the US. For years, her opponents have claimed that she made false statements during the procedure, even alleging that she entered into a fraudulent marriage with her biological brother to help him secure a US visa. On October 12, federal officials ordered a search of Omar's home, investigating allegations that Omar's father lied about her age on her immigration application.

Controversial house search

Omar has repeatedly denied the accusations, describing them as part of a "campaign of political intimidation" and "an attempt to target political enemies." Several leading Democratic politicians have come to her defense, accusing the Trump administration of weaponizing the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security against its political opponents.

Former immigration officials told the Reuters news agency that it is extremely unusual for a house search to be conducted as part of such an investigation, as the government should already have all the relevant immigration documents.

Many see a raid on the home of a sitting member of Congress over a formality from 26 years ago as excessive, and have been especially critical of the timing of the raid, just three weeks before the Congressional elections in which Omar is standing for re-election.

The long-standing, unwritten "60-Day Rule" holds that authorities do not take any public action against political candidates in the two months before an election, so as not to influence the outcome. Critics see the fact that this practice has been ignored in Omar's case as amounting to election interference.

Other Muslim politicians also targeted

With the midterm electionslooming, Trump is battling with plummeting approval ratings, and Omar is not the only Muslim politician the president has been attacking. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate in the Senate election in Michigan, is another.

At a rally last Saturday in Tennessee, Trump said of El-Sayed: "I call him Mohammed. Somebody said, 'His name isn't Mohammed, it's Abdul.' I said, 'To me, it's Mohammed.' I'm the president. I can call him whatever the hell I want. To me, he's Mohammed, and he's a radical jihadist."

There is no intelligence whatsoever to suggest that El-Sayed has any extremist connections. The 41-year-old epidemiologist was born and brought up in Michigan. He went to university there, then won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, where he gained a doctorate in public health. For many years, he was the health director of the city of Detroit. Like Omar, he too belongs to the progressive left wing of the US Democratic Party.

During the election campaign, El-Sayed has repeatedly emphasized that he is not the one responsible for the rise in food prices, the expensive rents, and other political grievances. He has placed the blame squarely on what he describes as the failed policies of the administration in Washington.

This article has been translated from German.