President Donald Trump went on a late-night racist rant on Sunday, demanding that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) be thrown in jail or deported to Somalia—a country she fled as a child refugee and hasn’t lived in for over 30 years.
“She should be in jail, or even a worse punishment, sent back to Somalia,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, calling her a “Fake ‘Congresswoman'” and “constant complainer who hates the USA.” He suggested she “could help to MAKE SOMALIA GREAT AGAIN!”
THE DETAILS: Omar, the first Somali American elected to Congress, became a U.S. citizen in 2000. She’s served in the House since 2019. She has not been accused of any wrongdoing. None. Zero. But Trump singled her out anyway, falsely claiming she’s “one of the many scammers” involved in alleged social services fraud in Minnesota.
The president’s tirade also dragged in Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, accusing him and Omar of “fighting” ICE operations to keep “attention off” a federal fraud probe. He repeated the debunked conspiracy theory that Omar “married her brother” and claimed protesters against ICE raids are “highly paid professional agitators and anarchists.”
OF COURSE: This isn’t new. Trump has been telling Omar to “go back” to Somalia for years now. In December, he called Somali immigrants in Minnesota “scammers” and “lowlifes” without evidence, declaring they should be sent “back from where they came.”
BUT BUT BUT: Let’s be extremely clear about what’s happening here. A sitting president is publicly calling for an American citizen—an elected member of Congress—to be stripped of her rights and deported based on her ethnicity and religion. That’s textbook authoritarian behavior. That’s racism deployed as policy threat.
Omar has pushed back, calling Trump’s “obsession” with her “beyond weird” on X. “He needs serious help,” she wrote. “Since he has no economic policies to tout, he’s resorting to regurgitating bigoted lies instead. He continues to be a national embarrassment.”
WHY IT MATTERS: When the president of the United States publicly demands that a naturalized citizen be deported because she criticizes him, that’s not just ugly rhetoric—it’s a signal.
It tells every immigrant, every person of color, every Muslim American that their citizenship is conditional, their belonging provisional, their rights negotiable. Omar isn’t going anywhere. But millions of Americans are watching this and understanding exactly what Trump thinks of them.