Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said Sunday that the dehumanizing language used against immigrants by prominent racist and National Security Advisor Stephen Miller is similar to how the Nazis talked about Jewish people.

Miller, who was the architect behind the Trump administration’s immigration policies, used that language last month in response to a Wall Street Journal op-ed that urged Americans to refrain from demonizing all Afghan refugees, after one allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, DC.

“This is the big lie of mass migration. It’s not just individuals that are imported. Societies are imported,” Miller said in

That post was not the first time Miller made such comments dehumanizing non-white immigrants. The advisor regularly echoes the “great replacement theory,” a conspiracy that promotes the racist idea that non-white immigrants are “invading” the country to “replace” the white population.

“When I think about Stephen Miller and his white supremacist rhetoric, it reminds me of the way the Nazis described the Jewish people in Germany,” Omar, a Somali American lawmaker who came to the United States as a refugee, told News’ “Face the Nation.”

“As we know, there have been many immigrants who have tried to come to the United States [that] “We’re back, one of them is Jewish immigrants,” he continued, pointing out the vitriol the United States had toward Irish and Italian immigrants in the past.

Pro-immigration protesters demonstrate outside Target in Minneapolis on December 4, 2025, after the company was accused of allowing ICE in its parking lots, amid the Trump administration's attacks on Minnesota's large Somali immigrant community.
Pro-immigration protesters demonstrate outside Target in Minneapolis on December 4, 2025, after the company was accused of allowing ICE in its parking lots, amid the Trump administration’s attacks on Minnesota’s large Somali immigrant community.

Stephen Maturen via Getty Images

Omar’s comments come as federal immigration authorities launch an operation in Minnesota similar to raids already underway in Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and more. The operation targets the state’s more than 84,000 residents of Somali descent, 95% of whom are U.S. citizens.

“Of course we are ethnically Somali. We are in this country as Americans,” the Minnesota Democrat said. “We are citizens, we are productive, [we are] part of this nation and we will continue to be.”

Without addressing Omar directly, Miller posted on X saying, without evidence, that “the entire Somali refugee program is based on a lie.” Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, had a more direct response.

“Every time Ilhan Omar appears on television, public support for the deportation of all Somalis increases,” he posted, also without foundation.

The National Guard shooting prompted President Donald Trump to suspend all asylum decisions and increase his attacks on immigrants, focusing last week on the Somali community. The president said that Somalia “isn’t even a nation” and that the country’s refugees are “garbage” and “they complain and do nothing but complain.”

“It’s completely disgusting. These are Americans he calls trash,” Omar told News. “I think it’s also very important that we remember that this type of hateful rhetoric and this level of dehumanization can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the president.”