Ilhan Omar:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) represents communities that President Donald Trump has been attacking for years, and his attacks have often gotten personal. Now that the effects of such attacks are putting her home state in the national spotlight, Omar feels a sense of responsibility.

“I’m much more than a representative of these communities, I’m one of them, so we all hold on to each other and support each other,” Omar told News themezone on Friday, stating that she was preparing to travel back to Minneapolis, which covers her district. “It’s been really important for us to understand that this moment is not about attacking a community of ethnic origin, but that this attack is essentially against Americans.”

Minneapolis has been reeling this week after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good. The Trump administration alleges that Good attempted to run over law enforcement officers, despite video evidence which contradicts his statements. The shooting has a direct link to another set of questionable arguments by Trump and his political allies: The administration ramped up its immigration enforcement operations in the state in late December after right-wing influencer Nick Shirley promoted allegations that Somalis in Minnesota committed $100 million in fraud, and conservatives argued that Democrats ignored the issue to avoid losing the community’s votes.

Trump has said that Omar and other Somalis in Minnesota (the vast majority of whom are U.S. citizens) should be deported en masse.

“The murder of Renee Nicole Good was neither an accident nor an isolated tragedy,” Omar wrote to News themezone after the interview. “It was the predictable result of deliberate decisions by Donald Trump and his administration. For weeks, the president has stoked fear and bigoted lies, especially directed at Minnesota’s Somali community, while allowing ICE to operate with near-total impunity. That reckless escalation created the conditions that directly led to Renee’s death.”

Susan Walsh/AP

Federal officials deny that Minnesota law enforcement has any role in investigating the incident, raising alarm in Washington about the credibility of the investigation.

On Friday, Omar led more than 150 House Democrats in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons demanding that the administration preserve evidence, send Congress body camera footage of the officer and other federal personnel surrounding the incident, and outline plans to cooperate with federal watchdogs and local investigators.

“They have lost the faith and trust of the American people,” reads the letter, which was provided exclusively to News themezone and also calls for an end to the growing surge of federal agents in Minneapolis. The message is the most significant statement yet about the investigation by Democratic lawmakers.

Omar wants to use his federal position “to make sure this investigation doesn’t die in obscurity,” he said, noting that Minnesota officials have open your own query.

“Transparency and accountability are really important for a community that has experienced so much pain and evil,” he said.

Omar called the right-wing narrative about Good’s murder evidence of the Trump administration’s effort to govern through a “hoax.”

“This level of terror and detachment from reality is not something the American people are going to allow to exist,” he said.

Omar acknowledged that the massive social services fraud in his state, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, represented one of the most astonishing thefts of the pandemic era and for which investigators have mostly charged people of Somali descent. But he called it hypocritical for Republicans to highlight the issue, given Democrats’ involvement in investigating the allegations and their interest in supporting Trump’s agenda.

“It was the Democrats under the Biden administration, with the support of the state led by [Gov.] Tim Walz and [attorney general] “Walz abandoned his bid for a third term as governor amid the growing scandal.

“Republicans, both in Minnesota and nationally, are apparently now tuning in,” he continued.

Fifty-seven people have been convicted until now as part of investigations that have been ongoing for years. But Republican state legislators and some in the Somali community have claimed that Minnesota officials overlooked evidence of misconduct for fear of hurting Somali support for the Democratic Party. Minnesota Republican Party figures provided material that appears in Shirley’s video.

Omar argued that everyone should be worried about the attacks.

“I feel very angry when I see these people turn this into a partisan issue, when collectively we should be concerned about the damage that these criminals have done to these systems, to the trust that taxpayers have in legislators,” said the congresswoman.

But he also expressed little hope that Republicans would be more honest in challenging Trump’s narratives, even amid outrage over the death of Good, a mother of three who did not appear to pose a threat to ICE agents.

“They behave as if they were a cult,” Omar said. “They despise the American people and they despise the Constitution. [while] “They say it’s about freedom and liberty.”

Read the letter from Omar and his colleagues below: