Flashing blue lights and heart-stopping anxiety—Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s son found himself face-to-face with ICE agents during a routine drive this past weekend, Omar revealed in a dramatic interview on Sunday with Minneapolis’ WCCO. As panic surged through her family, agents grilled her son after pulling him over, but ultimately set him free once he produced his passport, which he now carries everywhere—just to be safe.
Omar, who represents Minnesota in Congress, didn’t hold back. She recounted that officers had even stormed through a mosque where her son was praying in a previous incident, highlighting what she calls a pattern of racial profiling: “They’re targeting young men who look Somali, suspecting they’re undocumented. My son could easily be swept up just for his appearance.”
Tensions have been running especially high in Minnesota’s Somali community following an ICE dragnet dubbed ‘Operation Metro Surge’ earlier this month. The Department of Homeland Security boasted about snaring some of the ‘worst illegal aliens’ in Minneapolis, confirming fears of increased enforcement under President Trump. Trump himself has repeatedly blasted Minnesota’s Somali population and Omar personally, hurling inflammatory slurs in recent months: calling them “garbage” and insisting, “Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country.”
Since the 1990s, Minnesota has become a safe haven for Somali refugees, now home to roughly 84,000 people of Somali descent—mostly U.S. citizens making up the largest community in America. Recent data reveals that just under 60% were born in the U.S., and of those born abroad, nearly nine out of ten are now citizens. Congresswoman Omar herself fled unrest in Somalia as a child and has been a U.S. citizen since 2000.
These raids haven’t only impacted immigrant families. Earlier this week, Susan Tincher, an American citizen, was handcuffed by ICE agents in Minnesota after allegedly intervening during one of their operations. According to a DHS spokesperson, the 55-year-old was arrested following an altercation with an officer. Newsweek reached out to ICE for comment, as concerns rise over the broad sweep of these crackdowns.
As the Trump administration gears up for its promised mass deportations, legal U.S. residents and bystanders alike are discovering that, for many in Minnesota, no one’s immune from the chaos.
