A familiar script played out over the weekend as Fox News personality Tomi Lahren unleashed a xenophobic tirade against Ilhan Omar, branding the Minnesota congresswoman “the perfect poster child for why we need a closed border.”
Lahren’s remarks aired on Fox’s The Big Weekend Show, following Omar’s emotional rebuke of President Donald Trump’s escalating ICE crackdown. Speaking at a field hearing in St. Paul on Friday, Omar warned that the United States is beginning to resemble the kinds of authoritarian systems many immigrants fled.
“The one place where we thought we would never experience this is the U.S. Goddamn States,” Omar said, condemning mass raids, militarized enforcement, and the erosion of constitutional protections.
Lahren responded not with policy critique, but with identity-based venom. She sneered that the country must stop “importing people from third-world countries,” openly questioning Omar’s loyalty despite her U.S. citizenship and years of public service. The comments fit a long pattern of attacks against Omar that conflate dissent with disloyalty and immigrant status with criminality.
Tomi Lahren speaks about Back the Blue during the Turning Point USA at Clemson University Thursday, April 8, 2021. The conservative Fox News commentator, with views that have stirred up controversy on topics from gun control to the Black Lives Matter movement. Tomi Lahren Speaks At Turning Point Usa Event In Littlejohn Coliseum At Clemson University
The Fox host went on to rope in unrelated Democratic comments about ICE enforcement, insisting Democrats “always side with illegal aliens” — rhetoric that reduces complex constitutional concerns to a culture-war talking point designed for outrage, not understanding.
Online, the backlash turned uglier. A clip of Omar’s remarks, amplified by right-wing accounts, prompted far-right activist Laura Loomer to demand, “Deport this Muslim,” a call to strip citizenship from a sitting member of Congress. Utah Sen. Mike Lee expressed outrage, while billionaire X owner Elon Musk floated the idea that Omar should be tried for treason — a stunning escalation for comments squarely protected by the First Amendment.
Disgraced former congressman George Santos piled on as well, calling Omar “the enemy within” and suggesting the Justice Department treat her as such — language historically used to justify political repression.
Now former Congressman George Santos held a press conference on the House Triangle outside of the United States Capitol on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. He has since been expelled from Congress since Friday. Dec. 1, 2023.
None of the attacks engaged seriously with what Omar was actually saying: that militarized immigration enforcement, unchecked federal power, and deadly force on American streets should alarm anyone who claims to value democracy.
Those concerns have sharpened in Minnesota following the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross earlier this month. Her death ignited protests across Minneapolis just as Trump ordered 3,000 ICE agents into the state.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has demanded the agents “get the [expletive] out” of the city, describing Minneapolis as “under siege.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has placed the National Guard on standby as tensions escalate.
Rather than de-escalate, the Trump administration has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and announced a Justice Department investigation into Frey and Walz for allegedly interfering with federal law enforcement. Frey dismissed the probe as “ridiculous,” saying Sunday that Minnesota officials “will not be intimidated by the actions of this federal government.”
What Fox News and its allies frame as outrage is, in reality, a refusal to tolerate dissent. And as protests spread and federal power tightens its grip, Omar’s warning is less radical than it is painfully clear: a democracy that cannot accept criticism is already in trouble.
