"I assimilated all the way to Congress and this idiot still tells me to go back where I came from," Rep. Ilhan Omar, the first Somali-American to serve in Congress, said in response to the comments from Rep. Tom Emmer
Credit: Nathan Posner/Shutterstock
NEED TO KNOW
- Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, House Republicans’ third-in-command, said at a town hall on Capitol Hill on Thursday, June 25, that Somalis should “go the hell back to where they came from”
- The comments, denounced as “racist” by Minnesota Democrats, come as President Donald Trump has railed against the Somali community in Emmer’s state
- The vast majority of Somalis in the country are U.S. citizens, roughly 92%
Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, House Republicans’ third-in-command, said at a town hall on Capitol Hill on Thursday, June 25, that Somalis should “go the hell back to where they came from.”
The comments, denounced as “racist” by Minnesota Democrats, come as President Donald Trump has railed against the Somali community in Emmer’s state after deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents earlier this year as part of a violent and deadly crackdown sparked by scrutiny of the large Somali community in the Twin Cities region.
“Sometimes Minnesotans are so afraid that you're going to call us a racist, you're going to call us an Islamophobe, you're going to call us some name that we just don't want to get into that fight,” Emmer said at the town hall. “You know what, I would argue that I never did care, but I'm done being careful, even the least bit careful. I don't, I don't really care where you come from, but if you come to this great country, you have to understand you're coming here to be an American.”
Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty
“I don't care — Italian, Polish, you know, Somali. Okay? But they don't assimilate, and if they don't assimilate, then they should go the hell back to where they came from,” Emmer continued.
Emmer, the House GOP majority whip, made the remarks at a town hall hosted by the Faith & Freedom Coalition, an influential evangelical Christian political advocacy group. The event was also attended by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and the number four House Republican, Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan.
Later in the event, Cruz spoke out against a “cancer on the right,” denouncing “rising antisemitism” and the far-right former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Emmer ranks behind only House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., in the House hierarchy.
Representatives for Emmer, Johnson, Cruz and McClain did not immediately respond to requests for comment from PEOPLE.
Trump was scheduled to address the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference on Friday, June 26.
“Our founders, who are Christian, they created a Christian-based nation, and I come from the People's Republic of Minnesota, that has been so mismanaged by criminals — they're criminals,” Emmer said on Thursday. “They lie, they cheat, and they steal. And by the way, they let immigrants who come to this country not wanting to assimilate lie, cheat, and steal from them, our money.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minneapolis-area Democrat and the first Somali American to serve in U.S. Congress, wrote on X on Thursday afternoon, “I assimilated all the way to Congress and this idiot still tells me to go back where I came from.”
I assimilated all the way to Congress and this idiot still tells me to go back where I came from. https://t.co/VfiAQQoFTi
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 25, 2026
Omar — who came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1995 — added an endorsement for Emmer’s Democratic challenger, election law attorney and voting reform advocate Doug Chapin, writing, “go and support Doug Chapin to replace xenophobic Tom.”
For his part, Chapin wrote that the “problem isn't that people might call you a racist, it’s that using your position of authority to dehumanize an entire community makes you a racist.”
“This is racist, Tom,” Rep. Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat running for Senate, wrote on X on Thursday night.
Trillionaire Elon Musk, an ally of the president and one of the top donors to the Republican Party, endorsed Emmer’s comments by writing on X that the congressman was “absolutely right.”
Texas Rep. Brandon Gill complimented the Minnesota Republican by dubbing him “Based Tom Emmer,” as did Georgia Rep. Clay Fuller.
Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty
Trump has repeatedly derided the Minnesota-St. Paul Somali population, which is home to about 84,000 of the United States’ 260,000-person Somali community, according to the latest U.S. Census data. The vast majority of Somalis in the country are U.S. citizens: roughly 92%, including 55% who are native-born Americans.
“Look at what's happened in Minnesota. Somalia — all these people came in from Somalia, they ripped off our system,” Trump said during a June 11 Oval Office event after signing a proclamation on commercial fishing.
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He went on to repeat the false accusation that Omar married her brother, adding, “all they have is people that run around shooting each other. And then she comes and tells us how to run our country. I don't like it.”
“And she says the Constitution of the United States protects me. She shouldn't be protected. Honestly, she should be thrown out of the country,” Trump continued. “She's corrupt and most of the people that came in are corrupt. And the whole voting system is corrupt in Minnesota.”
Credit: Brandon Bell/Getty
Trump, who falsely claimed to have won Minnesota in all three of his presidential elections despite having lost the state each time, has focused the might of the federal government on the state since returning to office last year.
In January, two U.S. citizens — mother of three Renee Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti — were killed by federal agents as they flooded the city in response to misleading and false allegations about fraud carried out by members of the Somali community.
The investigations into fraud by House Republicans and the Justice Department have targeted Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president — and other top Democrats in the state.
This week, a federal judge first appointed by President George W. Bush ruled that Justice Department subpoenas of Walz and others were “part of an unconstitutional effort to coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration laws and to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so.”
Emmer and the other members of Minnesota’s Republican delegation called on Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to resign earlier this month, with Emmer saying the Democrats “should leave office in handcuffs.”
“Imagine flushing your reputation down the toilet for the privilege of being Donald Trump’s skin tag,” Walz wrote on X in response to Emmer’s comments on Thursday.
Imagine flushing your reputation down the toilet for the privilege of being Donald Trump’s skin tag. https://t.co/hWTY4c4a1s
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) June 25, 2026
Others warned that Emmer’s comments and the growing animosity towards Somali- and Muslim-American communities marked a regression to a more bigoted era in the United States.
“This is a very dark time for America,” British-American journalist and Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan wrote. “Mainstream Republican politicians speaking like old-school racists about a minority community while an all white crowd cheers and hoots.”
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