Ilhan Omar Is Already Home

The refugee lawmaker is at the heart of controversy, and a community

- Alana Abramson

DAHABO MOHAMED, A FRESHMAN AT RICHFIELD HIGH NEAR Minneapolis, patiently waits in the school’s auditorium to meet her Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar. It’s a Tuesday morning in late May, and the line of students stretching ahead of Mohamed means she will lose part of her lunch period. But it is rare for her to see someone in a position of power who looks like her—a Muslim woman in traditional garb—so the free time can wait. “For people like me who wear a hijab, to see her doing what she’s doing is inspiring,” she says.

Omar’s decisive victory last fall was a groundbreaking moment for American Muslims. The Congressman she was succeeding, Keith Ellison, had been the first Muslim elected to Congress, but she and her colleague Rashida Tlaib are the first two Muslim- American women to serve in Congress. The House of Representatives had to change its rules to allow Omar to wear her hijab on the floor. For many Muslims, the 36-year-old Somali American’s election was a sign they were inching toward greater acceptance in American society.

But since she arrived in Washington, Omar has been embroiled in controversy. In mid-February, members of her own party, including top leadership, publicly rebuked her after she made comments many deemed anti-Semitic. Days later, she accused President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, of complicity in genocide and human-rights violations in Central America in the 1980s. Trump distorted comments she made about 9/11 to insinuate that she supports terrorists. Her office says she has received hundreds of death threats.