Rep. Ilhan Omar told The Independent Wednesday that she shouted at President Donald Trump during his State of the Union speech wbecause she could not let his “lie” about Somali-Americans or people killed by immigration authorities go unchallenged.
During Trump’s address to Congress, Omar and fellow congressional Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) heckled the president for “killing Americans” when he spoke about keeping the country safe.
While many progressive Democrats boycotted the address, Omar was one of a handful of left-wing congress members who decided to attend the president’s address.
“It was important for me and the Minnesota Democratic delegation to go, because we believed it was important to continue to highlight what the occupation that we have been living through really meant for Minnesotans, to understand the weaponization of the federal law enforcement against Minnesotans and the terror that we've experienced,” Omar said.
During his address, Trump touted Operation Metro Surge, his dispatching of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Customs and Border Protection agents to Minnesota. During that time an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good and CBP officers shot and killed Alex Pretti.
But during the address, Trump said the “first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens” and called for the end to sanctuary cities. In response, Omar said “you have killed Americans.”
“We've obviously had people that have been harmed, and we've had people that have been killed, and so it was really important for us to physically be there and to bring guests that could speak to that,” Omar told The Independent.
“And when he talked about protecting Americans and that being our number one job, I felt at that moment it was very important for me to remind him that he did actually kill two Americans that are my constituents, that are our neighbors.”
In addition to speaking out, Omar invited Aliya Rahman, an autistic woman with a traumatic brain injury whom ICE dragged out of her car and detained in Minneapolis, as her guest for the State of the Union.
But Omar also called out Trump during his speech when he spoke about fraud in Minnesota’s social services. Trump claimed “members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer.”
That number is largely inflated. Even the Republican-led House Oversight Committee said in January 2026 that the fraud , while significant, hit about $9 billion. In December, then-first assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said in a press conference that “half or more” of $18 billion was spent on 14 programs deemed fraudulent since 2018.
But Thompson would quit his job after the Department of Justice’s lack of investigation into the killing of Good.
Omar said she could not take Trump’s word’s lying down.
“He went into this disgusting rant about Somali Minnesotans, and he mentioned the fact that there was $19 billion in fraud,” she said.
“Well, that is just factually a lie, and we as Somali Americans do not deserve to have the president of the United States continue use us as a distraction, as a scapegoat, and to say the disgusting things that he says about us and us not to respond to it,” she added. “And I had the opportunity to actually be in a room with him, and you know damn well I was going to respond to that.”
Omar and Tlaib were some of only a handful of progressive Democrats who chose to go to the State of the Union as many Democrats opted out of attending.
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