Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar was doused with a foul-smelling liquid at a town hall she was hosting on Tuesday. A man ran onto the stage and targeted her after she criticized the actions of immigration enforcement.
Omar was not injured in the attack. “Here’s the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand. We’re strong in Minnesota and we’re going to be resilient in the face of what they throw at us,” she told the audience.
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“I learned at a young age not to give in to threats,” Omar added.
The motive for the man’s attack on Omar is currently unknown, but the Somali-born lawmaker has long been the target of threats of violence. Many of those threats come from strangers, but Omar has also been the target of repeated ire from US President Donald Trump.
And in recent weeks, the Trump administration has launched the harshest immigration crackdown yet in Minnesota, centered on the city of Minneapolis, where Omar is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, while the president has escalated his rhetoric hostile to all Somali-Americans and Somalia. In the past three weeks, federal agents have shot and killed two Americans protesting the crackdown, further fueling tensions in the state.
So what happened on Tuesday and what’s behind Trump’s fixation on Omar, Somalia and Minnesota?
What happened at Omar’s event?
Omar was attacked during a town hall in Minneapolis on Tuesday when a man lunged toward the stage and used a syringe to spray her with an unknown liquid, according to police and video footage.
The incident comes as Omar is criticizing federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota, naming Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“ICE cannot be reformed. It cannot be revived. ICE must be abolished forever. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem must resign or be impeached,” Omar said shortly before the attack, to applause.
The man, identified as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, was sitting in the front row when he stood up and ran toward the podium. Omar raised her hands and took a few steps toward him, before being tackled, detained by security guards, and arrested.
Omar’s office said in a statement that the event continued after the disruption. “During the activity at City Hall, an instigator attempted to attack members of Congress by injecting an unknown substance with a syringe,” the statement said. “She kept her job at City Hall because she didn’t let the bullies win.”
The crowd cheered as the man was pinned to the floor and his hands tied behind his back. In the video footage, someone in the audience can be heard saying, “Oh my god, he sprayed her with something.”
Authorities have not released the substance, but witnesses said there was a strong, unpleasant odor.
The incident occurred less than an hour after Republican Trump mentioned Democrats during a speech in Iowa.
Who is Ilhan Omar?
Omar came to the United States as a child refugee from Somalia.
She was born in Mogadishu and fled the country with her family in 1991, as Somalia was mired in a long cycle of clan-based violence, famine and attacks by the militant group al-Shabaab, all of which continued to destabilize the Horn of Africa.
After four years in a Kenyan refugee camp, her family was allowed to resettle in Virginia, USA. They later moved to Minneapolis, home to the country’s largest Somali community.
There are an estimated 80,000 people of Somali descent in Minnesota. The majority of them were born in the United States. Of those born abroad, 87% are naturalized citizens.
Since November, President Trump has repeatedly attacked Somalia and its diaspora, with a focus on Omar as well.
How did President Trump target Somalis?
On November 21, President Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that the state would end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somali immigrants in Minnesota “immediately,” referring to the program designed to provide emergency shelter to people in crisis. Approximately 705 Somalis were participating in the program.
President Trump claimed without evidence that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of our great state” and accused Gov. Tim Walz of overseeing a state that has become a “center of illicit money laundering activity.”
“Send them back to where they came from,” President Trump said. “it’s over!”
In early December, President Trump told reporters he did not want Somali immigrants in the United States, claiming that the East African country’s residents depend on aid and “contribute nothing” to the United States. President Trump provided no evidence to support these claims.
He called Somali immigrants “trash.”
His words against Somalis have been widely criticized as racist, including by some members of his Republican Party. But that didn’t stop Trump.
He told reporters in December that Somalia was “not even a country” and that the state was “not functioning”.
In early January, the Trump administration froze child care payments in Minnesota amid an investigation into allegations of fraud centered on benefits to Somali immigrants.
President Trump also brought up attacks on Somalis in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week.
“We are cracking down on more than $19 billion in fraud stolen by Somali bandits,” he said. “Can you believe it? Somalia – it turns out they have a higher IQ than we thought. I always say they’re low IQ people. How did they get into Minnesota and steal all that money?”
How is President Trump targeting Minnesota and why?
President Trump has publicly justified his administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants in Minnesota, accusing them without evidence of unfairly contributing to crime and fraud.
But even by the standards of ICE’s operations in cities and states across the country, the nature and duration of the violence unleashed on Minnesota streets by its agents and those of other federal agencies, such as the Border Patrol, is unparalleled, observers said.
On January 7, 34-year-old Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis as she tried to drive away from police. The Trump administration has claimed the officers fired in self-defense, but video evidence casts doubt on that explanation.
And on Saturday, 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents while helping a woman who had been pushed to the ground by police. Trump administration officials claimed that Preti was brandishing a handgun and threatening officers, but video footage showed Preti was unarmed at the time of the shooting.
On January 13, after Mr. Goode was killed, Mr. Trump slammed Minnesota’s Democratic leadership. In his Truth Social post, he referenced “the great people of Minnesota,” but also issued a blunt warning: “The day of retribution and reckoning is at hand.”
Governor Walz was quick to address President Trump’s remarks, accusing him of choosing to “punish” states for voting against him in the past three presidential elections.
Aside from Illinois, Minnesota is the only state in the Midwest that Trump did not win a single time in three presidential elections: 2016, 2020, and 2024. Walz himself is the Democratic Party’s vice presidential candidate in 2024, running against Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.
What is the history of President Trump’s attack on Ilhan Omar?
In April 2019, President Trump unfairly accused President Omar of downplaying the September 11, 2001 attacks. After posting on X against Omar, the newly elected congressman saw a spike in death threats.
Three months later, as Trump launched his 2020 re-election bid, he accused Omar of being ungrateful to the United States as his supporters chanted “Bring her home!”
Since then, she has repeatedly targeted Omar over her scarf, her Somali origin and her persistent criticism of his policies.
“She’s an incompetent person. She’s a really terrible person,” Trump said in December, claiming without evidence that Omar was an anti-Semite who “hates everyone.”
Omar, in turn, called Trump’s apparent “obsession” with her “creepy.”
