In the News
This month, we begin the transition away from a Trump era and toward a new presidency based on peace and cooperation. There is no area where this renewed vision is needed more than foreign policy. Trump has taunted, mocked, and burned bridges with our allies, while simultaneously cozying up to some of the most brutal dictatorial regimes around the world—especially those in the oil-rich Middle East. The damage done by the Trump administration runs deep, and it will take hard work and a clear understanding of the extent of the damage to fix it.
When I first came to this country as a refugee at the age of 12, I was horrified by the number of people I saw experiencing homelessness on the streets of New York City. I remember turning to my father one day as we drove through the city and saying, "This is not the America you told us about." "Hush child," my father replied. "We will get to that America." The America I'd dreamed of—the one my father had imagined back in Somalia—not only guaranteed equal protection under the law, but provided everyone the opportunity to live with dignity, to thrive.
This past week, I met with community members and state lawmakers to push for more change in the wake of George Floyd's killing in Minneapolis. Floyd was killed in my Minnesota district — and his death was the catalyst for conversations around police brutality and structural racism that have begun to transform the nation.
Our city, and our nation, are at a crossroads.
For years, we have marched, protested and advocated to end police brutality. In 2015, a 24-year-old black man, Jamar Clark, was shot in the head and died after a confrontation with two white Minneapolis police officers responding to a reported assault. In 2016, Philando Castile, a 29-year-old black man, was fatally shot by a police officer in a Twin Cities suburb while Castile's partner and her 4-year-old daughter looked on.
Rep. Ilhan Omar has spent much of the last two weeks in Minneapolis, in her district, where a little more than two weeks ago, a police officer killed George Floyd as three other officers stood by and assisted.
We are facing a challenge unlike any our country has ever faced. The coronavirus shock could claim thousands of Minnesota jobs, not to mention those directly affected by the illness and the health care workers putting their lives on the line to attend to their needs. It is deferring dreams, robbing Americans of their savings, and putting at risk millions of families' ability to make ends meet. But amid the hardship, there is hope.
At the local, state and federal level, our country is responding with an audacity we haven't seen in decades.
The day before Thanksgiving, families across the country gathered around their dining tables to give thanks and break bread. But many families in the Twin Cities were not sitting down for a holiday dinner — instead they were facing indescribable tragedy. On Wednesday, Nov. 27, a fire broke out in a 25-story public housing building in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, near where all of us grew up. Five people lost their lives that day.
I first arrived in this country in 1995, traveling from a refugee camp in Kenya. Having lived for four years without running water or permanent housing, I dreamed of finding stability and opportunity in the United States of America.
Less than three weeks have passed since President Trump spoke on the phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, setting off a cascade of destabilizing events that have endangered U.S. national security, the Middle East and the world.
Throughout history, demagogues have used state power to target minority communities and political enemies, often culminating in state violence. Today, we face that threat in our own country, where the president of the United States is using the influence of our highest office to mount racist attacks on communities across the land. In recent weeks, he has lashed out unprompted against four freshman Democrats in the House of Representatives: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and me, from Minnesota.