Rep. Omar Ignores Her Homeland’s Crisis as UN Expresses Deep Concern

Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar is the first Somali American and African refugee in the United States Congress. She was born in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. After spending four years in a Kenyan refugee camp to which Ilhan Omar and her family fled as Somalia descended into civil war, she and her family moved to America. They settled in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in downtown Minneapolis, which is nicknamed “Little Mogadishu” because of its high concentration of Somali American residents. Ilhan Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 and was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. She was re-elected in 2020.