Why has search of Ilhan Omar’s home before US midterms caused controversy? | Politics News | Al Jazeera

US Vice President JD Vance said in March, without offering evidence, that the administration believed Omar “definitely committed immigration fraud”. Her office called the claim fabricated and defamatory.

Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that “something’s going to happen” in the case.

In early December last year, Trump took aim at the Somali community in Minnesota and called Somali immigrants “garbage“. “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”

In January, a man sprayed her with vinegar at a town hall in Minneapolis. Anthony James Kazmierczak, who admitted attacking her because he disagreed with her progressive views, was sentenced last month to 14 months in prison.

Trump, meanwhile, returned to Omar’s origins at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday this week.

“She comes from one of the worst countries anywhere on the planet,” he said, as the crowd chanted: “Deport.”