White House Signals Support for Ilhan Omar’s Departure to Somalia

The White House seems to be indicating that Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) might consider leaving the U.S. to return to her homeland, Somalia.

On Monday, in a rather unusual move, the White House shared a photo of President Donald Trump waving from a McDonald’s drive-thru. This came as a response to a video in which Omar expressed confidence about her citizenship status. “Don’t worry. I don’t know how they’re going to strip me of my citizenship and deport me,” she remarked in the video, originally created for “The Dean Obidala Show” back in October. She added, “But I don’t know why it’s such a scary threat. I’m no longer an eight-year-old fleeing a war. I’m an adult, and my children are grown. I can live wherever I want.”

Both Omar’s office and the White House did not respond promptly to inquiries about the situation.

The photo of Trump was taken in October 2024, while he was working at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania during his campaign.

Omar’s family fled Somalia during the civil war in 1991, eventually settling in a refugee camp in Kenya before being granted asylum in the U.S. They moved to Arlington, Virginia, in 1995 and later to Minneapolis in 1997. Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000.

Recently, President Trump suggested that Omar should indeed consider moving back to Somalia. In a Truth Social post from November 1, he stated, “She should go back!” He included a clip of Omar speaking Somali in that post.

In September, Trump mentioned that Somalia had no interest in her return, claiming, “I met the head of Somalia, did you know? And I suggested that he might want to take her back. He said, ‘I don’t want her.’

Omar refuted this, labeling the claims as fabricated and questioning Trump’s credibility. “From denying that Somalia never had a president to making this up, President Trump is a lying clown,” she stated. “No one should take this embarrassing idiot seriously.”

Trump and Omar have had a contentious relationship since his first term. He’s often criticized her and other progressive lawmakers, collectively known as “The Squad,” suggesting they should return to a “broken, crime-infested” country.

In response to such rhetoric back in 2019, Omar remarked in a social media post that Trump was fostering white nationalism, angered by the presence of representatives like her in Congress fighting against hateful policies.

Omar was elected to the U.S. House in 2018, after a two-year stint in the Minnesota House of Representatives. She is notable for being the first Somali-American woman and one of the first Muslim women to ascend to Congress.