Rep. Ilhan Omar just turned her war on immigration enforcement up to full volume, calling ICE's operations "full blown fascism" and comparing its agents to the president's secret police. The Minnesota congresswoman has spent years attacking the agency, but her latest blast is her most incendiary yet.
Omar has never hidden her contempt for ICE. Earlier this year she said what America is witnessing from the agency "is not law enforcement, it's state-sanctioned violence," and in a televised interview she declared the country is "in the midst of the creation of a police state." She has repeatedly called ICE a "rogue agency" and demanded it be abolished outright. On social media she has insisted ICE has no place in airports, streets, or communities, and that she would not give the agency "another dollar."
After a fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis, Omar said the Trump administration was trying to beat the public into submission, called the ICE and CBP presence "terrorizing our communities" and "taking lives with zero accountability," and demanded both agencies leave Minnesota immediately.
The White House has pushed back hard. The administration compiled a public list of Democratic officials it says are whipping up hatred against ICE — Omar included, flagged for calling agents "vile and beyond cruel" while demanding the agency's abolition — and blames that rhetoric for a spike in attacks on federal agents, including an attack on an ICE facility in Dallas. Vice President JD Vance has also personally called her out over her ICE comments.
The administration's position is that ICE officers are federal law enforcement officers carrying out immigration law — targeting criminal aliens who are in the country illegally — and that the heated rhetoric from Democrats is what puts agents' lives at risk.
Omar wants ICE gone. The Trump administration says enforcement will keep getting stronger.