Ilhan Omar is under DOJ investigation for fraud and immigration crimes.
Now she picked a public fight with the man who's been calling for her accountability for months.
She just handed Tom Emmer the best week of his political career.
Emmer Said What Every Minnesotan Was Already Thinking
The House Majority Whip stood at a Faith and Freedom Coalition town hall Wednesday night and said what most conservatives in Minnesota have been saying privately for years.
"If they don't assimilate, then they should go the hell back to where they came from," he said.
He also said he was done pretending to be careful about being labeled a racist or an Islamophobe.
"Sometimes Minnesotans are so afraid that you're going to call us a racist, you're going to call us an Islamophobe," Emmer said. "You know what, I would argue that I never did care, but I'm done being careful, even the least bit careful."
That's not a controversial position when you understand what's happened in Minnesota.
The Feeding Our Future fraud scandal – the single largest pandemic relief theft in American history – produced 79 defendants who stole up to $350 million from programs meant to feed children.
Across the broader set of Minnesota fraud cases – child nutrition, housing, autism programs – federal prosecutors charged 92 defendants total, 82 of them Somali Americans.
Investigators uncovered a text message from one of the lead defendants directing funds to Mogadishu Bakara – a market in Somalia previously controlled by al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate responsible for killing more U.S. citizens than any other al-Qaeda affiliate since 2014.
The Treasury Department launched an investigation into whether any of the stolen money reached that terrorist organization.
The Heritage Foundation called it what it was: a welfare system Minnesota Democrats built with "low barriers to entry" that fraudsters treated as an ATM.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the Feeding Our Future case is "just the tip of a very large iceberg."
Omar Handed Emmer Exactly What He Needed
Omar's response Thursday was this: "I assimilated all the way to Congress and this idiot still tells me to go back where I came from."
She then directed her followers to support her Democratic challenger.
Here's what she didn't address.
Vice President JD Vance confirmed in May that the DOJ is investigating Omar over immigration fraud allegations and financial questions – including a congressional financial disclosure that listed her and her husband's joint assets at up to $30 million, later revised to between $18,000 and $95,000.
Emmer himself said in April that Omar "must be held accountable to the fullest extent" if she is discovered to have been involved in or benefited from any fraud.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2070488351216455730?s=20
In January, Rep. Nancy Mace moved to subpoena Omar's immigration records during a House Oversight hearing focused on Minnesota fraud – records that would shed light on longstanding allegations that Omar entered a legal marriage in 2009 with a man identified as her brother to secure his immigration status.
Democrats and Republicans on the committee voted together to kill the subpoena motion.
Omar's office called it political.
That's convenient when the DOJ is already looking at your finances.
This Isn't New and Emmer Just Stopped Being Polite About It
Back in 2015, Emmer co-founded the Congressional Somalia Caucus with then-Rep. Keith Ellison – the same Keith Ellison who is now Minnesota's attorney general and whose connections to Somali fraud defendants have been scrutinized for years.
That same year, Emmer said Somalis were "some of the fastest-assimilating populations that we've had."
Then came the $350 million food fraud scandal.
Then came the autism therapy fraud.
Then came the housing stabilization program fraud – $302 million in a program originally budgeted at $12 million.
Federal prosecutors now say half of the $18 billion Minnesota administered across 14 programs since 2018 may have been stolen.
Half.
Emmer didn't change his position out of nowhere.
The evidence changed.
His assimilation remarks aren't a departure from his record.
They're a conclusion drawn from it.
Emmer was done being careful about telling the truth.
Omar responded by giving him a headline and reminding everyone she's under federal investigation.
Sources:
- Eric Henderson, "Rep. Tom Emmer says Somalis who 'don't assimilate' should 'go the hell back to where they came from,'" CBS Minnesota, June 25, 2026.
- "Somali Welfare Fraud in Minnesota Has Cost American Taxpayers Billions," The Heritage Foundation, February 2, 2026.
- "Fraud in Minnesota: Detailing the nearly $1 billion in schemes," FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, December 8, 2025.
- "Rep. Nancy Mace Moves To Subpoena Ilhan Omar And Alleged Brother/Husband In Minnesota Fraud Probe," Rep. Nancy Mace press release, January 8, 2026.
- "VP Vance claims DOJ is investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar," CBS Minnesota, May 20, 2026.
- "Emmer warns Ilhan Omar will 'be held accountable' if found to have committed fraud," The Hill, April 21, 2026.