My home state of Minnesota has become a magnet for rampant fraud and corruption. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota had some inflammatory remarks about a high-profile Republican which showcases how much Democrats are off base in their worldview of immigration.
In a Dec. 7 interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan, the host asked Omar for her take on Stephen Miller’s comments on X about immigration. “No magic transformation occurs when failed states cross borders. At scale, migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands,” Miller, President Donald Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff and a key advisor on immigration policy, said.
“What do you make of this argument of failure to assimilate and sort of ruining America. How do you understand this?” Brennan asked.
Omar called Miller’s comments an example of “white supremacist rhetoric” before going on.
“It reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany. And you know, as we know, there have been many immigrants who have tried to come to the United States who have turned back, you know, one of them being Jewish immigrants. We know the way that people were described who were coming from Ireland, Irish immigrants,” Omar said.
Omar, a Somali-born Minnesotan, is a skilled politician by now—she’s been active in politics since 2017. She is adept at the cable news talk show circuit and knows how to deftly toss in a grenade of a smear before glossing over it by calmly giving Brennan a quasi-thoughtful answer about immigration. She ended that segment by saying, of course, that Somalis are a “productive part of this nation.”
Omar’s take seems to be that she’s actually quite offended at Miller’s comments, which is why she smears him as a white supremacist before casually saying he reminds her of the denigrating way Nazis viewed Jews during World War II. Miller is Jewish, of course, and I presume Omar knows this, which is precisely why she doubled down on her extreme rhetoric.
Her inflammatory words have no place in public debate. Calling Miller a white supremacist is a disgusting reach, and suggesting he’s akin to a Nazi is a disgraceful smear. Verbal outrage seems to be the Democratic Party’s new game now, since they can’t seem to garner enough votes to win a national election. They are scoring cheap political points on social media and television, bashing Republicans’ character for their widely held views on conservative policies.
Sometimes, I’m stunned at how different the two parties’ worldviews can be on immigration, one of the issues Americans care most about. Omar’s comments during this interview—her reaction to Miller’s social media post—demonstrate this perfectly.
Miller is not known for being a wallflower, and his comments on X are certainly full of emotion. He essentially says that illegal migrants who cross over our borders—again, illegally—simply recreate the awful places they’re fleeing from, here in America. On its face, this might sound rude, especially to an immigrant now serving in the U.S. Congress.
But data supports the importance of legal immigration and a secure border, the sentiments underneath Miller’s comments, which he could have sugarcoated a bit more. Under President Joe Biden, illegal migrants came to the U.S. in record numbers, causing chaos and revealing just how reckless our borders were. In Texas, crime and fentanyl spiked due to the influx of illegal migrants. At that time, 55% of Americans supported curbing immigration.
It’s not bigoted, racist, or rude to demand an immigration policy that keeps our borders secure and maintains law and order. The dream of living in America as a migrant cannot be perpetuated into the future without it.
It is possible to have an America-first mindset while still allowing for the immigration that made America a melting pot to begin with, but it does not mean our immigration policy should allow for migrants to flood our borders illegally and then devalue America while they’re here. When migrants arrive here in America, their new home, it’s a good thing to leave behind vicious anti-American sentiments and embrace life and our laws here.
In Omar’s mind, Miller is a bigot for being frustrated that illegal migrants and Democrats do not share this view. And of course, she doesn’t hesitate to call him a “White supremacist” for this. That’s a bold take for an immigrant, and Miller might even say she proved his point.
