Rep. Ilhan Omar says any link between alleged Somali fraud and terrorism is a "failure of the FBI"

[0:00] And we're joined now by Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. [0:04] Welcome to the program. Thank you, Margaret. [0:05] We have a lot to get to with you, but I want to pick up on where the Treasury Secretary just left off. [0:11] He alleged that people who were tied to you or your campaign were involved in this broad, brazen scheme [0:20] to rip off the Minnesota state welfare system. Do you want to respond to that? [0:25] Do you know what he is referring to? I really don't, and I don't think the secretary himself [0:29] understands what he's referring to. We obviously had people who were able to donate to our campaign [0:38] that were involved. We sent that money back a couple years ago. And actually, I was one of the [0:44] first members of Congress to send a letter to the secretary of egg asking them to look into what I [0:52] thought was a reprehensible fraud that was occurring within the program. [0:58] So this was, just for our audience, the Binary Justice Department called it the largest COVID [1:03] fraud scheme in the country. And this was pocketing COVID-era welfare funds, more than a billion dollars [1:10] in taxpayer money that was stolen. It was pretty, pretty shocking. Of the 87 people charged, all but [1:17] eight are of Somali descent. And that has added to the spotlight being put specifically on your [1:24] community. Why do you think this fraud was allowed to get so widespread? [1:30] Well, I want to say, you know, this also has an impact on Somalis, because we are also taxpayers [1:41] in Minnesota. We also could have benefited from the program and the money that was stolen. And so it's been [1:51] really frustrating for people to not acknowledge the fact that we're, you know, we're also, as [1:59] Minnesotans, as taxpayers, really upset and angry about the fraud that has occurred. [2:06] Mm-hmm. So do you think, though, that there was a failure by the Democratic state government to police [2:14] itself? This is a brazen, fraudulent activity here. Yeah. And that is what I alluded to in my letter [2:21] that I had sent to the Secretary of Egg, was to see where things were going wrong. How can this amount [2:30] of money disappear fraudulently without there being alarms being set off? And it is something that, [2:39] you know, we have to continue to investigate. We have to continue to ask those questions. [2:43] Because, as you know, one of the initial defenses by the organization at the heart of the fraud, [2:48] feeding our future, was to claim the probe was due to racism. Do you think that this was all about [2:54] negligence or that it was, like, political fear of alienating the Somali community? [2:59] So you have to remember that the woman who led the program is a Caucasian woman. And that was her way [3:09] of making sure that this would continue to happen by using whatever rhetoric that was available to her. [3:18] We do know that when the money was stopped, they did sue. The AG, Attorney General Keith Ellison, [3:26] defended the department in that lawsuit. It was a judge that said it should continue—that money [3:34] should continue to go out. And so this wasn't something that people were not looking at. There [3:40] was always those alarms. And we will continue to understand where things might have gone wrong [3:46] as these investigations continue and as these fraudsters are prosecuted and sent to jail. [3:52] Well, it's going to have impact for your community because we've already heard that the head of [3:56] Medicare and Medicaid say they're going to have a new policy that applies to Minnesota. You heard the [4:00] Treasury Secretary say they're investigating. But there's another threat here. Because House [4:06] Republicans and the Treasury Secretary just now talked about a link to terrorism, a possible link. He [4:11] said they're just now beginning to look into it. How confident are you that that's a false [4:17] claim? I'm pretty confident at the moment because there are people who have been prosecuted and [4:25] who have been sentenced. If there was a linkage in that the money that they have stolen going to [4:31] terrorism, then that is a failure of the FBI and our court system in not figuring that out and [4:40] basically charging them with these charges. And so I do know that for many years, this sort of like alarm [4:52] that there is money being transferred through the airport in bags and going to terrorism has all that [4:59] accusation has always existed. There's never been here and there in those accusations. But if that is the case, [5:07] if money from U.S. tax dollars is being sent to help with terrorism in Somalia, we want to know. [5:17] Yeah. And we want those people prosecuted. And we want to make sure that that doesn't ever happen again. [5:22] So there are 80,000 people of Somali descent in your state. But the president has been very focused, [5:29] not just on them, but on you. In this extraordinary cabinet meeting, he said Somalis, quote, [5:36] come from hell. They complain and they do nothing but bitch. Take a listen. [5:42] These are people that do nothing but complain. They complain. And from where they came from, [5:49] they got nothing. We don't want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it. [5:55] Thank you very much. That knocking is vehement agreement from his cabinet members there. [6:05] I just wonder what the reaction is in your district to have that from the highest office in the land. [6:10] It's disgusting. It's completely disgusting. These are Americans that he is calling garbage. [6:18] And we feel like there is an unhealthy obsession that he has on the Somali community and an unhealthy [6:26] and creepy obsession that he has with me. I think it is also really important for us to remember [6:34] that this kind of hateful rhetoric and this level of dehumanizing can lead to dangerous actions [6:43] by people who listen to the president. And 95 percent of the Somalis in your state are U.S. citizens. [6:50] Yes. Just for clarity there. But the president has restricted all immigration processing, [6:56] including asylum claims from Somalis already on U.S. soil, along with 18 other countries. [7:02] ICE reports it has rounded up about 19 people, and they put out press releases with the images of about [7:09] five of them that they say are the worst of the worst. Is that the entirety of the crackdown to date? [7:15] Yeah. So far we know of the people that they've picked up in Minnesota. About five of them are Somalis. [7:22] And from what I have read and from the people that I've spoken to, all of them had already had [7:28] orders of removal. So these are not people who are undocumented, but people who have committed crimes [7:36] and who should have already been sent out of the country. [7:40] I want to ask you something else that the architect of the president's immigration policy, [7:45] Stephen Miller, said. On Thanksgiving Day, he posted, [7:48] no magic transformation occurs when failed states cross borders. At scale, migrants and their [7:54] descendants recreate the conditions and terrors of their broken homelands. What do you make of this [7:59] argument of failure to assimilate and sort of ruining America? How do you understand this? [8:06] I mean, when I think about Stephen Miller and his white supremacist rhetoric, it reminds me, yes, [8:14] it reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany. And, you know, as we know, [8:23] there have been many immigrants who have tried to come to the United States who have turned back, [8:27] you know, one of them being Jewish immigrants. We know the way that people were described who [8:33] were coming from Ireland, Irish immigrants. We know the way in which people were described back then [8:39] when they were Italian immigrants. And to me, you know, we're, yes, of course, ethnically Somali. [8:47] We are in this country as Americans. We are citizens. We are productive part of this nation, [8:55] and we will continue to be. Congresswoman Omar, thank you for your time today.