Team Trump's ‘why did you marry your brother’ retort to Ilhan Omar in fresh war of words

Trump earlier said he did not want Somali immigrants in the US as they rely a lot on US social safety net and add little to the United States.

A fresh round of escalation erupted between US President Donald Trump's team with Democrat Representative Ilhan Omar after Trump said he did not want Somali immigrants in the US as he said the residents of the war-ravaged eastern African country rely a lot on US social safety net and add little to the United States.

File photo of Rep. Ilhan Omar. (AP)

As Trump went on rant against the Somali diaspora in the US, he mentioned Minnesota representative Omar saying, “You look at what he's done with Somalia where Somalia, which is barely a country -- they have no anything, they just run around killing each other. When I see somebody like Ilhan Omar, I always watch her, for years I've watched her complain about our Constitution ...”

However, when Omar responded to Trump's tirade for the Somali diaspora, team Trump snubbed her using an old allegation of her doing an immigration fraud by marrying her biological brother. “Why did you marry your brother?” Rapid Response 47 wrote on X after Omar termed Trump's “obsession” with her as “creepy”.

Trump vs Ilhan Omar

Trump has frequently made sharp attacks on the Somali diaspora in the United States who have been coming to Minnesota and other states, often as refugees, since the 1990s.

His comment came days after his administration announced it is halting all asylum decisions following the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington. The suspect in last week's incident is originally from Afghanistan but Trump has used the moment to raise questions about immigrants from other nations, including Somalia.

“They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country,” Trump told reporters near the end of a lengthy Cabinet meeting. He added: "Their country is no good for a reason. Your country stinks and we don't want them in our country.”

For years there has been a virtual face off between Trump and Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who emigrated from Somalia in 1995 as a child. The renewed round of war of words began last week after Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, published unsubstantiated allegations in a magazine called City Journal, citing unnamed sources, that money stolen from Minnesota programs has gone to al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked militant group that controls parts of Somalia.

Following this, Trump vowed to send Somalis “back to where they came from,” and alleged Minnesota, home to the largest Somali community in the United States, is “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.” On Tuesday, the president said Somalis in the U.S. should “go back to where they came from and fix it.”

(With inputs from agencies)