https://iclfi.org/pubs/slus/2026-omar
In the early morning hours of October 12, a latter-day slave patrol of ICE/HSI agents raided Omar's D.C. home. She opened the door just before the armed force battered it down. After her address became public, death threats had forced her family to move house. Agents seized boxes of personal items, including Omar’s cell phone. The sham pretext for the raid is a criminal fraud investigation into her immigration status.
Marxists oppose this attack on her democratic rights of citizenship, recognizing that such rights are always eviscerated for black and brown people, immigrants, Muslims and working-class fighters in capitalist America. This raid is a concrete expression of the repressive workings of the reactionary Trump regime, and it is NO accident that it comes in the lead-up to the midterms. Opposing the attack on Omar will better prepare the working class to defend itself. This attack is not simply performative; it is meant as a warning to any opponent of the regime from whatever quarter, even in this case from the Democrats, the other party of capital.
We do not wait until they deport her or jail her. We do not wait until they somehow "prove" she falsified complex immigration paperwork. We do not wait until they denationalize her, then use that precedent to denationalize and deport other opponents of ICE terror and Gaza genocide.
We see this as part of the continuing war on the Somali people in Minneapolis and beyond. It is plainly an attack on head-scarf-wearing Muslim women. It is also part of the broader war on black and Latino Americans.
Trump obscenely labels Omar "garbage" because, in his words, she "comes from one of the worst countries on the planet." The Trump regime aims to marginalize not only Omar, but also the people who elected her. By targeting Omar, Trump is also sticking it to a city that mounted a major fight against ICE’s Metro Surge (though the labor bureaucracy weakened that struggle).
The Omar case echoes the Dreyfus Affair at the turn of the last century. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in the French army, was falsely accused of espionage and exiled to a remote island to rot. Rosa Luxemburg, the Polish revolutionary internationalist, recognized that the interests of the working class were at stake in the affair that tore France apart.
We defend Omar against reaction without giving her the slightest political support. As a Democrat, she is part of the chain that binds the movements against ICE and U.S./Zionist genocide to the imperialist camp. Defend her, don’t vote for her!
Support only independent socialist candidates. The Democrats won’t protect us—or themselves. The working class must prepare to fight! U.S. government: Hands off Ilhan Omar!
