Ilhan Omar says her top priority remains Trump's immigration crackdown heading into midterms

In the past few years, one of Minnesota's fiercest primary battles has been in the 5th Congressional District, which has been held since 2018 by Rep. Ilhan Omar. 

Minnesota's 5th Congressional District is the most Democratic district in the state and in the entire country.

In previous years, candidates running against Omar in the DFL primary raised millions of dollars, but that is not the case this year. Omar is facing several DFL challengers, none of whom has more than $100,000 in the bank, according to their last financial statements.

Omar won her last general election by 50 percentage points, and the 2024 primary by 13 points. Those are among the reasons why this year, for the first time, she is not facing a major primary opponent.

Omar says a top priority for her remains the president's immigration crackdown. This weekend she visited the Whipple Federal Building, where immigration detainees are held.

"It is, I think, one of the detention centers across the country where detainees are shackled by the ankles throughout their stay, even if they're in a cell by themselves," Omar said. "At all times. That was one of the things that was very alarming."

While Omar continues to be very popular in her own district, she is also a target of President Trump and his MAGA supporters, many of whom have focused on a major discrepancy in her earnings statements. Her 2024 financial disclosure report valued her and her husband's assets at between $6 million and $30 million. Her revised report put the value at $100,000 to $125,000 or below. Omar says it was an accounting error that overvalued her husband's businesses.

"We were alerted by our lawyers that the assets that we reported did not account for the liabilities that the companies that my husband was involved in had. And once that math was done accurately, it turns out that the reporting was not correct," Omar said. "We amended last year's and the year, the one before."

Mr. Trump continues to speak out against Omar, even calling her "garbage" and a "phony." She says she is not bothered by that and will continue to speak her mind and that her top responsibility remains representing her constituents.

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