- Trump released a lie-filled statement about Omar in the wake of Boebert's Islamophobic comments.
- "Congresswoman Ilhan Omar should apologize… for essentially abandoning her former country," he wrote.
- Boebert could face censure by the House of Representatives after a phone call with Omar went awry.
Former President Donald Trump released a lie-filled statement on Tuesday demanding that Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota apologize for "abandoning her own country."
"Congresswoman Ilhan Omar should apologize for marrying her brother, committing large-scale immigration and election fraud, wishing death to Israel, and for essentially abandoning her former country, which doesn't even have a government—Exactly what she'd like to see for the United States," said Trump in his statement.
The Minnesota congresswoman, a Somali-American refugee, was born in Somalia in 1982. Omar, along with her father and her siblings, secured asylum in the United States in 1995, when she was as young girl.
In a July 2019 tweet, Trump told Omar and three fellow Democratic congresswomen to "go back and fix the broken and crime-infested places from which they came" — even though all four are US citizens and Omar was the only one born outside the US.
The unverified rumors that Omar's ex-husband, British national Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, is her brother and that she married him to help him get a green card circulated around the internet and the right-wing blogosphere for years before making their way up to the former president.
Omar has called the rumors "absurd and offensive," and released a lengthy statement and timeline of her marriage history in 2016.
Outlets including the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Washington Examiner have uncovered public records and documents that point to Omar living with her other ex-husband Ahmed Hirsi while she was legally married to Elmi. But no evidence, like a birth certificate, has ever surfaced to suggest that Elmi is her brother.
The theory is also undercut by the facts that all of Omar's siblings received refugee status in the US, and siblings can sponsor one another for residency status and a green card (negating the need for a fraudulent marriage). Elmi left the US and went back to England just two years after his marriage to Omar.
Omar has also never wished "death to Israel," as Trump claims in his statement, and there is no evidence of her involvement in any kind of "large-scale" immigration or election fraud.
Trump's statement comes amid the fallout of Islamophobic comments GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert recently made about Omar. Boebert called Omar, who is Muslim, part of a "Jihad Squad" and claimed that a Capitol Police officer had "fret all over his face" when he stepped into an elevator with Boebert and Omar.
The Colorado congresswmoman said she told the officer, "Well, she doesn't have a backpack. We should be fine," a comment implying that Omar is a terrorist.
She told a similar Islamophobic story about Omar at a September event in New York, CNN reported.
Boebert issued a statement on Friday apologizing "to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar."
Omar and Boebert had a tense call on Monday, prompting Omar to end the conversation and Boebert to claim in an Instagram video that she had been hung up on.
In response to Boebert's initial comments, Omar called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to "take appropriate action," adding, "normalizing this bigotry not only endangers my life but the lives of all Muslims."