Ilhan Omar: Gun violence in Minnesota worse than Somali refugee camp

Ryan King

July 02, 09:17 AM July 02, 09:18 AM

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) claims she saw additional gun violence in her dwelling condition of Minnesota than she did in a Somali refugee camp.

Recalling some of the violence she witnessed for the duration of the civil war in Somalia during her youth in the war-torn nation, Omar explained that she experienced not found any violence in the course of her subsequent time in the refugee camp waiting to attain asylum in the United States. Soon right after settling in Minnesota, she witnessed a capturing.

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"For 6 years, I experienced the privilege of not seeing any violence until eventually I moved to Minnesota," she explained to a group at a Gun Violence Neighborhood Conversation in Minneapolis on Thursday, the Everyday Mail reported.

"My very first calendar year in Minnesota, I each observed a individual shot at Peavey Park, dead on the ground, three months following my father and I arrived in Minneapolis," she stated. "Six months later on, I viewed the Minneapolis police put 38 bullets into the system of a mentally disabled Somali immigrant who failed to discuss English."

Omar and her family fled Somalia when she was 8 several years outdated and remained at the Dadaab refugee camp close to the border of Kenya and Somalia right until she obtained asylum in the U.S. at the age of 12, according to the outlet. They in the beginning lived in New York and Virginia. Two several years soon after being granted asylum, her loved ones moved to the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

Developing up in Somalia, she witnessed violence and even attended college with classmates who wielded firearms amid the internal conflict.

"I know what that sort of violence appears like, but I was lucky plenty of to flee that and find refuge in a refugee camp for 4 years exactly where I did not witness that kind of violence," she mentioned, for every the outlet.

In Minneapolis, exactly where her city corridor took put, the metropolis recorded 52 murder offenses previous calendar year, in accordance to details from the town authorities. So significantly in 2022, there have been 44 recorded scenarios of homicide, indicating an uptick.

Omar praised the new bipartisan gun laws that President Joe Biden signed into regulation past week through the city hall. The measure offered a lot more funding for faculty stability, mental well being, and increased qualifications checks.

She also decried the modern Supreme Court docket conclusion past 7 days overturning the precedents 1st set up in Roe v. Wade that certain a nationwide correct to an abortion.

"Fortunately, in Minnesota, abortion remains lawful," she claimed, for every the outlet.