Trump Suggests Ilhan Omar, a US Citizen, Doesn’t Have Constitutional Rights

President Donald Trump suggested that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), a U.S. citizen, should not have constitutional rights because of where she’s from in racist remarks at a rally this week.

“She was from Somalia and she came over and right away she started opening her mouth, ‘I have constitutional rights,’” Trump said mockingly, in the middle of a three-and-a-half minute rant about Omar in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday night. “She comes from a country with no government, no counsel, no police, no anything. It’s not even a country. It’s just a piece of land.”

“She goes, ‘I have constitutional rights.’ The arrogance,” Trump said. He then transitioned into making Islamophobic comments about Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

Trump has consistently targeted Omar with racist remarks, and has previously called Somalia a “garbage country.”

Trump’s comments on Tuesday suggest that he believes Omar should not be afforded basic rights laid out in the U.S. Constitution, like freedom of speech and religion or the right to a fair trial. Notably, these protections are supposed to apply to everyone within the United States, not just citizens.

Trump has repeatedly remarked on Omar’s right to constitutional protections. He has said some iteration of these comments at many rallies this midterm cycle — including just after Homeland Security Investigations’ pre-dawn raid on her house earlier this month. However, Tuesday’s version is the clearest he’s been about suggesting that Omar doesn’t deserve such rights.

The president’s rant comes as his administration is attempting to denaturalize and deport Omar — part of a mass deportation campaign that critics say has already drastically eroded or is directly violating numerous constitutional liberties.

This is a remarkable rebuke of the Constitution coming from the leader of the party that is attacking people like Omar and El-Sayed as un-American.

Indeed, Republicans in Congress and in Trump’s orbit have repeatedly made comments suggesting that only Christians should be allowed to be in Congress, and that Muslims specifically should be barred from holding office.

At a rally in Ohio on Wednesday night, for instance, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said that El-Sayed, who was born in Michigan, is an “affront to me as a naturalized citizen of this country” and “can be nowhere near D.C.” His reasoning was that El-Sayed doesn’t understand “that our rights come from God Almighty” and that “Jesus came here for our salvation.”

The GOP’s racist and Islamophobic remarks have become increasingly incendiary as the election has neared. On Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that, if El-Sayed were to gain access to classified information, “there is a very real risk that Americans will die as a result” — a remark that critics noted was open incitement to violence.

Just days before the raid on Omar’s house, Trump called for a race war against Somalis in Omar’s home state of Minnesota. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said “The people of Minnesota must fight back” against Somali immigrants in the state.