Ilhan Omar, a Muslim congressman who reveals …

Supporters of President Donald Trump want him to "come back" to Somalia, where he was born, and traditional Democratic leaders find him too radical: Ilhan Omar embodies a new generation of progressive US parliamentarians.

She became the first Muslim woman to wear the veil in Congress when she was elected to the House of Representatives in November 2018. "I am convinced that she is a fascist," she said. about Trump. "He wants to silence the democratic debate and the differences of opinion."

In a recent act in North Carolina, the crowd shouted "turn it over" when Trump pronounced his name. From that moment on, the president accuses him of hating the United States and invites him to leave the country if he is not happy.

"We will continue to be a nightmare for this president, because his policy is a nightmare for us," he said through a megaphone between two cries of support. At age 37, Omar embodies the vision of many American Democrats and symbolizes the American dream of a large number of immigrants.

Born in Somalia in 1981, she fled the war with her family while she was a child and spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. He arrived in the United States with 12 years and his family settled in Minnesota, an industrial city in the north of the country, where a large Somali community is located.

An activist of a powerful Black Rights Association (NAACP), he was elected to the Minnesota Parliament in 2016. Two years later, he took a big step forward: he came to the National Congress with 78% of the votes.

It is part of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party that advocates free education, denounces the racial discrimination of the judiciary and opposes the restrictive immigration policy of the Trump administration. Omar has campaigned with emphasis on the abolition of the President's ban on immigration to nationals of Muslim-majority countries, such as Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Although there is no official data, according to studies by the Pew Research Center, there are an estimated 3,500,000 Muslims in the United States. The arrival of Trump as president marks a major setback for ethnic, religious and immigrant minorities.

"We have returned to hate speech," he says, talking to Page12Wilfredro Ruiz, director of communications of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CIAR) based in Florida. "In the presidential elections, Trump showed us a threat to society. It was a blow because after September 11, we are actively working to rebuild the integration. When we reach the top of this process, Trump arrives and stereotypes us again, "says Ruiz.

"Once the elections were over, we thought that the intensity of their attacks would decrease, but the opposite happened. Trump presents himself as the head of the United States defense, and we, as a threat, "Ruiz explains.

And he adds emphatically, "MP Omar represents the vibrant voice of a community that wants to speak. That's why Trump chose to attack him. Woman, immigrant and Muslim. It is the antithesis of the hard wing of his government. "

In February, Omar saw himself in the eye of the storm for supporting the international boycott campaign against Israel, which some supporters of the Jewish state equate to a form of anti-Semitism.

The US president accused him in April of downplaying the Al Qaeda group's responsibility during the September 11 attacks. On his Twitter account, he published an excerpt from a speech in which the congressman criticized the fact that the rights of all Muslims were undermined after this attack because "some people did something". Omar, married and a mother of three, is complaining that the threats of violence she is experiencing have multiplied after the publication of the video.

"In the past year, we have received between 800 and 900 calls for help from the Muslim community and other minorities only at our headquarters in Florida. And we have 500 outstanding cases, "Ruiz reports. "The majority is due to discrimination in employment, school, travel, because of immigration status. We want people to know that they have the right to pick up the phone and call a lawyer before any detention attempt by the security forces, "he said.

In the fight against Trump, Omar has the support of three other emerging stars of the Democratic Party, also members of minorities: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York, of Puerto Rican origin), Ayanna Pressley (black legislator representing Mbadachusetts) and Rashida. Tlaib (from Michigan, ascendant of Palestinians and also Muslim). The press calls them "The Squad", a nickname that they accept with good humor. At their side, Omar criticized the Republican government for the conditions of detention of migrants arrested after illegally crossing the southern border.

Ilhan Omar represents the empowerment of migrant women and, while Republicans criticize her, she continues to provide a political response to the problems of the vast minorities of the United States.

Report: Juan Manuel Boccacci