House Majority Whip Tom Emmer told a Capitol Hill audience Wednesday evening that Somali immigrants who refuse to assimilate in America "should go the h*** back to where they came from", a blunt challenge that drew immediate accusations of racism from Minnesota Democrats and a pointed retort from Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Emmer made the remarks at a Faith and Freedom Coalition town hall, CBS News Minnesota reported, framing his comments as a deliberate break from what he called Minnesota's culture of conflict avoidance. The Republican congressman said he was finished worrying about being labeled a racist or an Islamophobe for speaking plainly about immigration.
The exchange lays bare a fight that has been building for months between Emmer and Omar, and, more broadly, between conservatives who insist that legal immigration must come with cultural integration and progressives who treat any such demand as bigotry.
Emmer opened his remarks with a self-aware nod to his home state's famously indirect communication style:
"The reason I bring it up is because, (as) I tell people regularly, Minnesota did not create passive-aggressive behavior, but we did perfect it."
He then made clear he had no intention of staying passive. Emmer told the town hall audience:
"I happen to be more on the aggressive-aggressive side, which doesn't always work in Minnesota.... Sometimes Minnesotans are so afraid that you're going to call us a racist, you're going to call us an Islamophobe, you're going to call us some name that we just don't want to get into that fight. You know what, I would argue that I never did care, but I'm done being careful, even the least bit careful.... If they don't assimilate, then they should go the h*** back to where they came from."
The remark was directed at immigrants broadly, but the context was unmistakable. Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the United States, roughly 107,000 residents statewide, with about 84,000 concentrated in the Twin Cities metro area, per the latest U.S. Census data. Emmer represents a Minnesota district. And his recent legislative focus has centered squarely on fraud tied to the Somali community.
Emmer's comments did not arrive in a vacuum. Earlier this year, he called for the deportation of Somali Americans engaged in fraud, the immediate removal of those in the country illegally, and the revocation of citizenship for naturalized citizens involved in criminal schemes. That push followed the Feeding Our Future scandal, a massive COVID-era meal-program fraud that led to the arrest and conviction of more than 60 people.
The scale of that fraud, a quarter-billion-dollar theft from taxpayer-funded nutrition programs, has become a defining issue in Minnesota politics. Emmer introduced legislation known as the SCAM Act in response, targeting denaturalization for convicted fraudsters.
The scandal has also cast a long shadow over Omar herself. Allegations from a central figure in the scheme have raised questions about what the congresswoman knew and when she knew it. The convicted ringleader of the fraud operation claimed Omar had knowledge of the scheme, an allegation Omar has not substantively addressed.
The backlash from Minnesota's Democratic delegation was swift and predictable. Rep. Angie Craig posted on X on June 25, 2026, with a direct message aimed at her colleague:
"This is racist, Tom."
Omar responded Thursday afternoon with characteristic sharpness. "I assimilated all the way to Congress and this idiot still tells me to go back where I came from," she said.
Omar, who was born in Somalia and came to the United States as a refugee, has long faced "go back" rhetoric from political opponents. Her response frames the issue as personal bigotry. But Emmer's remarks were aimed at a broader principle, one he has articulated before, though in markedly different tones.
In a 2016 appearance on NPR's "This American Life," Emmer struck a notably different posture on the same community. He described Somalis as among "the fastest-assimilating populations that we've had" and defended their right to settle in Minnesota communities.
"I'm going to say it out loud, when you move to a community, as long as you are here legally, I am very sorry, but you don't get to slam the gate behind you and tell nobody else that they're welcome. That's not the way this country works."
That 2016 version of Emmer was defending Somali immigrants against nativist backlash from their own neighbors. The 2026 version is telling those who don't assimilate to leave the country. The shift is worth noting, not because the two positions are necessarily contradictory, but because the tone has changed dramatically.
One reading: Emmer praised assimilation in 2016 and is now condemning its absence in 2026, after watching a massive fraud scandal unfold in his state. The Feeding Our Future case, dozens of convictions, hundreds of millions in stolen taxpayer funds, gave the assimilation debate a concrete, criminal dimension it didn't have a decade ago.
Another reading, favored by his critics: Emmer has simply gotten louder and cruder as the political incentives shifted. Democrats will push the second interpretation. But the facts on the ground in Minnesota, the fraud convictions, the scale of the theft, the unanswered questions about political complicity, give Emmer's frustration a foundation his opponents would rather not discuss.
What Craig and Omar did not do in their responses is engage with the underlying policy question: What should happen when immigrants, legal or otherwise, commit large-scale fraud against the country that took them in? Emmer has escalated pressure on Omar specifically, tying assimilation failures to concrete criminal conduct rather than abstract cultural complaints.
That distinction matters. The left's reflexive response to any immigration criticism is to call it racist. But when more than 60 people are convicted in a single fraud ring, when a sitting congresswoman faces questions about her knowledge of the scheme, and when the fraud targeted programs meant to feed children during a pandemic, the "racist" label starts to look less like a moral argument and more like a deflection.
Emmer has also pressed Omar on her financial disclosures. He put her on notice over gaps in her financial filings and vowed full accountability, a line of attack that has drawn ethics scrutiny to the congresswoman.
Omar's defenders will point out that she has not been charged with any crime. That is true. But the questions surrounding her have multiplied, and Emmer has not been shy about calling her record into question publicly.
Was Emmer's language at the Faith and Freedom Coalition event rough? Yes. "Go the h*** back to where they came from" is not the phrasing of a diplomat. It will be clipped, looped, and weaponized by every progressive media operation in the country.
But the question voters in Minnesota, and across the country, are actually asking is simpler: Should the United States expect immigrants to follow its laws, embrace its civic culture, and contribute to the communities that welcomed them? And what should happen when they don't?
Emmer answered that question in the bluntest terms possible. His critics answered it by calling him a racist. Only one of those responses addresses the problem.
Neither the Faith and Freedom Coalition nor Emmer's office had issued a formal statement in response to the criticism as of the available reporting. Whether Emmer walks back the language or doubles down will say something about where the Republican Party is headed on immigration rhetoric. But the underlying policy question, assimilation, fraud, accountability, isn't going anywhere, no matter how loudly Democrats shout "racist" to avoid it.
In politics, you can tell a lot about which arguments are winning by watching which ones the other side refuses to engage with.
