U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) sparked controversy on Sunday during an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation," where she likened the rhetoric of incoming White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller to language used by Nazis against Jewish people in Germany.
The comments came in response to a Thanksgiving Day post by Miller on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
In the post, Miller wrote: "This is the great mass migration. You are not just importing individuals. You are importing societies. No magic transformation occurs when failed states cross borders. At scale, migrants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands."Host Margaret Brennan asked Omar about Miller's statement and its implications for immigration policy under the incoming Trump administration.
Omar replied: "When I think about Stephen Miller and his white supremacist rhetoric, it reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany."Omar, a Somali-American refugee and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, elaborated by drawing parallels to historical anti-immigrant sentiments in the U.S. She referenced past discrimination against Jewish, Irish, and Italian immigrants, as well as the U.S. government's decision to turn away Jewish refugees during the Holocaust era.
"This is the type of language that has been used throughout history to dehumanize people," Omar said, emphasizing her concerns about policies that could lead to mass deportations.Miller, a Jewish American and longtime Trump advisor, has been a key figure in shaping restrictive immigration measures, including family separation policies and travel bans during Trump's first term.
