The political temperature in Minnesota rose sharply after U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, said Somalis who “don’t assimilate” should “go the hell back to where they came from.” The remark landed like a match in dry grass, igniting criticism from Democratic lawmakers, civil rights advocates, and Somali American leaders who said the language crossed from hard-edged politics into open xenophobia.
Emmer made the comments at a Faith & Freedom Coalition town hall on Capitol Hill, where he argued that people who come to the United States should embrace being American. Local reports said the Minnesota congressman told the audience he was “done being careful” about being called racist or Islamophobic before singling out Somalis in his comments.
A remark that quickly became a firestorm
The controversy centers on one phrase that has long carried a heavy political and racial charge: “go back to where they came from.” Emmer’s version was even sharper. According to CBS Minnesota and FOX 9, he said Somalis who fail to assimilate should “go the hell back to where they came from.”
For critics, the issue was not only the profanity or the bluntness. It was the sweep of the accusation. Emmer did not merely attack a policy, a party, or a specific criminal case. His words appeared to cast suspicion on a whole community that has been part of Minnesota’s civic, business, religious, and cultural life for decades.
That is why the backlash was immediate. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who was born in Somalia and later became the first Somali American elected to Congress, responded with a cutting line: “I assimilated all the way to Congress.” Rep. Angie Craig, another Minnesota Democrat, called the comments racist.
Minnesota’s Somali community pushed into the spotlight. Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the United States. CBS Minnesota reported that recent Census data indicates roughly 107,000 Somalis live in the state, with about 84,000 in the Twin Cities metro area. That means Emmer’s remarks were not aimed at some distant political abstraction.
They struck at neighbors, coworkers, students, nurses, truck drivers, shop owners, voters, and families who have helped shape modern Minnesota. That context matters because the word “assimilation” can sound simple until it is used as a political weapon.
What does it mean to assimilate? Speak English? Vote a certain way? Dress a certain way? Stop practicing a faith? Abandon food, language, or family customs? Critics argued that Emmer offered no clear definition, leaving the phrase to hang in the air like a threat rather than a standard.
The political fight behind the words
Emmer is not a backbench lawmaker shouting from the edge of the room. He is the House majority whip, one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress. PEOPLE noted that he ranks behind only House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise in the House GOP leadership structure. That elevated role made the remarks harder for critics to dismiss as a passing outburst.
The comments also arrived amid broader political arguments in Minnesota over fraud, immigration enforcement, and the state’s Somali community. Earlier reporting has connected this debate to the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal, a major federal case involving pandemic-era child nutrition funds. But critics say using criminal cases involving some individuals to stain an entire ethnic community is exactly the kind of broad-brush politics that turns public anger into public danger.
That tension is what made Emmer’s phrasing so explosive. A debate over fraud can be specific; a debate over immigration policy can be specific. A demand that Somalis “go back” if they do not meet an undefined test of assimilation is something else entirely. It moves the argument from accountability to belonging.
Omar’s response turned the attack back on itself
Omar’s reply cut through the noise because it exposed the contradiction at the heart of the controversy. She came to the United States as a refugee, became a citizen, won elected office, and now serves in Congress. By any conventional civic measure, her life is an American assimilation story. Yet she was still being told, indirectly or directly, that she belonged somewhere else.
That is why the phrase carries such power. “Go back” does not simply criticize conduct. It questions membership. It suggests that no matter what a person builds, earns, contributes, or sacrifices, their Americanness remains conditional.
For many Somali Americans in Minnesota, that is the deeper wound. The issue is not whether communities should obey the law, learn the language, participate in civic life, or contribute to the country. Many already do. The issue is whether a major congressional leader can look at an entire community and imply that its place in America depends on his approval.
A controversy that will not fade quietly
Emmer’s defenders may argue that he was speaking about assimilation, not race or religion. His critics see something far uglier: a powerful politician using a familiar nativist insult against a visible immigrant community at a moment when that community is already under intense scrutiny.
Either way, the remarks have now become more than a sound bite. They have become a test of how far political language can go before leaders in Washington are willing to call it out. CAIR-MN wants Congress to condemn the comments. Minnesota Democrats have already done so. Somali Americans, meanwhile, are once again being asked to defend their place in a state many of them call home.
The firestorm around Emmer’s words shows how quickly one phrase can tear open an old American argument: who gets to define belonging, and who keeps getting told they have to prove it?
