Democrat Ilhan Omar made history Tuesday night, by becoming the first Somali-American Muslim refugee to make it to the US Congress!
The victories came on an election night when members of multiple minority groups had a chance to score electoral firsts.
Voters in Minnesota and Michigan on Tuesday elected one of two of the first Muslim women to serve in the US Congress, a former refugee who fled Somalia’s civil war, Ilhan Omar.
The victory by Ilhan Omar, came on an election night when members of multiple minority groups had a chance to score electoral firsts.
In Minnesota, Omar, about 36 and a naturalised American citizen and state representative, follows another trailblazer: She will succeed US Congressman Keith Ellison, who in 2006 became the first Muslim elected to Congress and is stepping down to run for state attorney general.
The Minneapolis woman campaigned on policies embraced by the Democratic Party’s most liberal wing: universal healthcare, free college tuition and robust public housing.
“I did not expect to come to the United States and go to school with kids who were worried about food as much as I was worried about it in a refugee camp,” Omar said in an interview last month.
She spent four years of her childhood in a refugee camp in Kenya.
Two years ago, she became the first Somali-American to win a seat in a state legislature, on the same night Republican Donald Trump won the presidency after a campaign in which he called for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States.
Omar will also be the first Congress member to wear a Muslim hijab, or head scarf and took her oath into office on the Quran.
Congratulations Congresswoman Ilhan Omar!
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