Ethnic Statesmen

How does the legislature function if lawmakers have diverging loyalties?

A few days ago, Christopher F. Rufo broke this story about the massive scale of fraud within Minnesota’s Somali population. This story itself, while an example of excellent reporting, was no surprise to those who were already aware of the massive overrepresentation of autism in American-residing Somalis, (including in comparison with Somalis living in other nations). However there was one paragraph in particular which caught my eye:

“The fraudsters have leveraged their growing political influence to cultivate close ties with Minnesota’s elected officials. Several individuals involved in the Feeding Our Future scheme donated to, or appeared publicly with, Ilhan Omar, the Somali-born congresswoman from Minneapolis. Omar’s deputy district director, Ali Isse, advocated on behalf of Feeding Our Future. Omar Fateh, a former state senator who recently ran for Minneapolis mayor, lobbied Governor Tim Walz in support of the program. And one of the accused, Abdi Nur Salah, served as a senior aide to Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey.”

First of all, I would be incredibly surprised to learn that Ilhan Omar was not aware of this fraud, and this is something that the administration should look into. But secondly, and more importantly, we need to seriously evaluate whether the words “Somali-born congresswoman” should exist.

Ilhan Omar is already notorious for her clear and blatant ethnic chauvinism on behalf of Somalis. Her “Somali First” speech, celebrated what is, and can be, nothing less than a conflict of interest and should really be viewed as bordering on treason. It should come as no surprise to anyone that she has been publicly associated with fraudulent NGOs which funneled U.S. tax dollars into Somalis both here and abroad.

(There is a very good question which should be asked at this point: Should foreign-born residents even be eligible to receive U.S. taxpayer welfare? That question is out of the scope of this essay though.)

In a very similar vein, congresswoman Delia Ramirez, (who has stated that her husband is a “Dreamer”), declared herself to be “a proud Guatemalan before an American”. She currently sits on the committee on homeland security. The interesting thing about Ramirez is that she isn’t actually foreign born, she was born in Chicago, IL.

Imagine, for an instant, that instead of being ethnically Guatemalan, Delia Ramirez was Delia Novikov, and ethnic Russian who declared herself to be a proud Russian before an American. Should she then also be allowed to sit in the U.S. congress, particularly on the committee for homeland security. If not, (and I assume most on the left would be hesitant to allow this), then why should Guatemala get preferential treatment?

To provide one final example, let’s discuss congressman Randy Fine. Randy Fine, who serves as a Republican congressman from Florida, is ethnically Jewish but his family has resided in the United States for several generations. I couldn’t think of one individual statement by Fine to use as an example for his own ethnic peculiarities, so I’ll just list a few:

On November 26th, 2024 Randy Fine tweeted that he, the “Hebrew Hammer” was coming to congress and that the two Muslim congresswomen should “consider leaving before I get there”. (Reading this as any kind of threat, which some Islamic advocacy groups attempted to do, is obviously absurd. It does, however, demonstrate a specific ethnic/religious conflict among members of the U.S. congress).

Now, calling oneself by an ethnic title isn’t inherently indicative of a chauvinism, it could of course simply be a kind of moniker. However, in Fine’s case, it simply isn’t:

As a representative in Florida’s legislature, the news outlet “Jewish Currents” took the following statement:

The representative said that each year, he reserves at least one of his seven bill slots for “something Jewish, whether it was recognizing Jerusalem as the eternal, undivided capital of Israel, or the no tolerance of BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] bill, or reform of Holocaust education.”

I would like the reader to imagine for a moment if a congressman declared that he did the same for Germans.

More recently, Fine has tweeted several times about his desire to “let the streets of Gaza run red with their, [Palestinians] blood.”

On this subject, I would like to note that I, as an American, am almost completely disinterested in the affairs of two groups of Middle Easterners. I find it interesting that congressman Fine is not similarly disinterested.

Closing Thoughts

It has become obvious that first and second generation immigrant-statesmen have little in the way of loyalty to the United States, or at least her citizens. From supporting fraudulent organizations to blatant statements of priority, these individuals have a very poor record when it comes to public service.

However, as Randy Fine demonstrates for us, this is not exclusively a concern for immigrants. Ethnic loyalties seem to run very deep, and these concerns seem to invariably trump those of representative duties. In Fine’s case, I can assure the reader that one-seventh of his Florida district was not ethnically Jewish, so dedicating one-seventh of his efforts to “something Jewish” is not simply a matter of demographics.

It is time that Americans considered how to seriously approach the question of ethnic loyalties within our congress and broader government.