On the eve of her swearing-in as a member of Congress, incoming Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) posted a picture on Twitter reminiscing on her experience entering America as a refugee.
Omar posted a picture Wednesday of herself and her father in a Washington, D.C.-area airport.
“Twenty-three years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC,” Omar said in her post. “Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress.”
Omar came to the U.S. at the age of 12 as a Somali refugee cast out of her country by a civil war. She spent time at a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to America with her father.
{mosads}Omar’s swearing-in Thursday will be a historic occasion. She will be the first Somali-American and one of the first Muslim women in Congress.
Incoming Rep.-elect Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) will join her as another Muslim woman in Congress.
Omar has called her election, along with Tlaib’s, a rejection of “religious bigotry.”
On Wednesday, she posed with incoming female members of Congress for a Vanity Fair photo.
The picture included fellow Reps.-elect Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) and Sharice Davids (D-Kan.).