Seconds after an attacker sprayed US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with unidentified liquid at a Minnesota meeting, she confronted the man and then defiantly went on to finish her comments, AFP journalists saw. The Somali-born US lawmaker, a constant target of Donald Trump’s attacks, had just called for the president’s homeland security chief to resign in the wake of immigration agents killing two US citizens in a matter of weeks. The attacker, identified by police as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, managed to spray Omar before he was tackled and removed from the Tuesday meeting in Minneapolis. She was unharmed, police said.Yet before he was even grabbed, Omar stepped rapidly toward the attacker with her fist raised. The lawmaker then went on to urge the crowd to settle down and listen to her  remarks.”Here is the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand — we are Minnesota strong and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us,” Omar said to the meeting of constituents.Authorities have not reported what may have motivated the attacker, but the incident comes as Minneapolis is in a running confrontation with Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign.Ahead of the incident, Omar’s constituents raised issues with her as eclectic as trash collections and the plight of North Minneapolis, alongside fears over the sweeping immigration operations that have sparked large protests.Just as she called for the resignation of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the attacker jumped to his feet from the front row of seats in the meeting room.He then appeared to spray the contents of his syringe, prompting complaints about a foul smell, AFP correspondents witnessed. Two men quickly tackled the assailant, sparking calls of “Nazis out” as he was led from the room.Stunned onlookers gasped and recoiled as the drama unfolded against an already tense backdrop in Minnesota as its targeted by Trump’s immigration operation.Omar has accused Trump of turning Minneapolis into a “war zone” while he has accused her of corruption without evidence. – ‘Not about him’ -“It’s not about him, Ilhan,” said one bystander, seeking to encourage Omar, an outspoken Trump critic, to continue.Undeterred, Omar proclaimed “please don’t let them have the show.”The suspect was arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault, according to police. An investigation was underway.One witness said they asked themselves “is this really happening?” “He could have done something else,” he told AFP.Questions will be asked about security arrangements at the event with members of the public checked by staff, but members of the press allowed in without scrutiny.After the event, Omar, the first Somali-American representative, posted on X “I’m OK.””I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work,” she wrote.

US immigration agents may have breached “protocol” in Minneapolis before the fatal shooting of a nurse during protests, President Donald Trump’s senior aide Stephen Miller said Tuesday — days after falsely branding the victim an assassin.The admission comes as Trump says he wants to de-escalate the situation in Minneapolis following the killing of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti during a protest against an immigration crackdown on Saturday. Deputy Chief of Staff Miller, a powerful figure who leads Trump’s hardline immigration policy, said in a statement to AFP that the White House was now looking into the possible breach.He said the White House had provided “clear guidance” that extra personnel were sent to Minnesota to protect deportation agents and “create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors.””We are evaluating why the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) team may not have been following that protocol,” Miller said.The White House later said that Miller was referring to “general guidance” to immigration agents operating in the state, rather than the specific incident in which Pretti was killed.It added that officials would be “examining why additional force protection assets may not have been present to support the operation” to remove undocumented migrants from Minnesota.Miller also appeared to blame both the border agency and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for his comments on Saturday, which have since attracted criticism. Shortly after the killing, Miller called Pretti a “would-be assassin” and accused him of wanting to murder federal agents.But Miller said his comments were based on an initial statement by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who falsely said Pretti was brandishing a weapon when he approached federal agents.Video evidence later showed that the victim was not holding a gun at the time. Pretti had a sidearm on him, but agents had already removed it before he was shot multiple times at point-blank range.”The initial statement from DHS was based on reports from CBP on the ground,” Miller said in his statement.

As the White House worked to “de-escalate” tensions in Minneapolis Tuesday, a man sprayed Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with a syringe of unknown liquid at a town hall meeting, where she called for curbing the Trump administration’s anti-immigration crackdown.The White House is also evaluating whether the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who gunned down a nurse failed to follow “clear guidance” to “create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors,” deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told AFP. “We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol,” Miller said in a statement.At the town hall Tuesday night, Omar had just spoken about the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and demanded that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem “resign or face impeachment,” when a man sprang up from the front row, made a remark and sprayed the lawmaker, as security leapt to grab him. Omar raised a fist and stepped toward the attacker before returning to the podium to say: “Here’s the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand: We are Minnesota strong. And we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw on us.”Omar is a frequent target of President Donald Trump — who continues to defend Noem despite her oversight of federal immigration agents who shot and killed two US citizens this month, saying Noem would not step down and was doing a “very good job.”But after days of protests following 37-year-old Alex Pretti’s death, Trump told Fox News “we’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” while adding that it was not a “pullback.”Trump also admitted that Gregory Bovino, a hardline Border Patrol commander who is now expected to leave Minneapolis, was “a pretty out-there kind of a guy” whose presence may not have helped the situation, and sent top US border security official Tom Homan to meet with officials in the city.Trump told reporters that he rejected the “assassin” label used by a top aide to describe the 37-year-old nurse, adding that he wants “a very honorable and honest investigation.” But he criticized Pretti for carrying the licensed firearm that was taken off him before he was shot.”I don’t like that he had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines,” the president said.- ‘Pretty out there’ -After meeting with Homan Tuesday, Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement they discussed the “serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis,” and the city “will not enforce federal immigration laws.”Just weeks after federal immigration agents shot and killed US citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis, Pretti’s death sparked national outrage and added to a litany of complaints of abusive tactics.Good, a mother of three, was shot by an agent at point blank range in her car on January 7.The killings capped months of escalating violence in which masked, unidentified, and heavily armed ICE and border patrol agents have grabbed people they accuse of violations off the streets.Despite multiple videos showing that Pretti posed no threat, Bovino and Noem initially claimed Pretti had intent to kill federal agents, calling him a “domestic terrorist.”- ‘Incompetent’ -Republican Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday that agents involved in the shooting should be put on administrative leave, later adding that the immigration enforcement leaders would testify before the Congress next month. Centrist Democratic Senator John Fetterman said “grossly incompetent” Noem should be fired.The turmoil could even result in a fresh US government shutdown, with Democrats calling for broad reforms to federal immigration operations at DHS and threatening to block approval of it funding, as part of the spending bills that go up for votes in the Senate later this week.The judicial branch also pushed back on Trump’s actions in Minneapolis Tuesday, when a US judge blocked the deportation of a five-year-old boy and his father who were detained last week in another incident that went viral. Liam Conejo Ramos — wearing a fluffy blue hat and his school backpack — was photographed being detained by a federal agent, who school officials said was using the preschool student as “bait” to draw out his family, who are asylum seekers from Ecuador.At a protest at the Minnesota State Capitol Tuesday, veteran Brian Furgen, 55, told AFP that Americans need immigration and customs enforcement agents who “know how to do the job without harming the community, without killing people, without hurting people, without imprisoning people that are law abiding.””That’s what they are doing here, that’s ridiculous.”burs-dk/sms/sla/jgc