Rep. Ilhan Omar says a Homeland Security Investigations agent was parked outside her monthly town hall in Richfield, Minnesota, in a vehicle with mismatched license plates, and she wants answers about why.
A Richfield police officer spotted a young woman sitting in a Ford Explorer outside the community center where Omar held the event last Thursday, WCCO reported. The officer grew suspicious of the way the woman appeared to be monitoring the building as attendees arrived. When the officer ran the SUV's plates, they came back registered to a different vehicle.
The officer approached. The woman first identified herself as "security." But after Richfield police checked with Omar's own security team, who confirmed the woman was not part of their operation, she called her supervisor and identified herself as a Homeland Security Investigations agent. She told the officer she was stationed outside the community center as part of an undercover drug operation in the area. She left the property after the call with her supervisor.
Omar posted a letter on Monday afternoon addressed to Michael McCarthy, the interim special agent in charge of HSI's St. Paul, Minnesota, office. In it, she laid out the sequence of events and pressed McCarthy on several points: why the agent was stationed outside a congressional event, how HSI learned about the town hall, what training the agent had completed, and whether HSI agents had observed any other official events or Minnesota elected officials this year.
In a written statement released the same day, Omar framed the incident as a diversion of local law enforcement resources:
"Instead of monitoring the area for those who might wish harm to me and my constituents, Richfield Police were required to devote time to investigating why an HSI agent was outside of a Congressional event in a vehicle with mismatched plates."
She added that the episode "raises serious and uncomfortable questions about the purpose of HSI's presence outside of my event." WCCO reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, HSI's parent agency, for comment, but no response was reported.
The Richfield Police Department, for its part, said it had received no advance communication from HSI about any undercover operation in the area, communication that would have "allowed them to ensure the safety of the officer and the community, as well as support HSI's broader work to combat drug trafficking," Omar's letter stated.
Omar's alarm over the HSI agent does not arrive in a vacuum. She has spent months positioning herself as one of the loudest congressional critics of federal immigration operations in Minnesota. She has publicly claimed Minnesota "defeated" ICE and called for both ICE and Customs and Border Protection to leave the state entirely.
That stance came after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse killed during an altercation with Border Patrol in Minnesota. It also followed the earlier fatal shooting of Minnesota resident Renee Good by an ICE officer. Omar described those incidents in stark terms. "Another murder by immigration enforcement in my district," she said. "ICE and CBP must leave Minnesota immediately."
Immigration enforcement was surged in Minnesota after the discovery of billions of dollars in fraud within state assistance programs, a detail that Omar's rhetoric consistently omits. The federal presence she objects to did not materialize on a whim; it followed evidence of massive taxpayer losses.
Omar has also pursued legislative efforts to curtail enforcement tools, including a push to repeal the Alien Enemies Act and block military force against terrorist organizations, moves that align with her broader campaign to dismantle the federal immigration enforcement apparatus.
Omar's town halls have become flashpoints. On January 27, 2026, a man identified as Anthony Kazmierczak, 55, rushed the stage at a Minneapolis town hall and sprayed Omar with an unknown amber-colored liquid from a syringe. The substance had a strong smell described as vinegar or ammonia, strong enough to cause Minneapolis Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw to vomit outside, the New York Post reported.
Kazmierczak was tackled, arrested, and booked into Hennepin County Jail on third-degree assault charges. U.S. Capitol Police said they were working with federal partners to ensure the suspect "faces the most serious charges possible," Breitbart reported. Omar refused medical attention and continued speaking for another 25 minutes.
That attack occurred just as Omar was calling for the abolishment of ICE and demanding the resignation of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, threatening articles of impeachment if Noem refused. The timing gave Omar's allies a political opening. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed "it is not a coincidence" that the assault followed public criticism of Omar by President Trump and Vice President Vance.
The assault also came one day after Trump confirmed that the DOJ and Congress were investigating Omar's finances. Those financial disclosures have raised their own questions, with Omar's reported net worth dropping dramatically, from as much as $30 million to potentially negative territory, in revised filings that have drawn scrutiny and little explanation from her office.
Set aside Omar's political framing for a moment. The basic facts she describes do raise legitimate procedural concerns. An HSI agent parked outside a congressional event in a vehicle with plates that don't match, offering a shifting explanation, first "security," then "undercover drug operation", without notifying local police, is sloppy at best. Richfield police had every reason to investigate, and their time was diverted from the event's actual security.
But Omar's letter does not merely ask for an operational explanation. It asks whether HSI has surveilled other elected officials and their events, a question designed to suggest political targeting. That framing deserves scrutiny of its own. Omar has spent months publicly demanding that the very agencies conducting lawful federal operations in her state pack up and leave. She has called their actions "murders." She has stayed silent on questions about her own financial disclosures while loudly accusing federal law enforcement of overreach.
HSI and ICE have not responded publicly to Omar's letter or to WCCO's request for comment. McCarthy has not issued a statement. Until those responses arrive, the agent's actual purpose outside that community center remains an open question, one that Omar has already answered for herself.
A lawmaker who demands federal agents leave her state, then demands answers when one shows up near her event, is not asking for accountability. She is building a narrative. And the facts she has disclosed so far, an agent who identified herself, explained her purpose, and left when asked, do not support the surveillance story Omar plainly wants to tell.
When you spend every week telling federal law enforcement to get out, you don't get to act surprised when their presence near you raises fewer eyebrows than your reaction to it.
