Achieving woman: Former Kenyan refugee elected to U.S. Congress

Ilhan Omar, has become the first female refugee immigrant to be elected in U.S. political history. Omar, 37, won a House seat in a strongly Democratic district in Minneapolis, Minnesota, succeeding Keith Ellison who was himself the first Muslim ever elected to Congress.

What many people might not know is that Ilhan Omar is a former refugee who fled Somalia’s civil war and spent four years at Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya.

Ms. Omar will also be the first Congress member to wear a Muslim hijab, or head scarf.

Born on October 4, 1981, Ms. Omar was the youngest of seven siblings. Her mother died when she was a young girl leaving her under the care of her father – a teacher trainer – and her grandfather; the then director of Somalia’s National Marine Transport.

At the start of the Somali civil war in 1991, Ms. Omar and her family fled to Dadaab Refugee Camp after which they emigrated to the United States in 1995 and settled in Virginia before moving to Minneapolis.

She won a seat in the state's legislature in 2016, becoming the first Somali-American lawmaker in the United States.

Ms. Omar has forged a progressive political identity. She supports free college education, housing for all, and criminal justice reform.

She opposes Trump's restrictive immigration policies, supports a universal health care system, and wants to abolish US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has conducted deportation raids.