Minnesota State Senator and socialist mayoral contender Omar Fateh ignited controversy in a 2023 debate on illegal immigrant driver’s licenses when he publicly labeled Republican lawmakers as “terrorists.” The confrontation followed GOP Senator Glenn Gruenhagen’s invocation of post-9/11 security concerns to justify prohibiting undocumented immigrants from receiving state IDs.
Fateh fired back:
“Our immigrant community is not here to break the law. We heard them being called terrorists… a threat to our national security, and that’s a flat-out lie. You wanna know who the real threat is… They look like many of the members that sit in the front.”
He further cited a Department of Homeland Security report, highlighting domestic threats from “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race.”
Identifying as a “democratic socialist,” Fateh currently represents Minnesota’s District 62. His mayoral platform includes bold progressive policies:
- Sanctuary protections for abortion and gender-affirmation care
- Rent stabilization (similar to rent-freeze proposals by NYC socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani)
- A pledge to raise Minneapolis’s minimum wage to $20/hour by 2028 (echoing Mamdani’s $30 by 2030 proposal)
Fateh has also vowed resistance to federal immigration enforcement under President Trump. He declares the Minneapolis Police Department should refuse cooperation with ICE, asserting: “Protecting all of our communities from Donald Trump means not letting MPD interact with ICE, whether it’s for an immigration raid or not.”
With shared policy goals and progressive alignment, Fateh’s campaign appears increasingly intertwined with the broader socialist movement, including figures like Mamdani in New York City.
