NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Nermeen Shaikh in New York.

AMY GOODMAN: And I’m Amy Goodman in Washington, D.C.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: President Trump can keep control of some 4,000 National Guard troops deployed around Los Angeles, for now. Late Thursday, an appeals court stayed an earlier order to return authority to Governor Gavin Newsom which had found Trump’s federalizing of California National Guard troops was, quote, “illegal.” Trump has said he’s going to do this in a number of cities around the country. A three-judge panel will hear the case again on Tuesday.

This comes as immigrant rights protests continue in Los Angeles, and mass protests are planned nationwide this Saturday in more than 2,000 cities, towns and villages. People are calling it No Kings Day. On the same day, President Trump is hosting a military parade in Washington, D.C., to celebrate his 79th birthday.

On Thursday, we spoke about all of this and more with Democratic Congressmember Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. She’s the first Somali American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and one of the first Muslim women in Congress, along with Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

AMY GOODMAN: As Congressmember Ilhan Omar joined us from the Cannon Rotunda, just, oh, a little ways down the road from where I am right now, I began by asking her about the troops in the streets in Los Angeles, the thousands of National Guard, the Marines, and tanks rolling through the capital, ahead of President Trump’s military parade, which is happening on June 14th, on his 79th birthday. Abrams tanks will roll through the streets. Some are saying this parade could cost taxpayers up to $100 million. I asked the congressmember to talk about the militarization of the country right now and also to tie it to her memoir, which is titled This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: We are in the midst of the creation of a police state, where, you know, you have masked, armed men who are in plainclothes that are snatching people off the streets, unwilling to identify themselves. You have the military being deployed in our streets. My god, this is America. You have states’ rights being disregarded, so, you know, a constitutional crisis that’s being created in front of our eyes.

And the same week where we have a president who has deployed the military, who are trained to kill our enemies — not Americans, but our enemies — are in our streets, it’s the same week that we are going to have a military parade. Can you imagine that image that is going to be coming out of our country? I mean, I grew up in a dictatorship, and I don’t even remember ever witnessing anything like that, to have a democracy, a beacon of hope for the world, to now be turned into one of the — you know, one of the worst countries, where the military are in our streets, without any regard for people’s constitutional rights, while our president is spending millions of dollars prompting himself up like a failed dictator with a military parade.

It is really shocking, and it should be a wake-up call for all Americans to say, “This is not the country we were born in. This is not the country we believe in. This is not the country our Founding Fathers imagined. And this is not the country that is supported by our Constitution, our ideals, our values.” And we should all collectively be out in the streets rejecting what is taking place this week.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Representative Omar, President Trump has issued an extremely dire warning to anyone who protests on the day itself, Saturday, in Washington, D.C. This is what he said.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And we’re going to be celebrating big on Saturday. We’re going to have a lot of — and if there’s any protest that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force, by the way. For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force. And I haven’t even heard about a protest, but, you know, this is people that hate our country. But they will be met with very heavy force.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Congressmember Omar, your response to what he said, and also this very dangerous point he makes that protesters are those who hate this country?

REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yeah, I mean, I think the person who is in the process of destroying our country should look in the mirror — and that’s Trump — and notice that he is the one that has hatred for the values that we have here in America and everything that we have built.

The reality is protest, dissent is constitutionally protected. That is the — everybody’s First Amendment right in this country. And the fact that we have a president that is threatening to use heavy force, which, again, begs the question: Is he going to send people — you know, is the police going to be that heavy force? Is the military going to be that heavy force? What is a heavy force? And why, all the sudden, are Americans not allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights?

And again, this should be alarming to Americans to understand that we are headed towards a dangerous path. And it will be a dark day if we do not stand up for ourselves, for our Constitution and for our republic.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Congressmember Omar, you’ve actually been very vocal in another deeply unconstitutional move that the Trump administration has made, namely the picking up and detaining of students who protested the policies of Israel in Gaza. You’ve said dissent is constitutionally protected — which, of course, it is — and that what’s happening now in the U.S. is effectively a constitutional coup. So, if you could talk about specifically what happened to those students and what role you see the courts playing in dissenting and arguing against what the Trump administration is trying to do?

REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yeah, I have been tickled a little bit by the idea that, as an immigrant, I care about the Constitution more than many of my colleagues, who seem to think, you know, constitutional protections in this country are only for those who are citizens, and have not really read or understood that regardless of what your status is in this country, that you have due process, that you have access to constitutional rights.

And what we are seeing is people who, you know, write an op-ed saying the genocide in Gaza should end, people who protest, people who have become a spokesperson for young people in college who are standing up are somehow a threat to our national security and foreign policy. What they are a threat to is the status quo of continuing to do the same thing and being complacent with a genocide that’s happening in Gaza with our tax dollars.

And I think it’s really important to also remember that almost every single person that has been detained that they did not ship in the middle of the night, the courts have intervened, and including people like Mahmoud Khalil. The courts have said he cannot be deported and he needs to be released, and they have until the 13th of this month, which is tomorrow, to facilitate his release from detention.

And, you know, the Maryland man that they took to El Salvador, to that dungeon, he has been returned. And I know that they’re pressing charges against him, but the reality of why they returned him is that they understood that they would be held in contempt of court, because the Supreme Court said they have to facilitate his return. And so, they are fabricating a case in order to save face, because they continue to say that they are not able to get him back into the country, and quickly realized that they are going to be in trouble.

So, all this chaos is wasting tax dollar, taxpayer dollar. It is creating chaos. It is jamming up our court systems, that have real work in front of them. But it is not doing the thing that they want it to do, because we are a constitutional republic, and our Constitution will hold.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, Congressmember Omar, about what happened on Monday, 75 House Democrats voting in support of a resolution that included a line praising ICE, expressing, quote, “gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, for protecting the homeland.” You are trying to pass a law that holds police accountable for violence against protesters. I was wondering if you can talk about the bill that you introduced in May, and also the Trump administration’s move to lift the consent decrees holding police accountable, including your own home city of Minneapolis.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yeah, I mean, people who take an oath to serve and protect should be held accountable when they cause harm in our communities. And right now the only remedy that exists for a lot of people when police brutalize them is to sue the city and get some money, while that police officer continues to be on the force and does not face any criminal charges. Just the fact that you wear a uniform and wear a badge does not mean you have a right to harm people who are out doing — you know, participating in protest. That is their constitutional right to be able to do so. So, our legislation gets at that.

It is unfortunate that, you know, some Democrats keep falling into this trap in supporting legislation because they do not have the ability to stand up for what they believe. And that is why we are lacking credibility as a party, because, you know, when we say we are for the protection of immigrants, that we are for creating a humane immigration policy, that we want to protect our neighbors, and then you have, you know, members of the Democratic Party in Congress take that vote that they took, it becomes a little hard for people to believe that we are sincere in the policies that we push for. So I do hope that my colleagues realize that they are causing more harm to the credibility of Democrats when they are wishy-washy on some of these policies than they are doing to help the country secure its borders and have an immigration policy that is just.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Representative Ilhan Omar, Minnesota congressmember. We spoke with her on Thursday.

Coming up, we look at the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID and what it means for people around the world to lose this critical lifeline. Stay with us.

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NERMEEN SHAIKH: “Cariñito” by Lila Downs, performing in our Democracy Now! studio.