Ilhan Omar makes first public appearance at Minneapolis Somali shelter

MINNEAPOLIS — It is the largest Somali shopping center in the world, according to its owner.

It’s also where Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., spent much of her Friday — marking her first day back in the public eye after the Oct. 12 raid on her Washington, D.C., home.

Fox News Digital took a look inside Somalia’s Karmel Mall, which doesn’t look like typical American malls that house brand-name boutiques located around a sprawling food court and finished with department stores.

The building, which has four floors of stores and 900 salespeople, looks more like a warehouse. When the merchants arrive, they raise their metal garage doors, signifying that their stores are open. The scheduled opening and closing times do not seem particularly strict for traders.

A sign for the Karmel Mall of Somalia in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Peter D’Abrosca/Fox News Digital)

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It was in the mall’s dining room, decorated with Somali, Palestinian and American flags flying at the same height, that Omar dined with friends from the Somali community for lunch on Friday. State Attorney General Keith Ellison was also in attendance. The ceiling of the food vendor area is painted light blue and adorned with a white star resembling the Somali flag.

Somali cafes sell traditional dishes including sambusas, a flaky fried pastry filled with meat and spices, bijaye, which is fried cornmeal similar to a silent puppy or falafel, as well as goat meat and basmati rice. Many Somalis in the mall ate only with their hands, although Omar and his acquaintances could be seen using forks during their Friday lunch.

Rep. Ilhan Omar has lunch at the Karmel Mall of Somalia in Minneapolis. Minnesota, Friday October 23, 2026. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)

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Omar – whose “real name” is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, according to sources close to the criminal investigation into the MP – was greeted by smiling shoppers at the mall, with whom she briefly chatted and posed for photos.

All the while, she and Ellison were surrounded by security guards.

Fox News Digital was granted access to the mall by its Gaza-born owner, Basim Sabri, in order to film the congresswoman’s visit just after she and Ellison voted early at a Minneapolis polling place.

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Prominent among the mall’s stores are stores selling prepaid electronic SIM cards for overseas calls and money transfer stores, including World Direct Link Corp., which offers easy ways to send money to Somalia, Kenya and other East African countries.

There are also several travel agencies offering arrangements from the United States to the Middle East and East Africa. Traditional Somali clothiers sell their products in the mall, while Somali barbers attend to customers in their own shops. English is the second language of the shopping center.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, Karmel Mall of Somalia owner Basim Sabri and Minnesota Attorney General Kieth Ellison laugh as they pose for a photo at the Minneapolis mall. (Rashid Umar Abbasi/Fox News Digital)

Elderly men, dressed in traditional Somali clothing and white brimless caps called koofiyad, sit silently on metal chairs along the mall’s open walls, many staring ahead, as if lost in thought.

“You’re at the Karmel Mall and the surrounding community next to us, and a lot of other people call it the Islamic Peace Village as well,” Sabri told Fox News Digital in an interview outside his mall. “Karmel Mall is the largest Somali mall in the world, and it is also the largest mall in the city of Minneapolis.”

The largest shopping center in the United States, the Mall of America, is located in nearby Bloomington, Minnesota.

“It’s kind of an incubator where a lot of businesses start here, and then a lot of them are successful, grow and move somewhere else, to a bigger space,” Sabri said.

The mall is not explicitly aimed at Somalis, although Sabri, a prominent local figure, once barred Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey from the premises in February 2024, after Frey vetoed a ceasefire resolution between Israel and Gaza passed by the city council.

A sign for the Karmel Mall of Somalia in Minneapolis on Tuesday, October 20, 2026. (Peter D’Abrosca/Fox News Digital)

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However, there appears to be an implicit understanding that the mall is for Somalis only. Foreigners, especially those equipped with cameras, are closely scrutinized by security guards and shopping center customers. Sabri told the guards to stand down while Fox News Digital toured the mall earlier last week.

Sabri is friends with Omar and also knew his late father, although he has not shared details about the Somali National Army colonel’s life or their relationship.

The congresswoman and Sabri posed for a photo alongside Ellison and a fourth unidentified man at the congresswoman’s luncheon. The mall owner and Ellison shared a brief but cordial conversation during the midday evening.

Fox News Digital spoke with Sabri for about an hour outside the mall in two informal interviews last Tuesday, without the cameras rolling. He said he grew up poor in the Middle East and eventually moved to study in Minneapolis, where he later built a sprawling real estate empire that included a shopping mall. Sabri has several apartment complexes near its Lake Street shopping center, occupied mainly by Somalis.

Rep. Ilhan Omar has lunch at the Karmel Mall of Somalia in Minneapolis. Minnesota, Friday October 23, 2026. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)

During the interviews, Sabri was often interrupted as he directed the employees, most of them Somalis, to tasks that they in turn attempted to complete. Members of the Somali community stopped to greet him, including a man described as Rep. Omar’s “security.” Sabri also solicited conversations with passers-by, all of whom recognized him.

The jovial character is visibly appreciated by his team and known throughout the community.

He also has the ear of local politicians, whom he repeatedly calls “whores.” He arranged an interview for Fox News Digital with Minneapolis City Council Vice President Jamal Osman.

Sabri also has an air of worldly sophistication. He sent his son to the Institut Le Rosey, nicknamed “the School of Kings”, one of the most prestigious secondary schools in the world. It is located in Switzerland and costs around $184,000 per year.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, center, and others gather at Saint Paul College during a “No Kings” protest, Saturday, March 28, 2026, in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Joe Scheller/AP Photo)

But the mall owner has also faced problems in the past.

In 2005, Sabri was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for bribing a local Minneapolis public official. He told Fox News Digital about his time in prison, which included a brief stay at the infamous Federal Correctional Institution in Leavenworth, Kansas, almost boastfully.

Sabri boasted that the partitioned Somali mall is evidence of assimilation on the part of its foreign-born tenants and part of living the “American dream,” even though the opposite seems true.

“You can see (the) Somalis not only integrating into the community, but also thriving,” he said. “Somalis are very intelligent businessmen.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Somalia’s Karmel Mall owner Basim Sabri inside the mall’s dining room. (Rashid Umar Abbasi/Fox News Digital)

“Yes, there are scammers in every society…just like in any other community,” he said, in an apparent nod to the massive fraud scandals that have hit Minnesota’s Somali community and made national headlines.

“But my experience is that Somalis are very, very intelligent and extremely hardworking people.”

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“So I would invite everyone to come to the mall and know that there are a lot of people doing great work and making a good living, learning the American dream, doing business and opening businesses that end up being very successful for them.”