Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., spent much of last Friday at a Minneapolis shopping center that its owner calls the largest Somali mall in the world. It was her first day back in public view since the Oct. 12 raid on her home in Washington, D.C.
The Karmel Mall of Somalia looks little like a typical American mall. Instead of brand-name shops around a food court, the four-floor building holds about 900 vendors and resembles a storage facility. Shopkeepers signal they are open by raising metal garage doors, and posted hours appear loosely observed.
Omar had lunch in the mall's dining area, where Somali, Palestinian and American flags fly at the same height. She was joined by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and members of the local Somali community. The two had just voted early at a Minneapolis polling station. Patrons greeted Omar, chatted briefly with her and posed for photos, while security guards stayed close.
The food vendors sell traditional dishes such as sambusas, bijaye and goat meat with basmati rice. Many diners ate with their hands, though Omar and her companions used forks. Elsewhere in the building, shops offer prepaid SIM cards for overseas calls, money transfers to Somalia, Kenya and other East African countries, travel arrangements to the Middle East and East Africa, traditional clothing and barber services. English is the mall's second language.
Owner Basim Sabri, who was born in Gaza, let Fox News Digital film the visit. He described the mall and the neighborhood around it as an incubator. "Many businesses start in here, and then many succeed and grow and move somewhere else, to a bigger space," he said. He added that Karmel is also the largest mall in the city of Minneapolis. The Mall of America, the largest in the country, is in nearby Bloomington.
The mall is not officially restricted to Somalis, but outsiders, especially those carrying cameras, draw scrutiny from guards and patrons. Sabri told his guards to stand down while a Fox News Digital reporter walked through earlier last week. He once banned Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, from the premises in February 2024, after Frey vetoed a City Council resolution calling for an Israel-Gaza ceasefire.
Sabri is friends with Omar and knew her late father, though he gave no details about the man's life. He posed for a photo with Omar, Ellison and an unidentified man at the lunch. In two informal interviews last Tuesday, he spoke of growing up poor in the Middle East, moving to Minneapolis to study and building a real estate business that includes several mostly Somali apartment complexes near the mall. He also arranged an interview with City Council Vice President Jamal Osman.
Sabri has a criminal record. In 2005 he was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for bribing a Minneapolis public official, and he spoke openly about that time, including a short stay at the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. He also sends his son to Institut Le Rosey, a Swiss boarding school that costs about $184,000 a year.
Sabri presented the mall as evidence that Somalis are integrating and prospering. "Yes, there's some crooks in every society," he said, in what appeared to be a nod to fraud scandals involving Minnesota's Somali community. "But my experience is that Somalis are very, very intelligent and extremely hard-working people." He invited anyone to visit and see people building businesses and pursuing the American dream.
