If Donald Trump has his way Yassin Omar would be officially branded a suspected terrorist; forced to register in a federal database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In reality, Omar is in a government database of sorts. Omar is working for the Minnesota governor\u2019s office as the executive assistant to Kimberly Holmes, general counsel to Gov. Mark Dayton and Lt. Gov. Tina Smith. Along the way he is broadening people\u2019s perspectives and erasing negative preconceptions about Muslims and Somali-Americans \u2013 especially young Somali men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMuslims, African-Americans, Native-Americans, Hispanics; Asians \u2026 all of us understand the subcultural bias that exists in parts of America. This has always been happening, but now it has a larger platform because of Trump,\u201d said Omar. \u201cBut it just makes me work harder to prove that I belong (at the table of government and policy). As they say, if you\u2019re not at the table, you\u2019re on the menu. I\u2019m here to stay. I\u2019m not going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Born in Somalia, Omar, first came to America as a young child and lived in Portland, Maine before moving to Hopkins and graduating from Hopkins High School. With a degree in finance from Hamline University, Omar\u2019s path to working in government was like much of his life before \u2013 nontraditional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn college my interest was in business and finance, but I always had an interest in how money and government intersected,\u201d said Omar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upon graduation, Omar began working at the Apple Store in Uptown helping small businesses incorporate Apple products and services into their businesses. It was a good job but he knew that wasn\u2019t his \u201clife\u2019s calling.\u201d Always big on networking, Omar made contacts within the Dayton administration and in 2013 he joined the governor\u2019s office as a constituent outreach liaison. In that role, he assisted constituents who contacted the office, led the high school pages program, coordinated proclamations for the state and ran logistics for the governor and lieutenant governor during public events and speaking engagements. It was in his role as a logistics coordinator that Holmes recognized Omar\u2019s talents and tapped him to work in her office as her executive assistant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since joining Holmes\u2019 staff Omar said his future is a bit in flux \u2013 but in a good way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBefore I started working with Kim I was focused on going back to school and getting my MBA, but working with Kim has opened up my curiosity in law and now the big decision is to go to law school or business school,\u201d said Omar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 25-year-old said if he does choose law school he will focus in an area of practice that is, well \u2026 nontraditional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve become passionate about environmental justice, so I would make that my area of practice,\u201d said Omar. \u201cA lot of people of color don\u2019t think much about environmental justice, but the people of Flint (Mi.) saw firsthand the impact environmental issues have on all people, including people of color.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Donald Trump has his way Yassin Omar would be officially branded a suspected terrorist; forced to register in a federal database. In reality, Omar is in a government database of sorts. Omar is working for the Minnesota governor\u2019s office as the executive assistant to Kimberly Holmes, general counsel to Gov. Mark Dayton and Lt. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2380,2719,2718],"class_list":["post-4334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-gov-mark-dayton","tag-kimberly-holmes","tag-yassin-omar","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-14.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4336,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4334\/revisions\/4336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}