'I am illegal': Democrat makes stunning revelation on Minnesota House floor

Rep. Kaohly Her, DFL-St. Paul, revealed a stunning detail about herself during a debate on the Minnesota House floor Monday: She came to the United States as a child illegally.

“I am illegal in this country. My parents are illegal here in this country,” Her said.

Her said she was trying to inspire empathy in her Republican colleagues, who were about to vote to take away state-funded health care for adults in Minnesota without permanent legal status.

“I tell you this story because I want you to think about who it is that you are calling illegal,” Her told House Republicans on the floor. “My family was just smarter in how we illegally came here. We had more privileges and more ability, which is why we came here in that way.”

The fourth-term lawmaker’s remarks quickly ignited a firestorm in right-wing media, which questioned her legal status and ability to cast a vote in U.S. elections. One of her Republican colleagues, Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville, called for her to be investigated, and she’s already receiving threats and insults on social media.

In an interview with the Reformer, Her clarified that she and her parents are U.S. citizens. Her is a refugee from Laos and moved to the U.S. when she was three. Her’s parents took their U.S. citizenship test, and Her became a citizen as a minor when she was in middle school, she said.

Her said her father technically broke the law when he filled out paperwork for the family to come to the U.S. as refugees. He did so to expedite the process to come to the U.S., though they would have come to America anyway.

Her came to America along with a wave of Hmong refugees, who were critical allies to the United States during the Vietnam War and the “secret war” in Laos, assisting in intelligence operations, disrupting north Vietnamese supply routes and combating communism’s spread through Southeast Asia. Her’s grandfather was a colonel in the war, she said. As American allies, they faced violent recriminations from the communists after the war, which is why the U.S. welcomed them here, especially through laws like the Refugee Act of 1980.

Her’s father worked at the U.S. consulate, and he processed their family’s paperwork in a way to expedite their timeline to immigrate to the U.S. as refugees. People who were set to come to the U.S. as refugees could do so quicker if they had family connections to the military, CIA or USAID.

Her said her family didn’t qualify for those pipelines, but an uncle — in the Hmong familial sense of the word, i.e., a family friend — worked for USAID. When Her’s father processed the refugee paperwork, he claimed familial connection to the friend that worked for USAID, which wasn’t accurate.

“Technically, you would say my father broke the law, right? But we would have come anyway,” Her said.

Minnesota House Republicans, alongside DFL House caucus leader Melissa Hortman, voted Monday to strip MinnesotaCare from undocumented adults. The Senate later voted to do the same.

Her said she wishes she would have been more clear about her citizenship status on the House floor, but she doesn’t regret telling her story.

“The truth is until people see a face with somebody and a situation, it is really easy for us to other each other,” she said, using “other” as a verb. “And as somebody who’s been marginalized because of who I am my whole life, I never want to do that to somebody else,” Her said.