Perhaps if she had to “go back” to Somalia, she’d learn to appreciate America.

That’s the message coming from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — who suggested Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) might have a newfound love of the country that took her in if she could see her home country by comparison.

Paul prefaced his comments by noting he’s “not saying we forcibly send her anywhere” — but clearly a little perspective couldn’t hurt for a person who says America is a terrible country.

“She has the honor of actually winning a seat in Congress and she says we’re a terrible country?” he said to a Breitbart reporter.

“I think that’s about as ungrateful as you can get.”

Give her time, Senator. Give her time.

She gets more and more ungrateful by the day, in our view.

“While I’m not saying we forcibly send her anywhere, I’m willing to contribute to buy her a ticket to go visit Somalia,” Paul added.

“I think she can look and maybe learn a little bit about the disaster that is Somalia, that has no capitalism, has no God-given rights guaranteed in the Constitution, and has about seven different tribes that have been fighting each other for the last 40 years.”

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“And then maybe after she visited Somalia for a while, she might come back and appreciate America more.”

Echoes Trump. Paul’s comments echo those of President Donald Trump, who kicked off this controversy with a tame suggestion that Omar and other members of the so-called “squad” — Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — should leave or “go back” if they hate America so much.

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While the White House has contended he meant they should solve problems in their own districts, many have interpreted it to be a shot at Omar.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) explained Omar’s past when he suggested her life experience was worse than those of the family members of Holocaust survivors.

She “had to flee the country to escape violence and spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp before coming to the United States,” he said.

So bad was her childhood that, as Paul suggests, you’d think she’d have a great appreciation for America. Au contraire …

Omar trashes America. In a recent op-ed published in The New York Times, Omar whined about allegedly experiencing prejudice in America since day one “as a visibly Muslim woman.”

“The America we arrived in was different from the one my grandfather had hoped to find,” she wrote. “The land of opportunity he imagined was in fact full of challenges.”

In previous interviews, the congresswoman has blasted Americans, saying, “Ignorance really is pervasive in many parts of this country.”

“She came here and we fed her, we clothed her, she got welfare, she got school, she got health care,” said Sen. Paul.

She has mocked Americans fears of al-Qaida and dismissed 9/11 as an event in which “some people did something.”

Paul lit into her for these and other reasons.

“I’m in a town where we have a lot of people who are refugees, who have come — some from Somalia, some from Bosnia,” he told Breitbart. “I’ve never heard one of them say that America is a terrible place or be unappreciative of our country. Most of them are thankful.”

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“I’ve met people who have come here from behind the Iron Curtain. They got away from communism,” Paul added. “They’re some of the best Americans we have because they really appreciate how great our country is.”

“And then I hear Rep. Omar say, ‘Oh, America is a terrible place. I’d love there to be justice and there’s no justice here.’ It’s like, she came here and we fed her, we clothed her, she got welfare, she got school, she got health care.”

Sounds terrible, Ms. Omar.

If that’s the case, Paul has an airplane ticket that might interest you.

This piece originally appeared in The Political Insider and is used by permission.

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