Minneapolis, Minnesota – Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar held a town hall on Tuesday where she spoke candidly about a number of local and national issues, including in the areas of climate action, criminal justice reform, and foreign policy.

The congresswoman started off by enumerating the ways she has worked to secure funding for local projects and listed some of the services her office provides to constituents, including immigrants.

She also spoke about the Line 3 pipeline, saying it "threatens the health and safety of millions, especially our indigenous neighbors."

Omar once again stressed that she is urging the Biden administration to retract the permit for Line 3.

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Then she turned to audience questions on a variety of topics, including voting rights, criminal justice, and foreign policy, among other issues.

After speaking on the recently announced voting rights compromise, which Omar said "does some important stuff" but still includes voter ID measures that "should raise some alarms," she turned to criminal justice reform.

With negotiations around the For the People Act voting rights bill wrapping up, she said there is finally some space to advance the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which passed in the House in March but has stalled in the Senate.

She also said she has co-sponsored the People's Justice Guarantee championed by fellow Squad member Ayanna Pressley, which aims to create a bill of rights for incarcerated people.

At the local level, Omar expressed her support for the Yes 4 Minneapolis (Y4M) charter amendment, which seeks to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a Department of Public Safety and eliminate minimum staffing requirements for police.

But a Hennepin County judge on Tuesday struck down the ballot question, saying the language was "unreasonable and misleading." Yes4M supporters are now asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to intervene, according to the Star Tribune.

"This is the opposite of what democracy should produce. The people had a vision for what they wanted, and there's a judge, there's a mayor, there is a police chief, and their monied friends who are telling us we can't have a city that is flexible to our needs and to our demands. How else are we supposed to make progress if we can't do that?" she said.

Several constituents asked Omar about foreign policy, especially related to Afghanistan and China.

As a junior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Omar has an intimate look at many of the decisions and conversations on foreign-policy matters within Congress.

Responding to questions on Afghanistan, Omar mentioned her inquiries during Monday's House committee hearing with Antony Blinken, where she questioned the secretary of state on an August 29 drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians.

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"It's astonishing to me that we continue to, again, gloss over the victims of our war on terror, and we continue to speak about collateral damage and the accidental deaths without realizing that they are somebody's brother, somebody's sister, somebody's son, somebody's father, somebody's grandfather, somebody's mother."

"These are human beings that didn't do anything but wake up that morning or go to sleep that night and found themselves blown to pieces."

She once again called for greater transparency and accountability when it comes to such drone strikes, as it is taxpayer dollars that end up funding the attacks.

Omar also picked up the old issue of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility: "We have over three dozen people in Gitmo who have not been charged, who have not been convicted, who have been there for nearly two decades, who have been tortured, who have lost their youth."

Despite pushback, Omar said she remains committed to pursuing justice in US foreign policy: "A lot of people tell me, as a Muslim, as an immigrant, in this country, these are not my best things to lead on because there are a lot of Americans that are already suspicious of me, but I believe the Americans that elected me, the people that I represent, want me to lead on these issues."

Later in the town hall, she was asked about US relations with China and Hong Kong. She replied, "The way that we engage with China is driven by the kind of collaborations we want to have and how much we are willing to upset China by our policy stances."

In face of that opposition, the congresswoman reaffirmed her dedication to pushing the administration to stand up for the rights of people in Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as Uyghur Muslims.

Though she was asked some tough questions, Omar's excitement to speak with her constituents was palpable. Describing herself as an "extreme extrovert," she said attendees had no idea how happy she was to be with them in person.