Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib got emotional on Monday during a joint press conference with Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar in which they slammed Israel for imposing restrictions on them traveling to the country, going so far as to call for Congress to get involved.

“We in the United States have a constructive role to play,” Omar said, according to Fox News. “We give Israel more than $3 million in aid every year. This is predicated on them being an important ally in the region, and the only democracy in the Middle East. But, denying a visit to duly elected members of Congress is not consistent with being an ally.”

Sign Petition: Remove Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee 

Omar added that we “have a responsibility to conduct oversight over our government’s foreign policy and what happens with the millions of dollars we send in aid.”

The two congresswomen held the press conference at the Minnesota State Capitol Building with Palestinian-American and Jewish-American residents of Minnesota who claimed that they had been adversely affected by travel restrictions to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Omar said they were holding the press conference to “highlight the human costs of the occupation and travel restrictions on Palestinians and others.”

“The decision to ban me and my colleague, the first two Muslim-American women elected to Congress, is nothing less than an attempt by an ally of the United States to suppress our ability to do our jobs as elected officials,” Omar said.

Tlaib was seen holding back tears as she talked about visiting Jerusalem as a child.

“As a young girl visiting Palestine to see my grandparents and extended family, I watched as my mother had to go through dehumanizing checkpoints – even though she was a United States citizen and a proud American,” she said. When Tlaib talked about discussions with her Palestinian grandmother, who she’d planned to visit on this trip, she completely choked up.

“She said I’m her dream manifested,” Tlaib said. “I’m her free bird so why would I come back and be caged and bow down?”

“What I tell Rashida all the time is that you don’t ever allow people to enjoy your tears,” Omar interjected. “I say that all the time. There are so many people invested in our pain, in our struggle, in seeing us broken.”

This came hours after Donald Trump’s White House fired back at reports that Democrats may be planning retaliatory moves in Congress against two top American and Israeli diplomats.

“Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have a well-documented history of anti-Semitic comments, anti-Semitic social media posts and anti-Semitic relationships,” said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley. “Israel has the right to prevent people who want to destroy it from entering the country – and Democrats’ pointless congressional inquiries here in America cannot change the laws Israel has passed to protect itself.”