Rep. Ilhan Omar could face decades behind bars, lose her American citizenship and, along with it, her House seat if federal investigators uncover evidence of criminal wrongdoing, legal experts warn about the probe that brought federal agents to her doorstep.
Federal authorities are said to be scrutinizing how the Minnesota Democrat obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the U.S. in 1995. Investigators are looking into the actions of both Ms. Omar and her deceased father, who was from Somalia and brought her to the U.S. from a refugee camp in Kenya.
The scope of the investigation into Ms. Omar is unclear after federal agents on Monday raided her home in the District of Columbia, seizing her cellphone, laptop computer, notebooks and her passport.
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Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the investigation focused on potential crimes related to her family’s immigration paperwork.
The probe could include allegations that Ms. Omar committed immigration fraud by lying about her age, entered into a sham marriage with her brother to obtain immigration benefits, and falsified financial disclosures to Congress.
No criminal charges have been filed.
Ms. Omar has denied wrongdoing and said she is the victim of “baseless lies and smear campaigns” by President Trump.
“This isn’t a legitimate law enforcement action – it is an authoritarian move to silence an opponent right before an election where he and his party will be rejected by Americans in historic proportions,” her office said in a statement to The Washington Times.
Mr. Trump said he was not involved in ordering the raid.
The raid happened just weeks before the Nov. 3 elections in which Ms. Omaris is heavily favored to win reelection in her Minneapolis-area district. Still, it is within the timeframe when the Justice Department traditionally avoids overt actions that could affect an election.
Obtaining a federal warrant and ensuing raid suggests investigators have moved beyond simply reviewing allegations and are now gathering evidence. A federal judge must find probable cause that evidence of a crime would be discovered at Ms. Omar’s house before authorizing the warrant.
Federal agents have also issued over a dozen grand jury subpoenas as part of the investigation, including to members of her family, a source told The Washington Times.
A grand jury has been convened in Minnesota.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro has said several investigations related to Ms. Omar are underway, including her office’s inquiry into the lawmaker’s finances.
Matt O’Brien, Deputy Executive Director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform and a former immigration judge, said the case appears to be both a criminal investigation and a civil denaturalization inquiry, which could result in an indictment, a civil filing, or both.
“Agents are likely seeking personal records, electronic communications and other documents pertaining to Ilhan Omar’s identity, her father’s identity and position in the Somali government, Ilhan Omar’s actual date of birth, age and Ilhan Omar’s alleged marriage to her brother,” he said. “Given the ongoing allegations that Ms. Omar has already been heavily involved in the benefit fraud, there is a possibility that agents may encounter evidence of other crimes.”
Under federal law, document and visa fraud are punishable by up to 10 years in prison; a sham marriage to evade immigration laws is punishable by up to five years in prison; fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship is punishable by 10 years in prison and loss of citizenship.
Mr. O’Brien said it is not uncommon for immigration fraud charges to be paired with mail or wire fraud, perjury, identity theft and conspiracy charges, which can result in additional prison time and fines.
The U.S. Constitution requires members of the House to be U.S. citizens, so if Ms. Omar is denaturalized, she would lose her seat in Congress.
The federal probe of Ms. Omar appears to center on the immigration paperwork filed by her father, including her date of birth, during his naturalization process in 2000. Ms. Omar’s father listed her as 17, but if it turns out she was already 18 and was no longer a minor when her father filed the citizenship application, she could be denaturalized and potentially deported.
Ms. Omar said she became a citizen before her 18th birthday and she received citizenship as a minor through her dad’s naturalization process.
Conflicting records list Ms. Omar’s birth year as either 1981 or 1982, and her official biography lists her birthday as Oct. 4, 1982. If she was born in 1982, she would have been 17 during much of 2000 and likely eligible for naturalization as a minor through her dad’s paperwork.
However, earlier Minnesota legislative records listed her birth year as 1981, in which case she had already turned 18 when her father became a citizen, and she would not have qualified as a minor.
“She can’t be responsible for any fraud attached to the paperwork if she was a minor and she knew it or didn’t know it,” said former immigration judge Andrew “Art” Arthur, a resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. “But if she lied about her date of birth when she got a certificate of citizenship, that is fraud.”
Mr. Arthur added that investigators could be looking for Ms. Omar’s birth certificate during the raid of her house.
The birth discrepancies gained renewed attention in 2019 after Ms. Omar’s staff urged the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library to change her birth year to 1981 from 1982. Critics have questioned why the change was made years after she entered public office and whether supporting documentation was provided.
A.J. Kern, who ran against Ms. Omar in the 2022 Democratic primary, said he requested information during the campaign about Ms. Omar’s birth year and was told the record search failed to locate proof she had been naturalized.
Investigators are also said to be reviewing the paperwork to determine if her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, lied about his background. Mohamed was a colonel in the Somali National Army during the dictatorship of Mohamed Siad Barre, whose Revolutionary Socialist Party ruled Somalia from 1969 until the regime collapsed in 1991.
Her father’s military background raises questions about whether he participated in the Barre regime’s political repression and human rights abuses such as arbitrary detention, torture and killings.
When the Barre regime collapsed, Mohamed fled to a refugee camp in Kenya.
Not only are there questions about whether he participated in the abuses, but also whether he represented himself as a teacher and not a military officer.
In her biography, Ms. Omar describes her dad as “an educator,” and a profile in the Minnesota newspaper Sahan Journal said he trained teachers for a living in Somalia. But he also rose to the rank of colonel and led a regiment during the Somali-Ethiopian war in the late 1970s.
Another allegation is that her marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi was a sham because they are biological siblings and married so he could obtain U.S. immigration status. Mr. Elmi is a British citizen, and it was Ms. Omar’s second marriage.
Ms. Omar has consistently denied that Mr. Elmi is her brother and called the allegations “absurd and offensive.” However, both Mr. Trump and Mr. Mullin have repeatedly floated the allegations.
Questions about the marriage intensified in 2019 when a Minnesota campaign finance investigation revealed that Ms. Omar had filed joint federal income tax returns in 2014 and 2015 with Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her three children, even though she was still married to Mr. Elmi.
She said she separated from Mr. Elmi under Islamic tradition in 2011 but did not obtain a legal divorce until 2017. The Minneapolis Star Tribune conducted an extensive investigation into her marriages but could neither confirm nor disprove the allegation that Mr. Elmi was her sibling.
Many Somalian government records were destroyed in 1991 following the country’s civil war, making it impossible to verify some family relationships.
Federal investigators could also be examining potential financial wrongdoing involving Ms. Omar, including dramatic fluctuations in her wealth as reported on congressional disclosure forms.
Ms. Omar’s financial disclosures valued the assets of her and her husband, Tim Mynett, a political consultant, at roughly $30 million in 2024. Yet subsequent filings reported a smaller amount, between $20,000 and $125,000.
The discrepancy raised questions about how assets were valued and whether inaccurate forms were submitted to Congress. Ms. Omar’s office said it was an accounting error.
Questions about Ms. Omar’s finances coincide with a sprawling Minnesota Feeding Our Future scandal in which over 80 defendants, most of whom are of Somali descent, have been charged or convicted of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a federally funded child nutrition program.
She has not been charged with participating in the fraud. There is no public evidence showing she benefited from the program.
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