by Steven Richards
The search Monday of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., home by federal agents was focused on the Minnesota Democrat’s immigration history, raising the prospects of legal and denaturalization risks for the Somalian-born lawmaker.
Federal agents with the Homeland Security Investigations division of the Department of Homeland Security were seen outside Omar’s home in the early hours of Monday.
HSI “executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement. The spokesperson also confirmed that the raid is “part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”
Multiple outlets report that the search was part of a criminal fraud investigation into the Omar’s immigration paperwork.
The New York Times reports that a new investigation targeting Omar was opened in recent months and centers on her immigration history. The probe is focusing, in part, on whether Omar’s late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, lied or omitted information when he sought citizenship in the United States.
Federal authorities determining Omar’s father falsified his citizenship application paperwork could lead to them pursuing a criminal or denaturalization case against the congresswoman because she, in turn, would have been granted citizenship from a father who was ineligible for naturalization.
Omar said Monday that the raid on her home was an attempt by President Donald Trump to target his political enemies.
“I will not be silenced,” she wrote in a post to X.
“I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation,” Omar said.
Jacklyn Rogers, Omar’s communications director, told Just the News in a statement: “This raid by Trump’s DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies.”
“For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back,” she continued. “Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid. The congresswoman has done nothing wrong. No president should be able to use the power of the federal government to intimidate his political enemies.”
In reaction, Rep. Rashida Tlaib said, “DHS raiding a member of congress’s home is exactly what a fascist police state does.This president should not be able to weaponize the federal government against political enemies. I stand with Ilhan.”
The Trump administration has specifically prioritized investigating the Somali community. Last year, Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Joseph Edlow told Just the News his agency found “mass patterns” of marriage and other immigration fraud in Minneapolis, home to the state’s large Somali community.
Operation Twin Shield, which was conducted by USCIS in coordination with the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, flagged over 1,000 cases suspected of involving “fraud or ineligibility indicators,” the agency shared in an after-action announcement.
Omar, who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, also faced allegations that she married a relative –in this case, her brother – to help him remain in the country. That allegation first surfaced during her 2016 election campaign for a seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives. At the same time, allegations emerged that when she married her second husband she was still married to her first.
It is possible that the allegations are also under investigation by federal authorities. Just the News filed a Freedom of Information Act request in January seeking the records pertaining to any investigations conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement into such allegations. ICE refused to turn over the records, citing a legal exemption for ongoing investigations.
At the time the allegations were first reported, Omar’s campaign vehemently denied them.
“Allegations that she married her brother and is legally married to two people are categorically ridiculous and false,” said then-campaign spokesman Ben Goldfarb.
No court records, DNA evidence, or other documentary proof has ever substantiated that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, Omar’s legal husband from 2009–2017, was her biological brother.
The timeline of Omar’s relationships, however, is not in dispute. The 44-year-old was born in Somalia and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the United States in 1995.
In 2002, Omar applied for a marriage license to marry Ahmed Hirsi, but did not marry him civilly, only in a Muslim ceremony. In 2008, she separated from Hirsi, and a year later married Elmi.
In 2011, Omar and Elmi separated with a Muslim divorce, and a year later she began another relationship with Hirsi. After her election to the Minnesota house, she filed for a formal divorce from Elmi in 2017. She married Hirsi in 2018.
The confusion around the timeline and allegations that Elmi is a direct relative have sparked political attacks on Omar from Trump.
He has repeatedly invoked the claim that Omar “married her brother” in order to get him into the country, accusing her of committing immigration fraud.
“She married her brother in order to get in, right? She married her brother. Can you imagine if Donald Trump married his sister?” He also called for her removal, saying, “We ought to get her the hell out,” Trump said at a December 2025 rally.
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan first said in December of last year that the Department of Homeland Security was investigating whether Omar committed immigration fraud.
Earlier this year, Vice President JD Vance also confirmed that the Justice Department was reviewing allegations.
“I don’t want to prejudge an investigation,” Vance said. “It certainly seems like something fishy is there. If we think that there’s a crime, we’re going to prosecute that crime, and that’s something the Department of Justice is looking at right now.”
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Steven Richards is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
Photo “Jim Jordan” by Jim Jordan.
