by Steven Richards
The federal government is refusing to turn over records related to an investigation conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement into allegations of immigration fraud by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05), citing a legal exemption for ongoing investigations.
Just the News filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the records in January, seeking the records pertaining to any investigations conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement into the allegations that Rep. Omar, who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, married a relative in order to help him remain in the country.
Omar has denied the allegations. 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.
“ICE has determined that the information you requested is being withheld in full pursuant to Title 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A). Disclosure of any responsive records at this time could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” ICE told Just the News in response to the FOIA in May.
The FOIA exemption cited by the agency “applies to records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes when their release could disrupt such proceedings,” the reply reads.
The Department of Justice guidelines for invoking exemption 7(A) say that doing so requires a two-step assessment. “First, there must be a ‘reasonable likelihood’ of a pending or contemplated law enforcement proceeding,” the guidance says. “Second, release of the information must be reasonably expected to cause some articulable harm to that proceeding.”
Harm includes things such as exposing the case to witness tampering or tipping off suspects, according to the guidance. The exemption makes no distinction between criminal, civil, and administrative cases.
Omar’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Some say it’s an open-secret known about as early as 2016
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan first said in December last year that the Department of Homeland Security was investigating whether Omar committed immigration fraud by allegedly marrying her brother, Just the News reported. “We’re pulling the records, we’re pulling the files,” Homan said in an interview with Newsmax last year. “We’re looking at it […] I’m running that down this week.
Earlier this year, Vice President JD Vance confirmed that the Justice Department was reviewing the 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.”
The allegation that Omar’s second husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, is related to her, or even her brother, 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.
Omar denies allegations related to her matrimonial status
Omar’s campaign vehemently denied both allegations. “Allegations that she married her brother and is legally married to two people are categorically ridiculous and false,” said then-campaign spokesman Ben Goldfarb.
The timeline of Omar’s relationships, however, is not in dispute. Omar 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.
Tax records released as part of a 2019 Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board investigation showed that Omar filed joint federal income tax returns with Hirsi for the 2014 and 2015 tax years, while she remained legally married to Elmi. The board’s findings, detailed in its investigative file, confirmed the returns claimed “married filing jointly” status with Hirsi during an overlapping period when Omar’s civil marriage to Elmi had not yet been dissolved.
Tax documents substantiate a complex personal life
Minnesota-based news outlets Alpha News reported on the documents in connection with broader questions surrounding Omar’s marital timeline, noting that the joint filings with Hirsi occurred years before the couple’s legal marriage in 2018 and while the earlier marriage to Elmi was still on the books. The board ordered Omar to reimburse her campaign committee for related accounting work used to correct the returns and assessed additional penalties for other campaign-finance violations; her campaign at the time stated that all tax filings were “fully compliant with all applicable tax law.”
Officials determined then, that the disclosures did not establish criminal tax fraud and no charges resulted from the state probe. They did, however, document that Omar’s tax filings reflected simultaneous claims of marital status with both men across the overlapping years.
President Donald Trump 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.
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Steven Richards is an investigative reporter at Just the News. Christina Botteri is the Executive Editor of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow her on X at @christinakb.
Photo “Rep. Ilhan Omar” by Rep Ilhan Omar.
