Federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations raided Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., home, seizing her cellphone, personal computers, passport, and notebooks under a court-authorized search warrant tied to a federal criminal investigation into potential immigration fraud. That’s not a rumor. That’s what happened.
Omar and her husband were the only people home when agents showed up. She was present for at least part of the search, and according to a report from MS NOW, she did not provide passwords to any of the seized devices. Agents stayed for an extended period and were seen hauling out several boxes of documents and other materials. A regular Monday morning for the rest of us, apparently.
The search warrant spelled out potential violations involving immigration fraud, false statements in immigration proceedings, and conspiracy. U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh approved the warrant but limited prosecutors’ access to Omar’s records, citing constitutional protections for members of Congress. So yes, even the judge pumped the brakes a little for her, and agents still walked out with boxes. According to the federal immigration fraud investigation, the inquiry focuses on whether Omar or her late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, listed her age as 17 rather than 18 on relevant documents when he applied for citizenship. That distinction matters a lot, because under the rules then in effect, minors could automatically obtain derivative citizenship through a parent’s naturalization.
Omar arrived in the United States as a refugee from Somalia around 1995 and became a citizen in 2000. She has stated she obtained citizenship before turning 18 through her father’s naturalization. The problem is that public records and biographies had previously listed her birth year as 1981, while her current congressional biographical entries list 1982. A one-year difference. Totally innocent, right?
A separate report from the New York Post, citing emails from the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, found that Omar’s congressional staff asked the library in May 2019 to change her listed birth year from 1981 to 1982. The library director noted in an email that staff were simultaneously working to correct the year on Wikipedia and in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Nothing says “totally routine records correction” like a coordinated multi-platform scrub of your birth year.
More than a dozen subpoenas have been issued in connection with a Minnesota grand jury reviewing the family’s immigration records, including one to Omar’s sister. The Wall Street Journal reported that the investigation aims to build a case that could strip Omar of her citizenship and lead to deportation proceedings. The administration has also expanded the use of civil denaturalization actions, which carry no statute-of-limitations constraints like criminal charges do. That’s a long runway for prosecutors.
Omar has described the raid as an attempt to target political opponents and denied any wrongdoing. No charges have been filed against her as of this reporting. She’s free to keep calling it political, but the grand jury, the subpoenas, the boxes of seized documents, and the birth year that somehow needed fixing in three places at once are all doing their own talking. Stay tuned, because this one is far from over, and the paperwork trail isn’t going anywhere.
If I was a corrupt politician, then I’d probably say it was politically motivated too. I think most people just want this non-American out of our government system, and deportation would just be a bonus.
