Ilhan Omar has spent years describing America as a country of linked “systems of oppression” from the House seat that country elected her to. In 2020 she said “we cannot stop at the criminal justice system” and must “begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression wherever we find it.” In 2024 she told Somali constituents in Minneapolis that “the U.S. government will do what we tell the U.S. government to do” and that “as long as I’m in Congress no one will take Somalia’s sea.” Those are her words. They do not align with gratitude to the country that took her in as a child refugee and later sent her to Capitol Hill.
The known facts on her marriage history still leave unanswered questions. Last week in Dallas, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Benny Johnson that an investigation into her immigration story is ongoing.
Mullin said she “married her brother to try to bring him into the United States,” and that investigators are also examining “the whole family migration and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with.” He framed it as enforcement, not politics. If the department moves a case forward, he said, “it’s not a political case. It’s an actual case because they did things wrong.” There is no statute of limitations for certain false statements on immigration applications. If investigators can prove someone should not have been here in the first place, deportation remains an option. He noted that Omar’s former husband now lives in London.
A DHS spokesperson later declined to discuss specifics. “As a matter of policy, DHS does not comment on specific investigative techniques, ongoing investigations, or potential future actions.”
The focus is Omar’s 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a British citizen of Somali origin. Many have long claimed Elmi is her brother and that the marriage was meant to help him obtain U.S. immigration benefits. The rumor spread through Somali forums and news outlets and into her 2016 state House campaign. Omar has called it “absurd and offensive.” The Star Tribune later reviewed public records and could neither confirm nor rebut that Elmi is her sibling.
The probe is not limited to that marriage. Mullin said authorities are looking at the family’s broader path into the United States. Those comments track earlier statements by Border Czar Tom Homan, who in late 2025 said DHS was pulling records on Omar and reviewing visa fraud in Minnesota’s Somali community.
Vice President JD Vance has said “it certainly seems like something fishy is there,” while cautioning against prejudging an investigation. ICE, in a FOIA response to Just the News, cited “ongoing enforcement proceedings” in refusing to release records.
Omar did not enter the United States on a visa. She came as a refugee and became a citizen in 2000, as a minor, nine years before the Elmi marriage. A British passport gets a visitor through the door. It does not confer the right to stay. Marriage to a U.S. citizen does. A spouse petition is faster than a sibling petition, and that is the alleged shortcut. If the 2009 marriage was fraud, the case would concern his green card. It would not, by itself, cancel her 2000 citizenship.
Reviews of Somali visa and pandemic-aid fraud in Minnesota are another file. That fraud was a Twin Cities problem, and much of it sat in Minneapolis, the district Omar represents. Her congressional office is housed inside Sabathani Community Center, a longstanding South Minneapolis community nonprofit.
In 2022 her campaign sent $5,400, matching donations from two men later convicted in Feeding Our Future, to Sabathani Community Center, Shiloh Cares Food Shelf, and Division of Indian Work.
Omar has called the Feeding Our Future meal fraud “reprehensible” and “abhorrent.” She says any claim she knew about the scheme is “flat-out false.” She does not regret the 2020 MEALS Act Republicans tie to the case. She has not testified before the Minnesota House fraud committee and declined to turn over the communications that committee requested.
Safari Restaurant was part of the fraud. Prosecutors identified it as a major Feeding Our Future meal site, and co-owners were later charged. It was also a campaign venue for Omar. She held her 2018 victory party there and later filmed a video promoting its meal program. Co-owners and associates later charged in the scheme had donated to her campaign. Her office said those donations were given to food shelves once the scheme became public.
Other Minnesota programs produced what prosecutors called industrial-scale fraud. Medicaid, childcare, and housing all took hits. Thompson put possible losses in the billions. Feeding Our Future was only the first hole. Empty daycares kept billing the state. None of that proves Omar’s immigration file. It does explain why DHS treated Minnesota as a priority. Prosecutors called the child nutrition case the largest pandemic fraud in the United States.
U.S. law allows denaturalization and removal if citizenship was obtained through material fraud. That process is civil, evidence-driven, and rare for a sitting member of Congress. Mullin said the department would act only if it could prove wrongdoing. Omar’s office has called similar claims politically motivated. In May she said she had not been notified of an investigation.
