CHICAGO, IL: The Donald Trump administration is seeking to build a case to strip Rep. Ilhan Omar of her US citizenship and ultimately deport her, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The investigation focuses in part on how the Minnesota Democrat obtained citizenship after arriving in the US as a refugee from Somalia, according to US officials and people familiar with the probe cited by the newspaper.
Federal agents searched Omar’s Washington D.C. home early on Monday as part of the inquiry, seizing her phone, notebooks, personal computers and passport, according to the WSJ. Authorities have also issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to some of her relatives.
Officials of the Justice Department declined to comment on the subpoenas, which were apparently issued the day before they conducted the surprise, pre-dawn raid of Omar’s home.
The inquiry is examining whether Omar or her late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, misrepresented her age in immigration paperwork, potentially allowing her to obtain citizenship through him rather than via a separate application.
Authorities have not publicly detailed the scope of the inquiry, though Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin suggested in September that investigators were examining potential crimes related to the family’s immigration paperwork.
The Justice Department confirmed the search of Omar’s home in a statement to Arab News on Monday but has not publicly commented on the investigation or the subpoenas.
Omar denounced the raid and investigation on Wednesday as “political harassment” by Trump’s administration. The US president has repeatedly questioned her citizenship and called for her deportation.
“Well the difference between the president and I is that I was raised to be a decent human being and to have compassion and he lacks both of those things,” Omar said in a video.
The names of relatives reportedly subpoenaed have not been made public. Reporting has identified potential family members who could be drawn into the inquiry, including her husband Tim Mynett, former husbands Ahmed Abdisalam Hirsi and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, her daughter Isra Hirsi, and her sister Sahra Noor.
Omar’s parents, Nur Omar Mohamed and Fadhuma Abukar Haji Hussein, are deceased.
Trump and members of his administration, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have repeatedly claimed that Omar entered the country illegally in violation of the country’s immigration laws. Trump has also called for her deportation.
Omar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1982. Her family fled Somalia’s civil war, spent several years in a refugee camp in Kenya, and eventually immigrated to the US in 1995. She became a naturalized citizen in 2000 and was elected to Congress representing the 5th District in November 2018.
The investigation has drawn mixed reactions from across the political spectrum.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim, defended Omar and questioned the subpoenas and raids. He wrote on social media that “the Federal government turned the full force of the Department of Homeland Security against a sitting member of Congress for the offense of disagreeing with the White House.
“The path to citizenship should not be weaponized against anyone, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, a naturalized American who swore an oath to this country — the same one that I took. The promise of citizenship should not be contingent on someone agreeing with the federal government.”
Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican and longtime Omar critic, welcomed the investigation.
“Ilhan Omar hates America but loves nothing more than to take from it. Somali fraud isn’t anything new at this point, but doing it from the halls of Congress would take it to a whole different level. We will get to the bottom of this.”
Fine was referring to other federal investigations involving the alleged theft of billions of dollars in COVID-19 pandemic relief funds by business members of the Somali community in Omar’s Minnesota Congressional District.
The Trump administration has targeted the Somali community in Minnesota, the largest in the US, in an investigation into the allegedly misused taxpayer funds, including money intended to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A total of 95 individuals have been charged in the federal fraud investigations in Minnesota, including 85 Somali immigrants, according to the Justice Department.