US immigration agents have raided the home of Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, prompting fresh accusations the Trump administration is using federal law enforcement to target his political enemies.
Omar, the first Somali-American to serve in Congress and a vocal critic of Donald Trump – who has repeatedly attacked her in return – was quick to pin the raid on the President.
“Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponise federal law enforcement,” the Minnesota representative said on X. “For 10 years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.
“I will not be silenced.”
Democratic leaders in the US House of Representatives accused the Trump administration of a “rogue abuse of power” just three weeks before crucial midterm elections.
In his first comments after the raid, Trump told reporters he had “nothing to do with it”, but also called Omar “totally crooked” and a “terrible person”.
In January he wrote on social media that Omar should “be in jail [or] sent back to Somalia“.
Katie Miller, a right-wing podcaster and wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, reportedly posted “promise made, promise kept” on social media in response to news of the raid.
‘Judicially authorised’
The Department of Justice said in a statement that the search warrant was “judicially authorised” and part of an “ongoing federal investigation”.
Anonymous officials briefed reporters it was part of a multi-year investigation into allegations of false statements and immigration fraud. Fox, which first reported the search, said it concerned immigration paperwork filed by the 44 year-old’s late father when she was a child.
It was unclear what documents could possibly be found in Omar’s DC residence to back up this allegation.
At last month’s Republican convention, US Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, told a right-wing YouTuber that Omar was being investigated and alleged “she married her brother to try to bring him to the United States”, a reference to a long-standing and unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about Omar.
“There may be more to this,” he added. “The whole family migration, and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with”.
He claimed that he wanted to “make sure [that] if we actually move the case forward, it’s not a political case, it’s actual case because they did things wrong”.
Following that, in September Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan told Fox there was an “ongoing criminal investigation” involving Omar and added “if someone committed immigration violation, someone committed marriage fraud or anything like that, regardless if they’re a congressman or not, no one’s above the law”.
Conspiracy theory
Immigration, fraud and citizenship claims against Omar began, according to an investigation by The Daily Beast, more than a decade ago with one anonymous post on a Somali diaspora forum by a self-proclaimed Trump supporter and notorious troll. But it was quickly seized on by her political enemies and their right-wing media allies – including Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec and far-right activist Laura Loomer – who have never let it go.
The allegations have survived repeated denials and interventions by Omar herself, who in 2018 showed reporters immigration documents with a list of her siblings, and detailed marriage and divorce records.
As he famously did with Barack Obama, Trump has repeatedly used immigration and citizenship claims to try to discredit Omar.
According to Google Trends, searches for “is Ilhan Omar a US citizen?” began to take off at the start of 2025, and peaked this year.
It had been stirred up again by Trump, after an exchange with Fox News on-board Air Force One in December.
The first time Trump mentioned it was back in July 2019, prompted by a reporter from pro-Trump network One America, which has repeatedly amplified online conspiracy theories. Trump responded, “I hear she was married to her brother”, with the disclaimer “I know nothing about it”.
Why Omar?
Trump has repeatedly taken aim at Omar, 44, who was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1982. Her family fled the civil war and spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp before securing asylum in the US and arriving in New York in 1995 before setting in Minneapolis. She became a US citizen in 2000, when she was 17.
She is a member of the self-titled “Squad” of progressive Democrat representatives who vocally call out Trump policies, including New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Massachusetts’ Ayanna Pressley.
In 2019 Trump targeted Omar in a tweet saying “progressive Democrat congresswomen who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe… [should] go back and help fix [them]”. The comment was immediately called out as racist, white supremacist and xenophobic by Democrats including then House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The President has repeatedly attacked Somalia and Somali Americans more widely, last week claiming Minnesota was being “taken over by Somali immigrants” who caused “violence, murder and mayhem”. In another post last week Trump called Abdul el-Sayed, a Muslim and the Democratic candidate for US Senate from Michigan, a “RADICAL Extremist” and “Terrorist Sympathizer”.
Similar rhetoric was used to justify a wave of ICE raids over December and January.
‘Very bad things’
Trump has repeatedly boasted that he has broad powers that he could use against his political enemies.
Trump reportedly re-entered the White House with a “retribution list” including his legal nemesis New York attorney general Letitia James, who has since been repeatedly and unsuccessfully pursued by federal authorities over unsubstantiated mortgage fraud allegations. Democrats accused Trump of pursuing a “vindictive campaign” against her.
He has many times claimed that Article II of the US Constitution gives him “the right to do whatever I want as president”, usually in connection with federal investigations.
Last week, asked if he was concerned he may face impeachment if the Democrats sweep the midterms, Trump responded: ” I could have done very bad things to Hillary Clinton, I could have done very, very bad things to Joe Biden, I could have done very bad things to Barack Hussein Obama.
“I thought it was inappropriate to do so because you have to treat the office of the presidency with respect … And I certainly, even to this moment, I have, I can do whatever I want, if I want.”