Federal agents searched the Washington, D.C., residence of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar on Monday, October 12, as part of an ongoing criminal investigation, removing boxes from the property while federal authorities declined to disclose the specific allegations being investigated.
The operation, conducted by Homeland Security Investigations under a warrant obtained by the Justice Department, has drawn attention to longstanding allegations concerning the Minnesota congresswoman’s immigration history. However, federal officials have not publicly confirmed that those allegations are the subject of the investigation, and Omar has not been charged with a crime.
According to the New York Post, investigators arrived at Omar’s Washington residence before dawn and spent several hours conducting the search. Photographs and eyewitness accounts described agents carrying boxes from the home to government vehicles parked nearby.
The Justice Department confirmed the operation in a statement but provided few details about its purpose.
“Today in the Washington, DC, area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice,” the department said.
“This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal investigation.”
The search prompted questions about what evidence investigators were seeking and whether the inquiry involved the congresswoman’s citizenship records, previous immigration filings or other matters.
Former assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Fahey told the Post that obtaining judicial authorization to search a sitting member of Congress’s residence requires investigators to establish a sufficient legal basis.
“The big picture here is a federal judge in Washington, DC, signed off on a search warrant. That means there’s probable cause that a federal crime was committed, and there would be evidence of that crime in the area to be searched, which in this case was Representative Omar’s home,” Fahey said.
A search warrant requires a finding of probable cause, although that determination does not establish that the person whose property is searched has committed a crime. The existence of a warrant also does not necessarily mean prosecutors are preparing to file charges.
Omar responded to the search with a statement on social media declaring, “I will not be silenced” and describing the federal operation as “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”
The congresswoman’s response framed the search as politically motivated, while federal authorities have maintained that the operation was undertaken pursuant to a court-authorized criminal investigation.
Fahey suggested that securing a warrant from a federal judge in Washington would have required investigators to present persuasive evidence supporting their request.
“For a DC judge to sign off on something that’s 20 years old, you have to say you believe there is current evidence of the crime in her house,” he said.
“A judge must have been very convinced.”
One source who spoke anonymously to the New York Post suggested that investigators may be examining claims that Omar misstated her age when obtaining American citizenship more than two decades ago.
Omar has said she became a U.S. citizen in 2000, when she was 17, through the naturalization of her father, Nur Said Mohamed Elmi, who brought his family to the United States after fleeing Somalia in 1995.
Under the citizenship rules applicable at the time, certain unmarried children under 18 could obtain citizenship through a naturalized parent, provided the other statutory requirements were satisfied.
The allegations center on whether Omar was actually older than 17 when her citizenship was obtained. If that were established, questions could arise about her eligibility for citizenship through that particular process.
The claims have not been substantiated publicly, however, and federal officials have not confirmed that a disputed birth date is the focus of the investigation.
Questions about Omar’s reported age first attracted attention in 2019, when Minnesota political activist AJ Kern pointed to discrepancies in publicly available records.
Kern alleged that certain state documents previously listed Omar’s birth year as 1981, rather than 1982, which appears in her current congressional biography.
According to Kern, the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library changed Omar’s listed birth year shortly after she publicly questioned the congresswoman’s age.
The activist cited archived versions of the state website as evidence of the change. However, a discrepancy in a biographical database does not independently establish that Omar falsified immigration documents.
Current congressional records identify Omar’s birth date as October 1982, consistent with her account of having been 17 when she obtained citizenship in 2000.
The Post reported that one source familiar with the matter raised the possibility that investigators could be seeking more recent documents containing allegedly inaccurate personal information.
The source suggested that passport renewals, financial applications or other records might be relevant if prosecutors believed that inaccurate information had been knowingly repeated in subsequent filings.
Federal criminal cases are subject to statutes of limitations, although the applicable deadlines depend on the specific offense and the circumstances of the alleged conduct.
The source speculated that investigators might be looking for evidence of a more recent violation rather than attempting to prosecute an offense dating entirely to 2000.
Fahey said that a search warrant involving allegations from decades earlier would ordinarily require investigators to demonstrate why evidence relevant to a potentially prosecutable offense might still be found at the residence.
“A federal judge saw something that said, we believe there’s evidence of a crime that will be found in that house, and presumably it would be something that’s not just a crime beyond the statute of limitations,” he said.
“There could be new crimes committed that stemmed from that previous fraud.”
The former prosecutor also suggested that the timing of the operation could indicate investigators had already conducted substantial preliminary work.
“Generally a search warrant is occurring towards the end of an investigation because you’re building up evidence that led to this search warrant,” Fahey said. “To get to the point of searching a home, you’ve developed a case for a fairly decent period of time.”
However, search warrants can be executed at different stages of an investigation, and the operation does not by itself establish that prosecutors are preparing charges.
Omar has previously said that her original birth documentation was destroyed during the upheaval in Somalia. The Post reported that she had not publicly released a birth certificate and did not respond to its request for comment on the specific allegations.
Other news organizations, including CBS News, have reported that the federal investigation concerns immigration paperwork completed by Omar’s late father during her childhood. Those reports have not established that investigators uncovered falsified documents.
The search followed earlier public comments by senior Trump administration officials indicating that Omar’s immigration history was under federal scrutiny.
In September, White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed that an investigation involving the congresswoman was underway.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin also suggested during a podcast appearance that developments were forthcoming in the investigation of Omar’s family immigration history.
The statements preceded Monday’s operation, although federal officials have not explained precisely how the earlier inquiries relate to the evidence sought at the residence.
Omar has also faced years of allegations concerning her marriage to Ahmed Elmi, whom she legally married in Minnesota on February 12, 2009.
Some critics have alleged that Elmi was actually her brother and that the marriage was intended to facilitate immigration benefits. Omar has denied those allegations, which have never been substantiated by a public finding of criminal wrongdoing.
According to the Post, sources familiar with the current investigation do not believe the federal search was directed at the circumstances of that marriage.
Omar’s relationship history has nevertheless remained a subject of political controversy.
She previously entered a religious marriage with Ahmed Hirsi in 2002, although the ceremony did not establish a legally recognized marriage under Minnesota law.
She later married Elmi in a civil ceremony in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, in 2009. The marriage ended in divorce in 2017.
The Post reported that records it reviewed showed Omar, Elmi and Hirsi associated with the same residential address during part of that period.
After divorcing Elmi, Omar legally married Hirsi. That marriage ended in 2019, and she subsequently married political consultant Tim Mynett.
The Post noted that the longstanding allegations about Elmi, even if independently investigated, would involve legal questions distinct from the circumstances under which Omar originally obtained citizenship.
The congresswoman’s office has rejected suggestions of wrongdoing and described the search as an improper use of federal law enforcement against a political opponent.
Omar’s representatives said she had “done nothing wrong” and characterized the operation as an “outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies.”
The timing has also drawn criticism from Democratic congressional leaders because the search took place approximately three weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, when Omar is seeking another term representing Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other senior Democrats questioned whether the operation was consistent with longstanding Justice Department practices intended to avoid investigative actions that could improperly influence elections.
The Justice Department has not publicly released the search warrant, identified the specific criminal statutes under investigation or announced charges against Omar.
For now, the precise nature of the evidence sought during the search remains undisclosed, while the congresswoman continues to deny wrongdoing and federal investigators proceed with their inquiry.
