Thirty-one years after a Somali refugee family arrived in America, federal agents carried a sitting congresswoman’s passport out of her front door.
Homeland Security Investigations agents searched the Washington-area home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on Monday, Oct. 12.
They arrived around 6 a.m. and removed her phone, passport, notebooks and personal computers.
The Associated Press, citing two people familiar with the matter, reported that Homeland Security Investigations carried out the search.
The story begins in 1995. Omar’s family entered the United States that year as refugees from Somalia, according to the reporting.
Five years later, in 2000, Omar became a naturalized citizen at age 17. She has said the status came through her father, Nur Omar Mohamed.
Investigators now examine whether Omar and her relatives misstated facts on immigration paperwork from that era, according to the reports.
Sources said the inquiry centers on documents completed while Omar was still a child.
Fox News Digital reported that the search connects to immigration paperwork her late father completed when she was a minor.
In 2009, Omar married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
National Review revisited allegations about that marriage. Omar has denied claims that Elmi was her brother and that the marriage was designed to secure immigration benefits.
Sources also alleged to the New York Post earlier that Omar’s father misrepresented his identity upon entering the country.
The newest chapter opened with Omar’s sister.
Agents seized Sahra Noor’s phone earlier this year, the Post reported, and text messages from it reportedly helped persuade a federal judge to approve the warrant for Omar’s home.
Noor lives in Kenya and recently released a memoir, “Salt in the Snow: A Somali Immigrant Story.” On Thursday she canceled a Rochester book event, citing a “family emergency,” the report said.
The contents of the messages remain undisclosed. Nothing in the reporting shows that Noor knowingly provided evidence or voluntarily surrendered the phone.
Investigators also collected DNA from items Omar discarded in her trash before the search, according to the report.
Former FBI special agent Tracy Walder told NewsNation that investigators can obtain such material with ease.
Results of any DNA comparison have not been disclosed.
A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed the warrant’s authorization without naming Omar.
Homeland Security Investigations “executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson described the action as part of an ongoing federal investigation. The department gave no further details about the probe, Al Jazeera reported.
Evidence from the search is expected to go before a federal grand jury in Minnesota, which decides whether to issue formal charges.
Several of Omar’s relatives have already received subpoenas.
Those subpoenas stretch the inquiry past Omar’s own devices and records. Investigators are pursuing family communications and documentation alongside the original applications.
The probe now spans a phone seized from Noor, items taken from Omar’s home, DNA collected from trash and records reaching back roughly three decades.
No charges have been filed. The case remains at the investigative and grand jury stage.
Border czar Tom Homan has publicly acknowledged the scrutiny and says he flagged the issue months earlier.
In September, he said Omar was the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation but gave no other details, Al Jazeera reported.
Omar said at the time that Homeland Security had not contacted her, and she dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.
Her office now disputes the investigation’s legitimacy. Spokeswoman Jackie Rogers declined to address the seizure of Noor’s phone directly.
“This is politically motivated and an escalation of Trump’s personal vendetta against her lasting over a decade,” Rogers said. She also accused President Donald Trump of spreading falsehoods to justify what she characterized as an abuse of power.
Omar’s office issued no immediate public response on the day of the search, Al Jazeera reported.
