Federal investigators found evidence that Rep. Ilhan Omar had entered into a sham marriage with a man believed to be her brother during a 2016 investigation by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, but the case against the Minnesota Democrat stalled after prosecutors concluded that any potential crime occurred outside the five-year statute of limitations.
The 2016 investigation into Omar’s marraige to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi was first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by The Post, with a source familiar with the probe claiming the “Biden US Attorney in Minnesota shut it down” shortly after taking office in 2021.
It is not immediately clear what specific evidence was uncovered about Omar’s marriage to Elmi.
The congresswoman, who was pursuing a seat in Minnesota’s legislature at the time the investigation was launched, has insisted allegations that she married her brother so he could obtain a green card are a racist conspiracy theory pushed by the far-right.
The Post reported Wednesday that Elmi came to live with Omar and her first husband, Ahmed Hirsi, in Minnesota in 2009. A friend of Hirsi described Elmi as an “extremely feminine Somali guy” who “was walking around in tight female clothing, which is heavily frowned upon in the Somali community.”
The source said that when he asked Hirsi about Elmi, Omar’s ex said “it was his wife’s brother from London and that Ilhan had ‘embarrassed all of us by bringing him here’. Ahmed used very strong words and said it was ‘disgusting.’”
“All of the Somalis in Minneapolis were gossiping and trying to find out who this guy was,” added the friend. “Then everyone realized it was … Ilhan’s brother. Everybody was shocked … [Hirsi] explained that she had married him legally to get him papers and that [Hirsi] was only Islamically married to her.”
The friend also told The Post that “Ahmed and Ilhan used to argue over her brother all the time” and he “saw them arguing and shouting in public.”
After Elmi left Minnesota in around 2012, according to this source, “Ahmed praised God for taking him away from his family.”
Earlier this month, federal agents executed a search warrant at the DC home Omar shares with her current husband, Tim Mynett, seizing her cellphone, notebooks, personal computers and her passport.
Sources have told The Post investigators are examining whether Omar was part of a family conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, which could lead to her denaturalization and deportation.
Omar has long maintained that she became a US citizen at the age of 17 when her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, was naturalized in 2000.
Some records list Omar’s birthdate as Oct. 4, 1981, while others give the same date in 1982. If the former date is accurate, Omar would have been of legal age at the time her father received citizenship and thus would have been ineligible for the minor benefit.
Criminal charges can only be brought if the alleged immigration fraud occurred within the past 10 years, while there is a five-year statute of limitations for charging alleged false statements to officials.
There’s no similar statute of limitations if civil denaturalization is pursued. President Trump’s DOJ has pursued a record-breaking number of civil denaturalizations, with almost 200 cases filed since the beginning of the president’s second term in January 2025.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officials were tipped off about the potential date fudging during the Biden administration, but opted not to move forward due to a lack of evidence.
The Post reported that in the spring of 2019, following Omar’s election to the House of Representatives, her staff pressed the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, and Wikipedia to record her birth as happening in 1982 rather than 1981.
The previous fall, Omar’s campaign had told the Associated Press that she didn’t have a birth certificate due to her family’s displacement by the long-running Somalia civil war.
Additional reporting by Kamal Sultan
