Ilhan Omar Facing Renewed Scrutiny Amid Federal Immigration Fraud Investigations

Federal officials this week revealed sweeping evidence of immigration fraud among Somali migrants in Minnesota — a disclosure that has reignited controversy surrounding Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has long faced questions about her own marital history.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edley, nearly half of all immigrants in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area were found to have committed some form of immigration fraud during a September enforcement sweep. The cases included sham marriages, falsified death certificates, and other fraudulent schemes.

For those who have closely tracked the migration of roughly 100,000 Somali refugees to Minnesota over the past three decades, the revelations are less than surprising. In 2008, the State Department suspended a family reunification program after DNA testing revealed that nearly 80 percent of claimed family relationships among Somali applicants could not be substantiated.

“Persistent patterns of fraud have been well-documented for years,” columnist Scott Johnson wrote in the New York Post, noting that Rep. Omar’s history has often been cited as a particularly controversial example.

Omar has faced recurring allegations that she entered into a sham marriage with her brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, to help him gain legal status in the United States. While she has repeatedly denied the claims, she has not directly addressed the inconsistencies in her marital records.

The timeline raises questions: In 2009, public records show Omar legally married Elmi, even as she maintained a religious (but not legally recognized) union with Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her children. When Omar ran for the Minnesota legislature in 2016, her campaign listed Hirsi as her husband and made no mention of Elmi, to whom she remained legally married until 2017.