Federal agents search Ilhan Omar’s home in fraud investigation – reports | Trump administration

Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, according to reports in Associated Press and Fox News citing a Justice Department statement.

A video released by Fox showed what appeared to be law enforcement in HSI jackets at what Fox News said was Omar’s residence in Washington DC.

“Today in the Washington, DC area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant obtained by the Department of Justice. This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal investigation,” a Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The nature of the mandate was unclear – neither Omar’s office, the DoJ, the Department of Homeland Security nor the White House immediately responded to the Guardian’s requests for comment. Fox News reported, based on anonymous sources familiar with the matter, that agents were reviewing immigration paperwork that the congresswoman’s father filled out when she was a child.

Donald Trump and his top allies have accused Omar of fraud related to her family’s immigration history, openly fantasizing about denaturalizing her and deporting her from the country.

The congresswoman has always denied the accusations, even though Trump has repeatedly made them national news with gratuitous attacks on Omar, who, along with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, became the first Muslim congresswoman in the United States in 2019.

But even in the midst of a presidency known for its political and legal reprisals against its critics, the search of Omar’s Washington home just three weeks before a crucial midterm election day will surely lead to new accusations that Trump was using the government for his own political purposes.

Administration officials, and the president himself, have long hinted at a federal investigation into Omar. “Let’s see what happens,” Trump said at a rally Saturday after attacking Omar by name, adding that Vice President JD Vance “and our people are watching this situation very carefully.”

This was just the latest discussion in months about the Omar investigation. Trump accused her in December of “marrying his brother” and said she “should be kicked out of our country,” a reference to a years-old but unsubstantiated claim that Omar sought to help her ex-husband — who they say is actually her brother — obtain immigration papers through a sham marriage.

Days later, his “border czar” Tom Homan said, “We’re pulling the records now,” referring to Omar, and said a fraud investigator at Homeland Security Investigations, the division of ICE that has historically been responsible for investigative work, would look into the matter.

In March, Vance told right-wing media personality Benny Johnson, “We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud” and that he had recently spoken to Stephen Miller, a senior Trump adviser, about “what are the remedies.” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Johnson last month that an investigation was underway and “something was going to happen.”

“We know she married her brother to try to get him to come to the United States,” Mullin said. “We know he’s now living in London. We think there may be more to this, the migration of the whole family, and maybe some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with. But all of us are investigating.”

Shortly after, Homan said he could not “comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.”

“We will let HSI and Homeland Security Investigations continue their investigation,” he added.

Omar has for years denied unsubstantiated rumors from Trump and others about herself and her family, including the accusation that her ex-husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, was actually her brother and that the marriage was part of an effort to get her immigration status. Marriage fraud is a crime, although it is subject to a five-year statute of limitations. Omar and Elmi officially divorced in 2017 after separating in a religious divorce years earlier.

Last month, the New York Post also cited an unnamed “senior immigration official” who said that “the Trump administration could initiate a denaturalization process” against Omar if there was enough evidence that she or her father had lied on immigration applications. The article reported accusations that Omar was older than her registered age of 17 when she was naturalized, which could be relevant because she obtained citizenship through her parents. The report also raised questions about Omar’s father, who reportedly claimed to be an educator, even though his obituary later described a military career.

As the most prominent Somali American in the United States, Omar faced years of racist attacks from the president and his supporters.

At his rally Saturday, Trump said of Somalia, “All they have is crime and misery” and suggested that “our” U.S. constitution did not belong to Omar. Two days earlier, he wrote that Minnesota “is being taken over by Somali immigrants,” even though the vast majority of Somali Americans in the state are U.S. citizens.

“Somalis should not be allowed to do what they are doing with impunity,” Trump wrote, calling on his supporters in the state to “fight back!” »

Somali-Americans, in particular, suffered incessant insults from the White House during Trump’s second term. In December, the president called them “trash” who “come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but slut.”

“Let them go back to where they came from and fix this,” he added.