Investigators subpoenaed relatives and reviewed immigration records, the newspaper reported.
Published on October 15, 2026
US President Donald Trump’s administration is investigating Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar to revoke her citizenship and possibly deport her, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing US officials and people familiar with the investigation.
The investigation focuses in part on how the Minnesota representative obtained citizenship after arriving in the United States as a Somali refugee, the newspaper reported Wednesday. Authorities are reviewing his family’s immigration records and have issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including to some of his relatives, seeking testimony before a Minnesota grand jury.
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Omar’s office dismissed the investigation as baseless in remarks to the Journal.
The Journal’s report comes just days after U.S. federal agents raided the congresswoman’s home, in what her office described as an “unprecedented escalation” by the Trump administration against her political opponents.
The research came just weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, a crucial vote for Republicans seeking to maintain control of Congress. Omar is seeking a fifth term to represent Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.
The Department of Homeland Security said the raid was part of an “ongoing federal investigation.”
Agents seized Omar’s passport, cell phone, home computers and laptops, according to sources familiar with the matter, the newspaper said.
Omar came to the United States in 1995 after living in a refugee camp in Kenya and became a citizen in 2000. She has previously denied committing immigration fraud.
At issue in the citizenship investigation is whether Omar or her late father changed her age in immigration documents to reflect that she was 17 instead of 18 when her father applied for citizenship, the Journal reported.
According to the newspaper, investigators are examining whether this allowed him to acquire citizenship through his father rather than having to go through a separate application process.
Omar’s father died in 2020, complicating efforts to gather evidence about whether Omar lied about his own age — which a former top Justice Department immigration official says the Trump administration is basing its case on — or whether his father lied on his behalf.
The Journal also reported that Homeland Security Investigations officials looked into a similar allegation during former President Joe Biden’s administration but did not act on it because they lacked evidence of fraud.
The newspaper did not report that anyone had filed a lawsuit seeking to revoke Omar’s citizenship. Such a case would require legal proceedings, as the investigation itself does not revoke his citizenship or authorize his deportation.
The newspaper reported that a nonpartisan congressional watchdog previously cleared Omar of any wrongdoing following disclosures that overstated his assets.
Agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), searched Omar’s home under what the department called a “judicially authorized search warrant.”
Monday morning, officers blocked the street around Omar’s home and removed boxes labeled “Proof of Seized Property.”
Omar, a prominent progressive Democrat, has faced years of attacks from Trump and his allies because of her Somali origins and immigration history.
Hours after Monday’s raid, Trump told reporters he had “nothing to do” with the search, saying it was “really up to the DOJ (Department of Justice).”
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