Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has alleged that an internal review concluded Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar married her brother, claiming the matter could ultimately put her at risk of deportation.
“We know that she married her brother to try to bring him into the United States,” Mullin said while discussing Omar. “We know he lives now in London.”
Mullin appeared to be referring to Omar’s second husband, identified in prior Daily Mail reporting as Ahmed Elmi. Omar and Elmi were both born in Somalia.
According to an account Omar allegedly shared with friends and later relayed to the Daily Mail, she remained legally married to her first husband, Ahmed Hirsi, when she entered into the second marriage.
Omar has repeatedly rejected accusations surrounding the marriage. She has since married for a third time and is now married to political consultant Tim Mynett.
In an interview with conservative commentator Benny Johnson, Mullin described the allegations involving Omar as “possible illegal activity” and said the DHS inquiry remained underway — an unusual public disclosure about an active investigation.
“We’re investigating,” Mullin said, adding that deportation could be considered if the investigation produced grounds for it.
“There’s no expiration to that,” he said when asked about potential charges. “If we can prove it that, maybe you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, we’ll deport you.”
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said an active departmental investigation had determined that Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar “married her brother to try to bring him into the United States.”
Omar has consistently denied claims that she married Elmi, pictured above.
Mullin appeared to be alluding to potential immigration documents being falsified, which would be a deportable offense. That plan could face difficulty given Omar became a naturalized US citizen in 2000, when she was 17.
Her office did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment on Mullin’s latest claims.
Abdihakim Osman, a past friend of Omar, told the Mail in 2020 that Omar said she wanted to get her brother papers so he could stay in the United States, at a time when she was married to her first husband Ahmed Hirsi.
ALSO READ: RHUGT Exclusive: Vicki Whoops It Up as Luann Interrupts
But hardly anyone realized that meant marrying him.
‘No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,’ Osman exclusively told Daily Mail at the time.
Omar married her first husband, Hirsi, in 2002 in a Muslim ceremony that, like many in the immigrant community, was not registered with the state.
The first report that Omar and her husband were siblings appeared on the website Somalispot in 2016.
It said of Elmi: ‘As soon as Ilhan Omar married him he started university at her alma mater North Dakota State University where he graduated in 2012.’
Omar (left) is pictured here with her second husband and ‘brother’ Elmi (right)
Omar with her current husband Tim Mynett at a White House event in 2024
Mullin said the investigation into Omar is apolitical despite the congresswoman being a longtime target of Trump. He’s posted about her in derogatory ways dozens of times on social media, and he’s pushed to have her investigated.
‘When we move forward,’ Mullin said as if the case against Omar is imminent, ‘it’s not political.’
The Department of Homeland Security office did not deny Mullin’s claims that Omar did indeed marry her brother.
‘As a matter of policy, DHS does not comment on specific investigative techniques, ongoing investigations, or potential future actions,’ a spokesperson said, seemingly coming at odds with Mullin’s disclosure.
‘No one, including members of Congress, are above the law,’ the spokesperson added.