Federal agents questioned Rep. Ilhan Omar’s sister last week, following a search of the Minnesota Democrat’s Washington, DC, residence as part of an ongoing immigration fraud investigation.
Sahra Noor voluntarily met with investigators sometime after the Oct. 12 raid on the home Omar shares with her husband, Tim Mynett, Fox News Digital reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. The specific subjects discussed during the interview were not immediately known.
Noor had been expected to speak Thursday at the University of Minnesota’s Rochester campus about her new book, “Salt in the Snow: A Somali Immigrant Story.” However, a representative of the bookstore sponsoring the appearance said Noor called it off because of a “family emergency.”
The Post reported Wednesday that investigators had obtained DNA samples as they work to determine whether Omar — along with potentially other relatives — misled immigration officials.
According to one source, the DNA material could be central to allegations that Omar married her brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, in 2009 as part of an effort to help him obtain a green card. That application was ultimately unsuccessful.
Two other sources said evidence collected during the home search, along with information supplied by whistleblowers and government records, has given prosecutors a substantial foundation to seek an indictment from a grand jury on conspiracy charges tied to immigration fraud.
The Minnesota US Attorney’s Office is leading the immigration-related inquiry. Separately, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro is supervising an examination of Omar and Mynett’s finances, including House disclosure filings that led Omar to reduce her reported net worth by tens of millions of dollars over the past year. She attributed the change to an unexplained accounting “discrepancy.”
Omar has consistently rejected allegations that she married a sibling. The claim first became public in 2016, when she was campaigning for a seat in Minnesota’s state legislature.
Elmi and Omar divorced in 2017. In 2019, Elmi filed for a marriage-based green card but later withdrew the application after US Citizenship and Immigration Services requested more details about his relationship with Omar, The Washington Post reported last week.
Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, said Saturday that investigators had assembled “a strong case” that could potentially result in Omar losing her US citizenship. Omar has lived in the country since her family left war-torn Somalia and arrived through Kenya in 1995.
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Earlier sources said the alleged immigration fraud may involve Omar or her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, supposedly providing an inaccurate birth date for the future congresswoman so she could obtain US citizenship when her father became a naturalized citizen in 2000.
Legal specialists have said the time limit for prosecuting false statements on immigration documents is longer than the limit for marriage fraud. They also note that a conviction for marriage fraud would not threaten Omar’s citizenship in the same manner as a case alleging false information in immigration paperwork.
Omar has married three times and divorced twice. Although she and Ahmed Hirsi held an Islamic wedding ceremony in 2002, their marriage was not legally formalized until after Omar’s divorce from Elmi was complete.
The congresswoman has three children, including one born while she was legally married to Elmi. Documents previously examined by The Post suggest that Omar, Elmi and Hirsi may have lived under the same roof at one point.
The family history is further complicated by Omar filing joint tax returns with Hirsi in 2014 and 2015, even though she remained legally married to Elmi, from whom she had separated in 2011.
Omar’s father has also been linked to several surnames, among them Nur Said Elmi Mohamed.
Omar ended her marriage to Hirsi in 2019 and later married Mynett, a political consultant who had worked on her campaign. The marriage followed reports of an alleged affair.
In a letter sent to the Justice Department last week, Omar’s lawyers said they had “grave concerns” about the investigation and demanded that all property taken during the search be returned immediately.
Attorneys Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz argued that federal agents failed to follow a magistrate judge’s “special requests” governing the warrant’s execution. They also accused the Justice Department of disregarding its longstanding policy by carrying out the search just over three weeks before the midterm elections.
A Justice Department spokesperson pushed back, saying the lawyers’ letter was “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies.”
“Our attorneys and law enforcement partners complied with all court orders and legal obligations, as they always do,” the rep added. “Leaking a letter to the press right after sending it is not good faith. It is a publicity play.”