Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has rejected claims that she fraudulently married her second husband, Ahmed Elmi, whom some have alleged is her brother. Asked whether the two were related, Omar gave a cautious response: “not to my knowledge.”
The Minnesota congresswoman, who came to the United States as a Somali refugee in 1995, has repeatedly denied allegations that she married Elmi to help him obtain immigration status.
Still, evidence cited in reports has continued to fuel questions about the circumstances surrounding the marriage.
Clue 1: The marriage certificate
Omar, 45, legally married Elmi, 41, whom she identified as a British citizen, in the United States in 2009. The couple divorced in 2017.
Omar’s family history spans several countries and has been complicated by the loss or destruction of official Somali records.
Her mother reportedly died when Omar was young. Members of the family are believed to have settled in different places, including the United Kingdom and the United States.
Elmi’s parentage has not been publicly established. He lived in London with Leila Nur Said, a Somali woman believed to be Omar’s sister and who may have helped raise him.
A 1997 British marriage certificate for Leila, obtained by The Post, names her father as Nur Said Elmi, described as a Somali military officer.
Omar’s late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, was also known as Nur Said Elmi. He was a senior military commander under Somalia’s former dictatorship, a regime that prompted millions of people to flee the country.
Several sources told The Post they believe the man identified on the British document was Omar’s father.
Omar’s father used the name Nur Said on Facebook as well, and his profile was linked to Leila’s account, where she reportedly left affectionate “heart” reactions on his photographs.
After he died at age 67 from COVID-19 complications in June 2020, social media users paid tribute to “Nur Said Elmi” and posted condolences to both Omar and Leila.
A motion filed Wednesday by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, seeking to keep a federal search warrant for Omar’s home sealed, referred to the congresswoman as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.”
Omar and Leila did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
Clue 2: The living arrangements
During her legal marriage to Elmi, Omar had her third child with her former partner, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi.
Omar initially applied for a marriage license with Hirsi in 2002. She later said the application was never completed and, as a result, the pair were never legally married at that time.
Omar has said she and Hirsi separated in 2008 before reconnecting roughly four years later, around 2012. They married in 2018 and have three children, born in 2003, 2005 and 2012.
From 2009 through 2017, however, Omar remained legally married to Elmi. On their marriage application, Omar and Elmi listed the same home in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, as their marital address. Hirsi also used that property on a business license.
Omar has maintained that she and Elmi separated in 2011, but said completing the divorce paperwork took several additional years. That timeline means she gave birth to her third child with Hirsi while still legally married to Elmi.
The Post has also previously reported that Omar and Hirsi filed joint tax returns in 2014 and 2015, during her legal marriage to Elmi. Those filings were subsequently amended.
Omar’s divorce with Elmi was finalized in 2017, though he reportedly left the country to return to the UK well before it was completed.
Omar married Hirsi in January 2018. The following year, Elmi withdrew a marriage-based green-card application he had filed. It was reported the withdrawal came after the US Citizenship and Immigration Services requested more evidence about the marriage.
Clue 3: Community leader’s claim
A Minneapolis-based Somali blogger added fuel to the fire when he told the Daily Mail in 2020 he knew Omar when the two were growing up in Minnesota — and she had introduced Elmi as her brother from London to Somali community members in the ‘00s.
Omar allegedly would tell people at the time her sibling was looking for “papers,†referencing immigration documents such as a green card.
“No one knew there had been a wedding [to Elmi] until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,†he said at the time.
The Somali blogger claimed Elmi was ordered to come to the US from the UK by his father, who discovered he had been living a decadent and immoral life in London.
“People began noticing that Ilhan and [Hirsi] were often with a very effeminate young guy. He was very feminine in the way he dressed. He would wear light lipstick and pink clothes and very, very short shorts in the summer. People started whispering about him,†he claimed to the Daily Mail.
The ousting to America was meant as a sort of “rehabâ€. But after his marriage to Omar, Elmi left the US and returned to the UK — where he continued living a “flamboyant†life.
The Brit described himself as a “dirty dandy†on his social media profiles and regularly posted pictures of himself wearing garish outfits.
He was also spotted enjoying drinks alongside handsome men at upscale London cafes.
Elmi later pursued a doctorate degree at Bristol University from 2023 and served as a research assistant at the university’s School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies.
Areas of interest included “critically queer,†“decolonization,†“gender research group,†and the “center for black humanities.â€
As of late 2025, The Post reported how he made an extended visit to the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. “So far, so fab…a month in JoBurg,†Elmi captioned an Instagram post dated Nov. 4.
Except Omar, Elmi has never been romantically linked to another woman.
— Additional reporting by Philip Hamilton