Trump Admin Investigating Omar For Allegedly Marrying Brother to Illegally Enter US
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan said this week that the Department of Homeland Security is reviewing allegations that Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar may have committed immigration fraud by entering into a marriage with a relative.
President Donald Trump and several of his allies have long asserted that Omar’s first husband, Ahmed Elmi, is her brother and that the marriage, which began in 2009 and ended in divorce in 2017, was arranged to facilitate immigration benefits.
No DNA evidence or official documentation has substantiated those claims, and Omar has consistently denied them.
In an interview with Newsmax, Homan said he is examining whether Omar violated immigration laws and whether her legal status could be affected. Omar’s congressional biography states that she arrived in the United States with her family in the 1990s after fleeing civil war in Somalia.
“We’re pulling the records, we’re pulling the files,” Homan said Monday. “We’re looking at it … I’m running that down this week.”
Homan stated that the DHS is conducting a thorough review of visa fraud within the Somali community in Minnesota, following the department’s claim that 50% of visas issued in Minnesota may be fraudulent.
“President Trump has instructed us to go down, and we’re going to deep dive all of this, and we’re going to hold people accountable,” he noted.
Trump accused the Somali-born congresswoman of marrying her brother to commit immigration fraud during a new interview with Politico released Tuesday.
“I don’t want to see a woman that, you know, marries her brother to get in and then becomes a congressman, does nothing but complain,” Trump said in the interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns, referring to Omar’s alleged 2009 marriage to Ahmed Elmi, who multiple reports and witnesses have claimed is her biological brother.
Trump made the remarks after Omar condemned recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minneapolis targeting illegal Somali nationals—a crackdown that followed revelations of a $1 billion welfare fraud scheme in Minnesota, portions of which federal investigators say were funneled to the Somali terror group al-Shabaab.
“All she does is complain, complain, complain, and yet her country is a mess,” Trump continued. “Let her go back, fix up her own country. So no, Somalia—and I was right about it.”
The president also accused Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of failing to address the crisis: “They have an incompetent governor there, too.”
Omar has previously called the allegations “baseless and absurd,” dismissing them as Islamophobic conspiracy theories.
But a 2019 Minneapolis Star-Tribune investigation found discrepancies in Omar’s marital and immigration records that she has never fully explained.
According to public records and Daily Mail reporting, Omar married Elmi in a civil ceremony in 2009 while still religiously married to her first husband, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi. She claimed to have separated from Elmi in 2011, yet did not file for divorce until 2017.
During that time, she and Hirsi had a third child together. Omar later divorced Hirsi again in 2019 after reports surfaced of her affair with political consultant Tim Mynett, whom she later married.
In February 2020, the Daily Mail published explosive testimony from Abdihakim Osman, a Somali community leader in Minneapolis, who said Omar openly told friends that Elmi was her brother and that she “needed to get papers for him to stay in the United States.”
Osman told the outlet, “No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the certificate years later.”
Osman described Elmi as “very feminine in the way he dressed,” saying the Somali community was shocked to learn he had married Omar. “When Ilhan married Elmi, no one even knew about it,” Osman said. “She kept it quiet because an imam would have refused to marry them if he knew they were related.”
Trump Warns Iran of ‘Total Obliteration’ if They Try To Harm Him HH
President Donald Trump warned Iran that continued assassination threats made by leaders in Tehran would be met with the country getting “blown up” and “total obliteration.”
“Well, they shouldn’t be doing it but I’ve left notification,” Trump said. “Anything ever happens, we’re going to blow the whole — the whole country’s going to get blown up.”
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Biden-era Intelligence officials briefed Trump about the alleged threats against him during his presidential campaign in 2024. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland said the plot was retaliation for the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani by the U.S. in 2020, during Trump’s first administration.
Despite being briefed by his administration, Trump on Tuesday said President Biden “should have said something” on the matter, adding that presidents should defend each other on such matters.
“But I have very firm instructions,” Trump continued. “Anything happens, they’re going to wipe them off the face of this earth.”
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Trump also spoke about the ongoing negotiations between the United States and Iran in Geneva.
“What are you expecting from these Iran talks in Geneva?” a reporter asked Trump aboard Air Force One.
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“So, I’ll be involved in those talks indirectly, and they’ll be very important. We’ll see what can happen. Typically, Iran’s a very tough negotiator; they’re good negotiators — or bad negotiators. I would say they’re bad negotiators because we could have had a deal instead of sending the B2s to knock out their nuclear potential. We had to send the B2s. I hope they’re going to be more reasonable. They want to make a deal,” Trump said.
“Have you been told that a deal is next to impossible?” the reporter followed up.
Trump replied, “No. I think they want to make a deal. I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal. They want to make a deal.”
WATCH:
Trump previously said that he instructed officials to destroy Iran if they killed him.
The president said this after signing an executive order right after taking office that gave him all the tools he needed to talk to Iran’s government and put as much pressure on Tehran as possible.
“They haven’t done that and that would be a terrible thing for them to do,” Trump said at the time. “Not because of me — if they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end. I’ve left instructions, if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left. And, they shouldn’t be able to do it.”
Trump warned last week that the United States could send additional warships toward Iran if ongoing diplomatic negotiations fail to produce a deal, signaling that military pressure could increase as talks over Tehran’s nuclear program stall.
In remarks to Axios, Trump said the administration is considering deploying a second aircraft carrier strike group to the region in addition to the USS Abraham Lincoln and 9 additional warships already positioned near Iran, though he expressed hope that a diplomatic agreement can still be reached.
“Either we will make a deal or we will have to do something very tough like last time,” the president told Axios on Tuesday, a reference to the bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites in June.
“Last time they didn’t believe I would do it. They overplayed their hand,” Trump added. “We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going.”
The president emphasized that the United States is seeking to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions, halt the development of its ballistic missile program, and end support for militant proxy groups. Iranian officials have so far resisted expanding negotiations beyond nuclear-related issues.
He described the nuclear issue as a “matter of course” part of any negotiation, but also insisted that an agreement with Iran must also address Tehran’s ballistic missile stockpiles, per Axios.
Trump said the US “can make a great deal with Iran,” and Tehran “very much wants to make a deal.”
Trump’s comments came ahead of a planned visit to Washington, D.C. by Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to press for a tougher U.S. stance and broader terms for any Iran deal that would include constraints on Tehran’s missile capabilities and regional activities.
Before heading to DC, the Israeli leader previewed some of what he and Trump were going to discuss.
“I will present to the president our understanding of the principles of the negotiations (with Iran) – the essential principles that are important not only to Israel – but to everyone who wants peace and security in the Middle East,” Netanyahu told reporters, per the New York Post.
The administration has already bolstered its military presence in the Middle East, with multiple warships and aircraft deployed as a means of deterrence and leverage.
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