The raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington home was not just a search. Agents walked out with her cellphone, her notebooks, her personal computers and her passport, and the reported end goal of the immigration investigation is to strip the Minnesota congresswoman of her US citizenship and deport her.
That is according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited US officials and people familiar with the case. The New York Post confirmed Wednesday that Omar is facing two separate federal investigations: prosecutors in Minnesota are probing possible immigration fraud, while DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office is looking into the finances of Omar and her husband, Tim Mynett.
More than a dozen grand jury subpoenas have gone out, including to some of Omar’s relatives. The immigration side of the case may turn on one number: her age in 2000, when her father became a US citizen. Citizenship passed automatically to his children only if they were still minors. Omar says she was 17. Some records list her birth year as 1981 and others as 1982, and that single year is the difference between automatic citizenship and having to file on her own.
“I will not be silenced.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar, in a statement after the raid
The money probe has its own wild numbers. Pirro said Tuesday her office is examining Omar’s financial disclosures after filings showed two businesses tied to Mynett, a California winery and a DC venture capital firm, jumping from a reported value of as much as $51,000 in 2023 to as much as $30 million in 2024. Omar’s office later amended the filings down to between $18,004 and $95,000 and said the original numbers counted total business equity instead of his share and left out liabilities.
Omar has denied any wrongdoing. Her campaign called the investigation ludicrous and partisan in a fundraising pitch this week. No charges have been filed, and taking away someone’s citizenship is not a quick move: the government would have to sue in federal court and prove she got it through material misrepresentation, a fight that would take years. The raid landed three weeks before the midterms, with Omar running for reelection in Minneapolis.
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