Evidence suggesting Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., married her brother goes back at least to 2016, when the Obama administration opened an investigation into the alleged marital and immigration fraud. Republican Minnesota State Rep. Kristin Robbins said everyone in her state knew about it the whole time.
“This has been an open secret in Minnesota for many years,” Robbins, chairwoman of the House Fraud Prevention and State Oversight Committee, told The Federalist. “Everyone here has heard it and was not surprised by it.”
But while “Democrats felt it was just a political smear job by the Republicans, and most Republicans thought it was true,” many of those who believed it was true “decided speaking out wasn’t worth it” because “anyone who raised it was called a racist and an Islamophobe.”
“Every time someone said there was fraud in the Somali community, whether it was a politician or a whistleblower inside the agencies, they were called racist, they were called Islamophobic,” Robbins said. “In many cases, the whistleblowers were required to go to DEI training if they said anything.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) opened the investigation into Omar, whose real name, federal officials believe, is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. According to The New York Times, current and former officials say there was evidence at the time that her marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a man believed to be her brother, was fraudulent. Ahmed currently writes about his experience as a “gay man of the East African diaspora” living as an academic in the United Kingdom.
Robbins said that one “stunning development” that came out was the use of the Nur Said Elmi name, because Ilhan had always presented her last name as “Omar.” The discrepancy stems from evidence suggesting Elmi’s father — through whom she obtained her citizenship in 2000, purportedly as a minor child — assumed a different identity as well in order to claim refugee status.
Elmi’s citizenship itself is under scrutiny due to possible immigration fraud separate from the marriage to her brother, as it appears she was an adult at the time she obtained it, despite claiming to be a minor.
But Robbins wants to know if there was foul play on the part of the Obama administration to cover for Omar as she became prominent in Minnesota, and then national politics.
“If the Obama administration was looking into this, did they slow walk it so that the statute of limitations ran out?” she asked. “When did they start investigating it? And how long did it take them to conclude that it was too late to do anything?”
Elmi’s fraudulent marriage was reported by Alpha News and Power Line about 10 years ago. Alpha News says a letter from then-Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger “helped quiet allegations” that Elmi “married her brother in an immigration fraud scheme.”
Today, Luger claims that the letter “was never meant to say anything about the substance of the claims.”
According to New York Times reporting, two officials confirmed that Ahmed was given a provisional green card for two years, by way of his marriage to Ilhan. After officials asked for more information about the marriage, Ahmed fled the country.
In 2016, there was also a local Fox affiliate article related to questions over Elmi’s marriages, which was subsequently taken off the internet. However, part of the article is still available and states, “We aren’t the only ones who still have questions about the two men the DFL-endorsed House candidate has called her husband, without divorcing either.”
