Federal prosecutors plan to use DNA evidence against Rep. Ilhan Omar in an immigration-fraud probe that could show she married her brother, a case her lawyers call political retribution.
The New York Post reported that sources familiar with the matter say federal prosecutors intend to rely on DNA, whistleblowers, and government records in a years-long criminal investigation of the Minnesota Democrat.
Homeland Security Investigations agents already searched her Washington, D.C., home under a warrant executed on Oct. 12. Agents left the bungalow carrying boxes marked “Seized Property Evidence.”
That federal search of Omar’s D.C. home sits at the center of a broader push that sources say could put conspiracy charges before a grand jury.
One source told the Post the DNA is critical to the claim that Omar married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009 to help him secure a green card that never came through. Elmi now lives in the United Kingdom. Omar has denied the sibling-marriage accusation since she first ran for office in 2016.
D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said a judge would not have signed the warrant without probable cause. “If there was a crime committed, it will be prosecuted,” she added.
President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said over the weekend that federal investigators have built “a strong case” that could lead the administration to seek Omar’s denaturalization.
Fox News reported that investigators obtained Omar’s DNA and passport as part of the same probe, expanding the paper trail beyond the home search itself.
The seizure of Omar’s cellphone during the raid added another piece of physical evidence to a case that already reaches back decades into her family’s immigration history.
Breitbart reported that investigators collected garbage from outside the D.C. residence while hunting for DNA, following the warrant-backed entry in which agents also took the phone.
Multiple sources familiar with the probe told NewsNation that potential DNA evidence is critical to the immigration investigation. Scott Johnson told NewsNation agents asked him about Omar’s immigration and naturalization and about her father, and that they were examining a possible civil path that might lead to denaturalization.
Omar wed Elmi in 2009 and divorced him in 2017. The Post noted prior Washington Post reporting that Elmi applied for a marriage-based green card in 2019, then withdrew the application after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asked for more evidence about the marriage.
Her personal history is tangled. She had a Muslim wedding ceremony with Ahmed Hirsi in 2002, remained legally tied to Elmi into the mid-2010s, filed joint taxes with Hirsi in 2014 and 2015 while still married to Elmi, and later divorced Hirsi in 2019 to marry political consultant Tim Mynett. Documents previously reviewed by the Post showed she once shared a residence with both Elmi and Hirsi.
None of that timeline, by itself, proves a blood relationship. Prosecutors now say DNA is the tool they intend to use to test the core allegation that has circulated in Minnesota and Washington political circles for years.
The hunt for DNA in Omar’s trash before the raid shows how far agents went to lock down biological comparison material for that test.
Just the News reported that the Justice Department issued subpoenas for several of Omar’s relatives, including her sister Sahra Noor, while DHS agents searched the D.C. home under a warrant approved by federal magistrate judge Matthew Sharbaugh.
Citizenship timing is another pressure point. Minnesota records once listed Omar’s birth year as 1981, which would have made her 18 or older when her father naturalized in 2000. Her congressional staff later had the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library change the year to 1982 so she would have been a minor for derivative citizenship.
Library director notes show staff were told on May 17, 2019, that the birth year was incorrect and should be changed to 1982. In 2018 Omar told The Intercept, “I became a citizen actually before I turned 18. My father became a citizen, and so I got my citizenship through that process.”
Earlier sources had said immigration-fraud questions also touched whether Omar or her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, misrepresented her birth date so she could gain citizenship when he naturalized. Mohamed is now dead. Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani called him a potential unindicted co-conspirator in any charging theory.
"If you argue a conspiracy, you can allege overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy that are outside the statute of limitations,"
Rahmani said. He added there are two reasons he expects a conspiracy charge: the deceased father as an unindicted co-conspirator, and the chance to pull in older conduct that would otherwise fall outside the ordinary time limit.
The Washington Examiner reported that long-running rumors of a brother marriage for immigration benefits have returned as senior Trump administration officials signal an active federal fraud case. Homeland Security officials have suggested they hold actionable evidence on that allegation against the naturalized congresswoman.
A prior review during the first Trump administration did not produce enough evidence, a former immigration official told the Washington Post. The current effort pairs DNA with records and family process that earlier investigators lacked.
Omar’s attorneys, Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz, sent the Justice Department a letter claiming “grave concerns,” demanding the “immediate return” of seized property, and arguing there is “no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status.”
"President Trump has made no secret of his desire to target Representative Omar for criminal investigation and deportation as retribution for her political advocacy,"
the lawyers wrote. A DOJ spokesperson answered that the letter was “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies,” that attorneys and law-enforcement partners “complied with all court orders and legal obligations, as they always do,” and that leaking the letter right after sending it “is not good faith. It is a publicity play.”
Mynett, asked about the evidence seizure, told Fox News: “My wife came here when she was 12 years old as a child war refugee.” Omar’s family left war-torn Somalia in 1995. She has lived in the United States since.
Refugee status does not cancel later false statements on immigration or naturalization papers if prosecutors can prove them. That is the line federal lawyers are now testing with biological evidence and subpoenas.
Pirro’s office is also examining Omar’s House financial disclosures. Entries described in the reporting show an unexplained accounting “discrepancy” that deflated her reported net worth by tens of millions of dollars in the last year.
That track is separate from the immigration theory, yet it landed in the same news cycle as the home search and the DNA collection. Pirro’s confirmation of a finances probe keeps both accountability paths open at once.
No charges have been announced. No denaturalization case has been filed in open court. Sources describe a grand-jury path on conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and a possible civil route with no statute of limitations.
For taxpayers watching a sitting member of Congress, the sequence is plain: a judge found probable cause, agents seized evidence, prosecutors say they hold DNA that could settle a decade-old fraud claim, and the defense’s first move was a press-ready letter blaming politics.
Immigration law is supposed to mean the same thing for powerful people and ordinary applicants. If the DNA and the records show a sham marriage or a cooked birth date, the badge and the title should not buy a free pass.