Federal Agents Search Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington Home in Widening Immigration Investigation

Federal agents searched the Washington home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on Monday morning, executing what the Justice Department described as a "judicially authorized search warrant" tied to "an ongoing federal criminal investigation." The operation, carried out by Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, marks the most concrete action yet in a long-running effort by the Trump administration to examine Omar's immigration history, including a 2009 marriage that critics have alleged for years was fraudulent.

A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed the search but declined to describe its specific target or scope, saying only that the action was part of an active investigation. Neither the department nor the Department of Homeland Security named Omar directly in their public statements, though two people familiar with the matter told NBC News that agents entered her residence that morning. No arrest was announced, and officials did not say what, if anything, was seized.

Omar's congressional office moved quickly to characterize the search as retaliation. "This raid by Trump's DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies," her office said in a written statement released Monday. "For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back. Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid."

President Trump, asked about the search before departing the White House for a campaign rally in Ohio, said he had no role in it. "I've always found her to be totally crooked personally, but that has nothing to do with me," he told reporters. "I think she's a terrible person, but that's really up to the DOJ. I have nothing to do with it." He repeated the sentiment that evening in Youngstown, telling supporters Omar was "a disaster" during a speech that also touched on Somali immigration to Minnesota.

A Long-Running Inquiry Becomes Concrete

The search did not emerge from nowhere. Scrutiny of Omar's immigration history dates to 2019, when conservative commentators and Trump, then in his first term, seized on a long-disputed claim that Omar's 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a British citizen, was in fact a marriage to her biological brother, arranged to help him enter the United States. Omar and Elmi separated in 2011 and divorced in 2017. Contemporaneous reviews by the Star Tribune and The New York Times raised questions about the timeline of Omar's marriages but did not establish that Elmi was her sibling, and no public evidence has surfaced since to substantiate the claim.

The matter resurfaced this year. In a January Truth Social post, Trump said the Justice Department and Congress were "looking at" Omar, whom he claimed was "reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars." Omar dismissed the post as a distraction, writing that "years of 'investigations' have found nothing." By September, the claims had hardened into an acknowledged federal inquiry. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told a conservative interviewer that "we know that she married her brother to try to bring him into the United States," and pointed to "the whole family migration and possibly some illegal activity" as an area of interest, according to Newsweek's reporting on his remarks. Days later, border czar Tom Homan confirmed to Fox News that Homeland Security Investigations was examining the allegations, though he declined to detail the evidence, telling the network that "there's nothing political about it" and that "no one's above the law" regardless of congressional office, a claim The Daily Wire also reported. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson had separately told reporters that "no one, including members of Congress, are above the law," while declining to discuss investigative specifics.

Tensions That Predate the Search

Monday's search lands amid a broader, increasingly personal standoff between Omar and federal immigration authorities that has played out largely in Minnesota. In August, Omar's office sent an oversight letter to Homeland Security Investigations after an undercover HSI agent was found stationed outside her monthly town hall in Richfield, demanding to know, in a letter her office published, whether the agency had been monitoring her public events. The following month, Omar spoke at a joint House Oversight and Senate Permanent Subcommittee hearing on fatal shootings by immigration officers in Minnesota, questioning the family members of two people killed during federal operations.

Omar has also pushed legislation responding directly to those operations. On the House floor in the spring, she had argued against a Republican-backed $70 billion increase in ICE and Border Patrol funding, saying "we cannot send this rogue and unaccountable agency another cent," a remark preserved in the floor statement her office released at the time. She later introduced legislation that would redirect roughly $140 billion in ICE and Customs and Border Protection funding toward communities affected by enforcement surges, citing nearly $700 million in costs she attributed to a Minneapolis operation known as Operation Metro Surge.

Reaction Divides Along Familiar Lines

Reaction to Monday's search broke along predictable partisan lines, though it drew attention well beyond Minnesota given the rarity of a sitting member of Congress's residence being searched by federal agents. Civil liberties advocates and many congressional Democrats have framed the episode as part of a pattern in which the administration has used immigration and law enforcement agencies against its domestic critics, a concern Omar's office echoed directly in its statement accusing the White House of an "unprecedented use of federal law enforcement against political opponents."

"The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong. No president should be able to use the power of the federal government to intimidate his political enemies."

Administration officials and allies have countered that the investigation follows ordinary law enforcement procedure and that a warrant required a federal judge's sign-off, a point the Justice Department emphasized in describing the search as "judicially authorized." Trump's own comments Monday sought to distance himself personally from the search while still questioning Omar's credibility, a split that reflects how the White House has generally handled the matter publicly: officials confirm an active investigation and defend its legitimacy without disclosing evidence, while Trump continues to attack Omar in increasingly personal terms on the campaign trail.

What Happens Next

No charges have been filed against Omar, and officials have not said whether the investigation is likely to produce any. Homan has acknowledged that any effort to strip Omar of her citizenship over a disputed immigration violation from 17 years ago would face significant legal hurdles, including statute-of-limitations questions and the lengthy denaturalization process required for naturalized citizens. Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 after arriving as a refugee from Somalia in 1995.

For now, the search leaves open questions that are likely to dominate coverage in the coming days: what evidence agents were seeking, whether the Justice Department intends to pursue charges, and how congressional Democrats, several of whom have accused the administration of wielding federal law enforcement against political adversaries in other cases this year, will respond institutionally rather than just rhetorically. Omar faces re-election in Minnesota's fifth district next year, and allies suggested the search is likely to become a flashpoint in that race regardless of whether it produces any formal legal action.