Ilhan Omar's tangled family history is at the center of a federal criminal probe after Homeland Security agents raided her Washington DC home last week.
asserted
agents → raid → home
Investigators are focused on her late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, and whether he lied or omitted information on immigration forms, the New York Times reported.
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Times → focus → forms
Omar says she became a citizen in 2000 at 17 through her father, a route closed to anyone 18 or over.
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she → say → anyone
Her staff had her birth year changed from 1981 to 1982 on her Minnesota legislature biography in May 2019, the New York Post reported.
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Post → have → May
Agents seized her phone and passport in the October 12 raid on the northeast Washington home she shares with husband Tim Mynett.
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she → seize → Mynett
Grand jury subpoenas have gone to her sister Sahra Noor and at least one other person in her family circle.
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subpoenas → go → circle
This is not the first time the Trump administration has probed Omar's immigration status.
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administration → probe → status
Homeland Security Investigations - an investigative arm under ICE - examined Omar in 2019 and found 'insufficient evidence of wrongdoing,' a former official told the Washington Post.
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official → examine → Post
The new probe has also revived claims that her 2009 marriage to British citizen Ahmed Nur Said Elmi was to her brother.
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marriage → revive → brother
'We know that she married her brother to try to bring him into the United States,' Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on a podcast in September.
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Mullin → know → September
No evidence for that claim has been made public.
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evidence → make → claim
Omar, who denies wrongdoing and has not been charged, calls the claim about her marriage 'absurd and offensive' and the raid 'an attempt to target political enemies.
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raid → deny → enemies
Here the Daily Mail unpicks Omar's tangled family tree, from the 'colonel' father at the heart of the probe to the husband accused of being her brother and the political consultant she wed in 2020...
THE 'COLONEL' FATHER
Omar's father Nur Omar Mohamed (center) at her swearing in ceremony with Speaker Nancy Pelosi in January 2019
Nur Omar Mohamed brought his family to America in 1995 after four years in a refugee camp in Kenya, settling first in the Washington suburbs and then in Minneapolis
Nur Omar Mohamed brought his family to America in 1995 after four years in a refugee camp in Kenya, settling first in the Washington suburbs and then in Minneapolis.
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Mohamed → unpick → Minneapolis
He drove a taxi and later worked for the US Postal Service, and Omar has described him as an educator.
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Omar → drive → educator
'Ilhan's father was never an educator,' Somali historian Mohamed Haji Ingiriis told the New York Post, describing him as 'a full colonel in Siad Barre's military regime.
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Ingiriis → tell → regime
'
Ingiriis claims Nur 'misrepresented himself as a refugee' to US authorities, having stayed loyal to the dictatorship until it collapsed in 1991.
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it → claim → 1991
His immigration paperwork is now at the heart of the federal probe, because Omar says she obtained her citizenship through his naturalization.
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she → say → naturalization
Nur died of Covid complications in June 2020 at the age of 67.
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Nur → die → 67
'No words can describe what he meant to me and all who knew and loved him,' Omar wrote at the time.
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Omar → describe → time
Omar's mother, Fadhuma Abukar Haji Hussein, died when Ilhan was two, and her father and grandfather raised her as the youngest of seven children.
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father → die → children
Omar has said little publicly about her other siblings.
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Omar → say → siblings
THE SECOND HUSBAND AND ALLEGED BROTHER
Omar married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi (right), a British citizen, in February 2009, when records gave their ages as 26 and 23
Elmi (right, with Omar, second from left) has since returned to London, the Daily Mail has reported, and has not responded to past requests for comment.
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Mail → allege → comment
Omar married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a British citizen, in February 2009, when records gave their ages as 26 and 23.
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records → marry → 26
The couple filed their marriage license application in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and despite both being Muslim, their ceremony was conducted by a Christian minister, Wilecia Harris.
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ceremony → file → minister
'If they had gone to an imam he would have almost certainly have known if they were related,' one Somali leader in Minnesota told the Daily Mail.
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leader → go → Mail
Abdihakim Osman Nur, a Minneapolis community leader, told the Daily Mail in 2020 that Omar and Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her children, had introduced Elmi to him as her brother.
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Omar → tell → brother
'She said she needed to get papers for her brother to go to school,' Nur said.
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Nur → say → school
'We all thought she was just getting papers together to allow him to stay in this country.'
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him → think → country
Elmi enrolled at North Dakota State University, Omar's alma mater, in 2010, and university officials told the Daily Mail he was still there in 2012, a year after Omar says they split.
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they → enrol → 2012
The couple divorced in 2017.
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couple → divorce → 2017
Omar has called the suggestion that Elmi is her brother 'absurd and offensive,' and her 2020 memoir described him as a man 'whom I spent so little time with that I wouldn't even make him a footnote in my story.
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him → call → story
Elmi has since returned to London, the Daily Mail has reported, and has not responded to past requests for comment.
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Mail → return → comment
THE BABY DADDY (AKA 'SOUTHSIDE')
Ahmed Hirsi, known as 'Southside', is the father of Omar's three children.
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Hirsi → know → children
They wed in a 2002 religious ceremony, but it was not a legal marriage
Omar celebrates with her husband Ahmed Hirsi, daughter Ilwad and son Adnan on November 6, 2018
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Omar → we → November
Ahmed Hirsi, known as 'Southside', is the father of Omar's three children.
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Hirsi → know → children
They wed in a 2002 religious ceremony, but it was not a legal marriage.
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it → we → ceremony
The pair split in 2008, but Omar says they reconciled in 2011 while she was still legally married to Elmi, and their third child followed a year later.
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child → split → Elmi
She filed joint federal tax returns with Hirsi in 2014 and 2015 while still legally married to Elmi, according to a 2019 report by Minnesota's Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.
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She → file → Board
Omar and Hirsi finally married legally in January 2018, a month after her divorce from Elmi, but the marriage lasted less than two years.
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marriage → marry → years
The marriage effectively ended when Hirsi visited Omar's Washington apartment and found her lounging around in pajamas with Tim Mynett, the Daily Mail reported.
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Mail → end → Mynett
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
