Federal probe of Rep. Ilhan Omar zeroes in on birth date and citizenship papers; relatives subpoenaed

Federal investigators have subpoenaed Rep. Ilhan Omar's sister and at least one other family member as part of a criminal probe focused on whether Omar or her late father made false statements about her birth date on immigration paperwork — a question with direct bearing on whether she was legally eligible to become a U.S. citizen as a minor.

The subpoenas, issued to Omar's sister Sahra Noor and at least one other relative, were reported Tuesday by the New York Times, citing people familiar with the investigation. Fox News Digital independently verified that subpoenas were delivered to several family members. The development came one day after Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant at the Washington, D.C., home Omar shares with her husband, Tim Mynett.

A judicially authorized search warrant was executed by agents as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation, the Justice Department confirmed, offering no details about the inquiry's scope.

At the heart of the probe, according to people familiar with the investigation, is Omar's birth year. Omar has long said she was born in 1982 and became a U.S. citizen in 2000 — before she turned 18 — through her father Nur Omar Mohamed's naturalization, a process known as derivative citizenship. Under that process, a child must be a minor at the time a parent naturalizes. If Omar was actually born in 1981, as some early records listed, she would have been 18 or older when her father naturalized and would not have qualified.

I became a citizen actually before I turned 18. My father became a citizen and so I got my citizenship through that process.— Rep. Ilhan Omar

Investigators are also examining whether Omar's father, who died in 2020, lied or omitted information on his own immigration forms before becoming a citizen, according to the Times.

The birth-year question surfaced publicly in 2019, when emails reviewed by the New York Post showed that Omar's congressional staff contacted the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library to request a change to her listed birth year. According to the library's director, writing in a May 24, 2019, email: 'On May 17, 2019, Library staff were informed by Rep. Omar's congressional staff that her birth year was incorrect and requested that we change it to 1982.' The director noted that the 1981 birth year had originally been pulled from outside reference sources and entered into the record without supporting documentation — meaning no birth certificate or comparable primary source was consulted. The Post also reported that Omar's staff were coordinating with Wikipedia, the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, and additional sources to apply the same correction elsewhere.

Neither report drew a connection between the biography change and the search conducted Monday, and the discrepancy by itself is not evidence that Omar falsified immigration records.

AJ Kern, who lost to Omar in the 2022 Democratic primary, has spent years pressing the citizenship question. Documents Kern obtained from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services information officer in 2023 showed 'no record' of Nur Omar Mohamed having been naturalized as a U.S. citizen, the New York Post reported. Kern brought a Federal Election Commission complaint and pursued litigation seeking proof of Omar's citizenship, but a state judge threw out the lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction.

Omar has denied any wrongdoing and characterized the investigation as political retaliation.

I'm ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.— Rep. Ilhan Omar

The immigration probe is not the only federal scrutiny Omar is facing. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro disclosed Tuesday that her office is separately investigating Omar's financial disclosures. According to those filings, the combined reported value of two businesses linked to Mynett — eStCru LLC, a California winery, and Rose Lake Capital LLC, a Washington-based venture capital firm — rose from a range of $15,000 to $51,000 in 2023 to a range of $6 million to $30 million in 2024.

We're looking at the facts … we'll follow them wherever they take us.— Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia

In April, Omar filed amended financial disclosures that put the couple's combined reported assets at between $18,004 and $95,000. Her office attributed the original figures to an accounting discrepancy that failed to properly account for business liabilities. Whether the financial inquiry bears any connection to Monday's search has not been established.

Last September, the Office of Congressional Conduct voted 5-1 to send a recommendation to the House Ethics Committee that misconduct allegations tied to the financial disclosures be dismissed, concluding there was no substantial reason to believe Omar had submitted false or incomplete information in violation of federal law or House rules. That review is a separate matter from the federal investigation Pirro described. The Times further reported that earlier federal inquiries into Omar's immigration history produced no charges. Omar's sister Sahra Noor recently published a memoir about her journey from Somalia and leads a Minneapolis-based consulting firm that, by its own account, has brought in more than $20 million for health initiatives and advised on work supported by the CDC, USAID, and other organizations. Noor did not respond to a request for comment from the New York Post.

Why it matters — The outcome of the investigation could determine whether a sitting member of Congress obtained U.S. citizenship through fraudulent means — a finding that could affect her eligibility to hold office — while also testing the boundaries between legitimate law enforcement and politically motivated prosecution.

Sources differ on Omar's birth year: 1981 (listed in early reference sources, including original Minnesota Legislative Reference Library entry) (foxnews.com) vs 1982 (Omar's stated birth year; corrected in library and other records at her staff's request in 2019) (foxnews.com)

Reported by washingtonpost.com, nypost.com, dnyuz.com, nytimes.com, foxnews.com