WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for possible immigration fraud, Vice President JD Vance revealed Tuesday.
Omar has faced repeated questions over the years about her immigration status — as well as her family finances and potential ties to a COVID-era fraud scheme in Minnesota.
“I don’t want to prejudge an investigation,” Vance told reporters at the White House. “It certainly seems like something fishy is there, but everybody’s entitled to equal justice under the laws.”
Vice President JD Vance revealed at a White House press briefing on Tuesday that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is under federal investigation. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta“So we’re going to investigate it. We’re going to take a look at it. If we think that there’s a crime, we’re going to prosecute that crime, and that’s something the Department of Justice is looking at right now,” he added.
Vance, who is in charge of the administration’s efforts to combat benefit fraud, said earlier this year that Omar “definitely committed immigration fraud.”
Omar’s chief of staff, Connor McNutt, called the claim “a ridiculous lie,” though the allegations have dogged the congresswoman since her first campaign for the US House in 2018.
The Minnesota Democrat has married three times, but her second husband, a UK citizen named Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, has been identified in several reports over the past decade as a possible sibling.
Elmi and Omar, a Muslim, were wedded in February 2009 as part of a Christian ceremony in Eden Prairie, Minn., according to a Hennepin County marriage certificate previously obtained by The Post. The couple divorced in December 2017.
The congresswoman has rarely spoken of the relationship, except to note that it was brief and claim the two were frequently separated except for a two-year stretch between 2009 and 2011.
There’s no record of the couple having children.
The Post’s cover on allegations that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was aware of a fraud scam in Minnesota.
Omar was previously wedded to Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi in an Islamic ceremony in 2002, though the pair weren’t legally married until January 2018 — despite having three kids together over that time period.
The third child was depicted in an Instagram photo being held by Elmi with a caption referring to “nieces,” according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but the picture was later deleted.
Accusations that Omar and Elmi were brother and sister initially surfaced on a Somali politics discussion board called SomaliSpot — but were also deleted, City Journal previously reported.
Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks during a news conference on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. James KeivomMinneapolis-based Somali blogger and community leader Abdihakim Osman later told the Daily Mail in 2020 he knew Omar and Elmi when he was growing up in Minnesota.
Osman claimed the future US congressswoman had introduced Elmi as her brother from London to Somali community members back in the late 2000s.
At the time, she noted her sibling was looking for “papers,” referencing immigration documents such as a green card.






