Federal prosecutors are fighting to keep sealed the warrant used to search Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington home. Anonymous sources have told Fox News Digital that her birth name is not Ilhan Omar, a claim her office calls "completely false."
Homeland Security Investigations agents searched the Minnesota Democrat's Washington, D.C., home before dawn on 12 October. The government has said only that the raid was part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. It has not said what crime, if any, Omar is suspected of committing.
The case puts a sitting, naturalized member of Congress at the center of a federal inquiry. According to Fox News Digital, investigators are examining whether Omar or her father committed fraud when filling out her immigration paperwork. Omar has not been charged with a crime, and materials presented by prosecutors are only allegations.
What is Ilhan Omar's real name?
Two people familiar with the investigation, including a law enforcement source, told Fox News Digital that the congresswoman's real name is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. The claim rests on those anonymous sources. No court has made any finding on it.
The name also appears in a motion filed on Wednesday by Jeanine Pirro. Fox News described her as the U.S. district attorney for the District of Columbia. Several media outlets had asked the court to unseal the warrant, and Pirro's motion asked the court to keep it sealed.
The motion refers to the lawmaker as "Congresswoman llhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar." It argues that the government has not yet finished executing the search warrant.
The conservative commentator Will Chamberlain first posted the motion on X, Fox News reported. He speculated that the Justice Department believes Omar is in the United States under a false identity.
Omar's office rejected the report after Fox published it. "This is completely false. Ilhan Omar is her real name," a spokesperson said.
In a second statement, the spokesperson addressed separate claims that Omar married her brother. The spokesperson said Omar has repeatedly and unequivocally denied them, and denied them again in an interview on MS NOW. Omar's attorneys did not return Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Ilhan Omar citizenship investigation turns on immigration records
Omar's official House biography lists her birthday as 14 October 1982 and her birthplace as Mogadishu, Somalia. She has publicly confirmed that she does not have a birth certificate, Fox News reported.
Accounts of her arrival vary in detail between the two outlets. Fox News reported that Omar says she came to the United States as a minor with her family in 1995, as refugees fleeing Somalia. The BBC reported that she received U.S. citizenship in 2000 after arriving from Kenya.
Nathan Hansen, a former federal immigration judge from Minnesota, told Fox News Digital what proof of an alias would mean. If a court found that Omar had lived under an alias, he said, every form she had ever filled out could be called into question.
More than a dozen subpoenas have been issued to members of Omar's family, the BBC reported. Fox News Digital reported that her sister, Sahra Noor, was questioned by federal investigators last week.
What agents seized from Ilhan Omar's home
Omar described the search to MS NOW in her first public interview since the raid, the BBC reported. She said agents began pounding on the doors at around 06:00 EDT while she and her husband were in bed.
She estimated that between 15 and 25 agents surrounded the house. She said they showed her a warrant at the door after she asked for one. According to her account, agents spent roughly five hours going from room to room and left with 17 items, including:
- multiple cellphones
- notebooks
- her husband's camera from the 1960s
The BBC also reported that her personal computers and passport were among the items taken. Fox News Digital reported that investigators obtained Omar's DNA and seized her personal phone and passport during the raid.
Omar said she can no longer live in the house because she fears the raid has exposed her address. "With the death threats that I deal with, it's not, it's no longer going to be feasible to be in that house and have my kids," she told MS NOW.
Omar blames Trump, who denies involvement
After the raid, Omar posted a statement online calling it an outrageous abuse of power. She said it was a weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies. Former President Barack Obama called the probe appalling in a lengthy statement, the BBC reported.
President Donald Trump has denied any involvement, saying the investigation has nothing to do with him. At a rally in Ohio, he referred to the search: "I don't know what they're doing with it, but I can tell you this: she's a disaster."
Omar rejected that denial, saying "he's got everything to do with it." She traced the conflict to 2019, when she says Trump called for her to be sent back or deported. Several officials have made comments casting doubt on her citizenship, according to the BBC. Omar has represented Minnesota since 2018.
The BBC contacted the Justice Department for comment after the Department of Homeland Security referred it there. The court has not yet ruled on whether to unseal the warrant or grant Pirro's request to keep it sealed. Prosecutors have not said what remains to be done in executing it.