Trump Administration Raid on Ilhan Omar Home Sparks Deportation Fears

The early morning Homeland Security raid on US Representative Ilhan Omar's Washington home Monday should not shock anyone who follows the story. As the reporter who broke most of the stories about her complicated marital life, I have been expecting it since Donald Trump walked into the White House for the second time. The only surprise is that this move against the Minnesota Congresswoman came just three weeks before she faces re-election on November 3. This action clearly breaks an unwritten Justice Department rule that normally prevents such strikes within 60 days of a vote. But the Trump administration has smashed so many norms they should have known it would ignore this one too.

The real question now is whether the administration has enough proof to show Ahmed Elmi is actually her brother, as I and the Daily Mail have reported many times. If that holds true, officials will almost certainly try to deport Omar for breaking immigration rules. I first started digging into Omar's love life in the summer of 2019 after a tip said she was dining at an Italian restaurant in Playa Del Rey, California. She seemed close with her bespectacled companion then, and she was married at the time. That man turned out to be her political consultant, Tim Mynett. He was also married back then with a teenage son.

From there I started getting tips about her tangled love life and especially her February 2009 marriage to Elmi. Abdihakim Osman Nur, a community leader in Minneapolis, told me back in 2020 that Omar and her then-husband Ahmed Hirsi – known by the nickname Southside – had introduced the flamboyant Elmi as her brother. 'He was very feminine in the way he dressed – he would wear light lipstick and pink clothes and very, very, short shorts in the summer,' Nur said. 'People started whispering about him.' We uncovered Omar's marriage license application with Elmi filed at a Hennepin County office in Eden Prairie, Minnesota when she was 26 and he was 23.

On their marriage application they gave their address as Columbia Heights, Minnesota, but were married 25 miles away in Eden Prairie at a nondescript single-story brick building that houses a county office and a library. Despite both being Muslim, the ceremony was conducted by Wilecia Harris, a Christian minister. 'If they had gone to an imam he would have almost certainly have known if they were related,' one Somali leader in Minnesota said. Even though Elmi, now 41, and Omar, 44, are Muslim, the wedding took place with a Christian officiant. When we approached Harris, she refused to comment on why the two asked her to marry them. The minister's husband, Marcus Harris, told us: 'My wife doesn't want to be involved or interviewed about Congresswoman Omar. It's not going to happen, not now and not never.'

Omar left her first husband so she could marry Ahmed Elmi in 2009. Omar has been accused of entering that marriage solely to allow Elmi – a British citizen – to enter the US. Political enemies have long noted Elmi is her brother.

Ahmed Nur Said Elmi told me his sister Ilhan Omar needed specific documents for her brother to enroll in school. He claimed the goal was simply to let him stay in this country and access student loans. Once those papers were secured, they both moved to North Dakota for classes. Yet she remained married to Ahmed Elmi during that time. In Somali culture, only a mosque wedding counts as real.

The local imam at their Minneapolis mosque would have known the couple were siblings. He surely would have refused to perform the ceremony. That is why Nur insisted they asked a Christian minister in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, to officiate instead. The application for marriage shows the names clearly.

Omar's marital history has been messy from the start. She wed Hirsi in 2002 during a religious rite that held no legal weight. They had three children together: Isra, Ilwad, and Adnan. Later, she supposedly split from him to marry Elmi, who lived in Britain, back in 2009. Sources say this union was purely so Elmi could attend North Dakota State University. No one ever suggested the marriage with her brother involved any physical act.

She continued seeing Hirsi until their third child, Ilwad, arrived in 2012. She finally divorced Elmi in 2017. This cleared the path for a legal civil ceremony with Hirsi the following year, just before she took her seat in Congress.

My reporting on this began in summer 2019 after I received a tip about Omar dining at an Italian restaurant in Playa Del Rey, California. The Daily Mail caused quite a stir that same year by revealing she lived on and off with married campaign aide Tim Mynett. Photos showed the pair entering and leaving her Washington DC apartment repeatedly in secret.

They wed in 2019, five months after she left Hirsi for good. Mynett converted to Islam shortly after they tied the knot. But this marriage did not work out either. She left him just five months before their actual wedding date. The relationship ended when Hirsi visited her DC apartment and found them lounging in pajamas together. That is strictly forbidden for Muslim women who cannot be alone with men other than their husband or close male relatives.

Hirsi had long suspected an affair on her part. He now had proof. He married again just 37 days after the divorce was finalized. She could have explained the whole Elmi situation clearly. Instead, her 2020 autobiography barely touched on it. Her book focused heavily on fleeing war-torn Somalia for a refugee camp in Kenya. It detailed her move to the United States and her rise through Minnesota politics leading to her 2018 election. She even wrote about miscarrying twins during her first marriage.

Details about her second marriage were scarce. She claimed she had a Britney Spears-style meltdown at the time. 'I not only eloped with a man – whom I spent so little time with that I wouldn't even make him a footnote in my story if it weren't for the fact that this event turned into the main headline later on – but I shaved my head,' she wrote. 'Yes, like the beleaguered pop star, who shaved her head in 2007, I took clippers to my own head.'

Hirsi and Omar wed in a religious ceremony in 2002, though the law never recognized their union. She left him to marry Elmi in 2009.

Ilhan Omar divorced her first husband in 2017, only to marry Ahmed Hirsi a year later via civil ceremony just before she took her congressional seat. The pair have three children: Ilwad, Adnan, and Isra. They were photographed together in 2019.

Omar recently described the toll of that union. She spoke of too many headaches and too little sleep. She said she had to flee herself, her relationships, and even her hair.

She drew a sharp line between herself and Britney Spears. Omar noted that while Spears eloped with Jason Alexander in 2004 only to annul the marriage two days later, Omar did not hide behind a veil. Wait, no. She said she wore a hijab, so nobody knew what she had done except her children. Her son Adnan once declared, Mommy looks like me. He was right. She looked like a little boy.

Martin Gould broke most of the stories surrounding Omar's complex marital life. Now he explains why he anticipated the Homeland Security raid on her home.

In her book, Omar framed her second marriage as impulsive. It ended in divorce, much like Spears' fleeting union. The only time she returned to that marriage was when discussing her 2016 election to the Minnesota House of Representatives.

She also addressed an anonymous post on a Somali website called Somali Spot. That forum established two simple facts: Omar applied for a marriage license in 2002 and again in 2009 during their elopement. These facts were true, yet they unleashed a torrent of speculation and conspiracies that follow her to this day.

Some claimed she married a relative illegally to help him enter the United States. That accusation is false. Omar says she has never found out who posted the allegation.

Homeland Security Investigations police searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's home early Monday. This action marks a major escalation in a case border czar Tom Homan first revealed in mid-September.

If someone possessed accurate information or true concerns about an immigration crime, Omar argued they would have gone to the Star Tribune. They did not do that. Instead, time may now be running out for her attempts to bury the truth about her mysterious second husband. He is reportedly back living in London.

The Department of Homeland Security focuses on immigration papers her late father completed when she was a minor. Omar arrived in the US with him in 1995 at age 12. She became an American citizen at 17.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stated the probe reached beyond the disputed second marriage. He warned that removal actions could follow if wrongdoing is proven. Pressed on whether Omar was under investigation, Homan refused to discuss specifics but warned that no one is above the law. He also declined to rule out stripping her citizenship.

The Daily Mail has contacted Omar's office for comment on Monday's raid. The situation remains fluid and tense.