Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has long marketed herself as the champion of Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community, saying publicly last year that she’s in office “first and foremost” to represent the interests of her fellow Somali refugees. But if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is correct, Omar hasn’t just failed at that mission — she may have inadvertently made things far worse for the very people she claims to protect.
According to a bombshell report in the New York Post, ICE and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have uncovered massive immigration fraud among Somali immigrants in greater Minneapolis. Nearly half of all Somali immigrants in the area are reportedly living in the United States illegally, through schemes ranging from sham marriages to forged death certificates. Joseph Edley, director of USCIS, called some of the methods “bizarre,” noting that federal officials have known about widespread fraud for years.
This isn’t exactly a new revelation. As far back as 2008, the State Department suspended a visa program for Somali refugees after DNA testing revealed that over 80% of claimed “family members” had no genetic link whatsoever. In other words, immigration loopholes were being exploited on a massive scale. Yet Omar has continued to present herself as the face of Somali immigration success, while brushing off questions about her own path to U.S. citizenship.
Those questions aren’t going away. The “Squad” member’s personal history is riddled with controversy, particularly her 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi — whom many in the Somali community have alleged is her biological brother. According to one source, no Somali Muslim cleric would officiate their marriage because of the deception, forcing Omar to use a Christian pastor. Omar later divorced Elmi in 2017 and married another man the following year, all while running for public office and downplaying her marital history on campaign websites.
To this day, Omar dismisses the accusations as “baseless,” but even her own political consultant, Ben Goldfarb, has admitted that trying to explain the situation would only “make it more confusing.” Meanwhile, Somali sources told the Daily Mail earlier this year that Elmi may be living openly as a gay man in London, lending more credence to the belief that their marriage was a paperwork arrangement rather than a real one.
For a politician who claims to stand for transparency and accountability, Omar’s story looks less like an inspiring refugee tale and more like a cautionary tale of what happens when identity politics collides with immigration fraud.
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