Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Thursday asserted that Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) “married her brother” as part of an alleged fraudulent immigration scheme — and could face deportation.
Mullin made the comment to conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, as he discussed the “ongoing” federal investigation into the “Squad” congresswoman, at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas.
“We know that she married her brother to try to bring him to the United States,” Mullin said confidently.
“We know he lives now in London,” the DHS chief added, referring to Omar’s ex-husband.
Mullin suggested that the investigation may turn up “illegal activity” on the congresswoman’s part that could result in her being deported from the US.
“There may be more to this, the whole family migration and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with,” he told Johnson.
Mullin cautioned that the case is still being investigated and was adamant it was not politically motivated.
“Here’s what I want to make sure we do: if we actually move a case forward, it’s not a political case, it’s an actual case, because they did things wrong,” he said.
Mullin added, “If you lied about certain things about your application. There’s no expiration to that. If we can prove it – that you shouldn’t have been here in the first place – we’ll deport you.”
Omar became a naturalized US citizen in 2000, when she was 17 years old.
The congresswoman has vehemently denied marrying her brother.
Omar has two ex-husbands, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, the latter of whom was first accused at least a decade ago of wedding the future US congresswoman.
“Insinuations that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is my brother are absurd and offensive,” Omar told MPR News in 2016.
“This is a ridiculous lie and desperate attempt to distract from the pedophile protection party’s unpopular war of choice, increasing gas prices, and rapidly dropping polling numbers,” Omar’s chief of staff Connor McNutt said of the marriage fraud allegations earlier this year.
Omar legally married Hirsi in January 2018 – a month after she dissolved her marriage with Elmi, a UK citizen, whom she had legally wed in February 2009, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune and a Hennepin County marriage certificate previously obtained by The Post.
Omar has described her relationship with Elmi as brief, and claims they were separated for much of the time, except between 2009 and 2011. There’s no record of the two having children.
In 2019, the Star Tribune reported that an Instagram photo seemingly showed Elmi holding a newborn girl he referred to as his niece in June 2012 – the same month and year Omar’s youngest daughter was born.
That photo was subsequently deleted.
Other allegations that Omar and Elmi were brother and sister first surfaced on a Somali politics discussion board called SomaliSpot — but were also deleted, according to City Journal.
Minneapolis-based Somali blogger and community leader Abdihakim Osman later told the Daily Mail in 2020 he knew Omar when the two were growing up in Minnesota — and she had introduced Elmi as her brother from London to Somali community members in the late 2000s.
Omar allegedly would tell people at the time that her sibling was looking for “papers,” referencing immigration documents such as a green card.
“No one knew there had been a wedding [to Elmi] until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,” Osman told the Daily Mail.
President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have also stated that they believe Omar may have married her brother.
“We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America,” Vance told Benny Johnson in March.
In May, Trump told a crowd that he also believes Omar “married her brother, which is totally illegal.”
Marriage fraud is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
