Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-M.N., admitted marrying her brother to help him skirt U.S. immigration law, a new eyewitness from the Minnesota Somali community told The Daily Mail this week — a new witness in the long-standing allegations about Omar’s marital history.
Abdihakim Osman, a Minnesota local that has known the congresswoman’s family for decades, told reporters that Omar acknowledged seeking immigration papers for her brother before her 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
Conservative critics have claimed Said Elmi is her brother, and that Omar may have used a fake marriage to get him a green card so he could study in the United States.
The reported timeline of Omar’s ex-marriages:
- 2002: Marries Ahmed Hirsi in religious ceremony
- 2008: Separates from Hirsi after having two children
- 2009: Legally marries Ahmed Nur Said Elmi
- 2011: Religious divorce from Elmi; reconciles with Hirsi
- 2012: Has third child with Hirsi
- 2014-2015: Files joint taxes with Hirsi while legally married to Elmi
- 2017: Legally divorces Elmi
- 2018: Legally marries Hirsi
“People began noticing that Ilhan and [Hirsi] were often with a very effeminate young guy,” Osman said. “[Hirsi] and Ilhan both told me it was Ilhan’s brother and he had been living in London but he was mixing with what were seen as bad influences that the family did not like.”
“No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,” Osman said.
Omar’s office has repeatedly said she will not address personal matters.
“The Congresswoman is focused on the work her constituents sent her to Washington to accomplish,” spokesman Jeremy Slevin said.
Previously, he stated that “Ilhan has been the subject of conspiracy theories and false accusations about her personal life” and has called the allegations Islamophobic.
Campaign finance records later show Omar was fined $500 for using campaign funds for tax work after filing joint returns with Hirsi while legally married to Elmi. During a deposition, Omar said she was “unaware” this violated tax law.
In a 2013 social media post, Omar wrote: “Happy Father’s Day to my aabo Nur Said, I am forever grateful to Allah for giving me the best father…” She has since deleted the post. There’s just one problem in that seemingly innocent tweet…
Based on that tweet, if her father’s surname is Nur Said that would make Omar’s real name Ilhan Nur Said. Her ex-husband’s name is Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
In Somali naming customs, children typically take their father’s name as their middle name — which would imply that Omar married her brother in her second marriage.
Immigration fraud was reportedly rampant in the Somali community at the time, the Wall Street Journal reported. A 2008 DNA testing pilot program under former President Barack Obama discovered that only 16 percent of would-be immigrants were genetically linked to their reported family, for example.
Public records show both Elmi and Hirsi shared a mailing address in Columbia Heights when Omar married Elmi. Immigration lawyer Steven Thal said sibling marriage fraud is “so rare that you would think that it would be more easily uncovered.”
A Minnesota Star Tribune investigation in 2019 found little public information about Elmi, and could not debunk the rumors. Omar has repeatedly declined to provide tax and immigration records or make family members available for interviews.
Social media posts appearing to show Omar with Elmi in London in 2015 have been deleted but remain archived by conservative media. Liberal fact-check site PolitiFact has also failed to debunk the allegations, and admitted that there is “circumstantial evidence that begs for some kind of explanation from a member of Congress.”
Omar previously dismissed the allegations as “baseless rumors” but has said little about Elmi beyond denying he is her brother. When asked directly in 2018, she told the Star Tribune: “If someone was asking me, do I have a brother by that name, I don’t.”