FBI and Homeland Security found evidence Ilhan Omar's marriage was fraudulent in 2016

The federal investigation into Ilhan Omar's second marriage began in the summer of 2016, under the Obama administration, and the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security found evidence that the marriage was fraudulent, current and former officials have told the New York Times. The case stalled: the potential felony fell outside a five-year statute of limitations.

The finding now sits inside the larger federal investigation into the Minnesota congresswoman's immigration paperwork — the one in which agents searched her home in Washington, and which could lead to imprisonment or deportation. Its center is the decade-old allegation that her second husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, is her brother and that the marriage served a scheme to obtain US citizenship for him. Asked whether she was related to Elmi, Omar has answered: "Not to my knowledge."

For most of the past decade, her position has been that the claims are a right-wing conspiracy theory that federal officials debunked during her 2016 election campaign. According to the Times' reconstruction, those same officials spent that campaign season examining the marriage, found evidence of fraud, and then concluded the felony was barred by the five-year statute of limitations.

The file then moved with the administrations. It outlasted Obama's. A source familiar with the probe told the New York Post that "the Biden US Attorney in Minnesota shut it down" shortly after entering office in 2021. President Trump repeated the brother accusation publicly last week. The allegations have since returned as a federal investigation pursued with a search warrant.

The evidence dates from the summer of 2016. The search of her home came a decade later.