A deepening federal investigation into Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has sent shockwaves through U.S. political circles, with new details emerging about subpoenas, evidence gathering, and the Trump administration’s aggressive broader agenda targeting immigration and naturalization. The Minnesota Star Tribune first reported Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), now led by Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump, has issued subpoenas to several of Omar’s immediate relatives — excluding her husband and daughter — as part of an ongoing inquiry into alleged immigration fraud.
The development comes just days after federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations carried out a pre-dawn raid at Omar’s Washington D.C. residence this Monday, a search that has now been confirmed resulted in the seizure of her cell phone, personal laptop and all other electronic devices held at the home.
Omar, a Somali-born refugee who arrived in the United States as a child in 1995 and made history as the first hijab-wearing Muslim member of Congress, has been one of Donald Trump’s most persistent political targets since her election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. With just weeks remaining until her November 3 re-election bid, the investigation has raised urgent questions about political interference in law enforcement.
The core of the DOJ’s current inquiry centers on the circumstances of Omar’s naturalization: she obtained U.S. citizenship at age 17 through her late father, who had already completed his own naturalization process. Investigators are now probing whether Omar was actually 18 at the time of her naturalization, a distinction that would have required her to submit a separate citizenship application independent of her father’s. For years, Trump has repeatedly called for investigations into Omar’s citizenship status, even going so far as to baselessly claim she married her own brother to fraudulently secure immigration status. Omar has repeatedly and forcefully denied all such allegations. Despite this, both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have spent the past year publicly demanding the inquiry move forward, with Trump infamously leading crowds at his political rallies in chants of “send her back” targeting the congresswoman.
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous senior U.S. officials, that the current administration is actively building a legal case to revoke Omar’s U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her. The reported plan is part of a much broader push by the Trump administration to strip citizenship from more people than any modern U.S. administration. Just last week, the DOJ announced an unprecedented move to initiate citizenship revocation proceedings for 40 people. Historically, such actions have been extremely rare, with most presidential administrations targeting fewer than five individuals per term. This crackdown aligns with Trump’s long-stated goal to deport as many as one million people annually from the U.S., regardless of whether their immigration status was obtained through legal or irregular pathways.
While Omar has been one of the most vocal critics of Trump’s policy agenda, she is far from the highest-profile opponent of the administration within Congress. Even many Republican lawmakers have pushed back on the investigation, arguing it is a deliberate distraction from pressing domestic issues that matter most to American voters. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, a former Republican House member who has become a prominent critic of Trump, posted publicly on social media platform X Wednesday saying she shares the view held by many of Omar’s supporters that the probe is a political distraction.
“Me and Ilhan Omar are far apart policy wise. I’m pro life, she’s pro abortion. I’m pro 2A, she’s pro gun control. And on and on,” Greene wrote. “But can someone tell me how pretending to get ready to deport Ilhan Omar is going to bring gas down under $2, make health insurance freaking affordable, make a family’s weekly grocery bill make sense, and stop sending our beloved military off to fight for another fucking foreign war??? People are so sick and tired of the bullshit.”
This is not the first time Omar has faced federal scrutiny: The New York Times has confirmed that during Democratic President Joe Biden’s prior administration, federal officials launched an investigation into Omar’s personal financial dealings back in 2022. That inquiry ultimately stalled and was closed after investigators failed to turn up sufficient evidence to support any charges.