WASHINGTON — The paperwork was filled out by a man who is now dead, about a girl too young to sign her own name to it. On Monday, before the sun came up over Washington, federal agents carrying a search warrant arrived at the home of that girl, who is now a member of Congress.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., came to the United States as a refugee from Somalia and became a citizen as a teenager. She has spent her public life as the most visible refugee in American politics, and as the woman President Donald Trump and his MAGA ilk has most tells to go back.
Now agents from Homeland Security Investigations, the criminal arm of ICE, have searched her home in what the Justice Department calls a criminal investigation into her immigration paperwork. Every naturalized American should read that sentence twice.
No one has charged Omar with a crime. A search warrant is not an indictment, and it is not proof of anything.
What we know
The Justice Department said Monday that HSI agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant, obtained by the department, at a residence in the Washington area. Reports describe it as Omar’s Washington-area home. Some early headlines placed the search in Minnesota. The most reliable reporting does not support that.
The government has disclosed almost nothing else. It has not named the judge, the case number or the crimes listed in the warrant. It has not said what agents took. It has not said whether Omar is a target, a subject or a witness. The affidavit, which is the document that would explain why a judge found probable cause, remains out of public view.
The government has also not said how many agents came, whether anyone was home, or whether they took phones, computers or congressional material. Because Omar is a sitting member, any seized legislative records could trigger Speech or Debate Clause fights later.
The case behind the case
Reporting before Monday’s search said investigators had zeroed in on Omar’s 2000 citizenship. In particular, they were looking at paperwork her late father prepared, which may include representations about identity, age or family background.
That is a different matter from the allegation that Omar married her brother. Right-wing media has pushed that claim for a decade. Omar called it “absurd and offensive” back in 2016. No agency or court has ever established it.
The investigation did not surface quietly. In January, Trump said the Justice Department and Congress were “looking at” Omar. She called his claims lies and conspiracy theories. In September, White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed an “ongoing criminal investigation” by HSI. When reporters asked Omar that month whether DHS had contacted her, she answered: “No, they have not.”
Monday, they came to her door.
A long fight
Few members of Congress have absorbed more of Trump’s fire, or returned more of it.
In 2019, a Trump rally crowd chanted “Send her back” about the Somali-born congresswoman. Omar flew home to Minneapolis and answered with a megaphone at the airport baggage claim. She said Trump’s nightmare was watching a Somali refugee rise to Congress.
ICE reached her family before it reached her front door. Last December, during the federal enforcement surge in the Twin Cities, Omar said immigration agents pulled over her son and asked him to prove his citizenship. She said the stop reflected racial profiling during a crackdown aimed at Somali communities. Her son was born in the United States. She said agents had earlier entered a mosque where he was praying, though they did nothing and eventually left. ICE Director Todd Lyons said the agency had “absolutely zero record” of any such stop. Omar’s office stood by her account and called ICE a rogue agency that had racially profiled her son and others.
That surge followed Trump saying he does not “want them in our country” about Somali immigrants, and calling Omar herself “garbage.”
She fought the Muslim ban from her first weeks in office. She has demanded answers about the Twin Cities crackdown ever since it began.
That history does not prove Monday’s raid was retaliation. It does mean the Justice Department owes the public more than a one-sentence statement. The investigation targets a vocal critic of the president, it is run by the agency carrying out his immigration agenda, and it was announced in advance by the president himself.
What comes next
The documents that matter are the affidavit, the warrant return and the property inventory. Until they are unsealed, the government has established exactly one thing: a judge signed a piece of paper.
Ilhan Omar has spent her whole life learning what this government can do with a piece of paper.
This just feels so dirty and disgusting. This is no longer our government. They would come after any one of us if he orders them to do it. Even if there is no evidence and they know it's wrong.
Trump is weak, so weak!