Hundreds Rally for Ilhan Omar After Federal Search of Her Home
Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., home under a judicially authorized warrant, the Justice Department said, as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Neither the warrant nor affidavit has been made public, and no charges were announced. Omar says the search is political intimidation. Officials including Tom Homan have said agencies are reviewing her marriage history and her late father’s paperwork, claims Republicans have made without evidence and Omar denies. At a “Stand with Ilhan” rally at Powderhorn Park, lawmakers, activists and union leaders called the search an attack on democracy and urged people to vote.
Three weeks before the midterm elections, federal agents searched the Washington, D.C., home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, escalating a yearslong probe as President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to strip one of his most vocal critics of her citizenship.
The Department of Justice said agents with Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Neither the warrant nor the supporting affidavit had been made public, and no criminal charges against Omar were announced in connection with the search.
That evening, hundreds of Omar’s supporters gathered at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis for a “Stand with Ilhan” rally, calling the search politically motivated and urging people to vote in November.
State lawmakers, activists and union members told the MSR they were angry but not surprised.
“We’ve seen Congresswoman Omar have these kinds of attacks on her the entire time she’s been in elected office,” said state Rep. Cedrick Frazier. “It doesn’t surprise me that during a midterm election, where they’re trying to distract everyone from everything that’s going on right now, the price of gas, the price of food, the price of housing, the fact that we’re in an illegal war, that they’re going to continue with these political attacks.”
Frazier was a labor attorney for Education Minnesota and legal counsel for Minneapolis Public Schools when he first met Omar during her time as a state legislator.
“Right away, you knew she was going to be a fighter because she was standing up for everybody and for everything,” he said.
“I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,” Omar posted on social media. “For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.”
Omar came to the United States as a refugee in 1995, when she was 12. White House border czar Tom Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin have publicly said federal agencies were reviewing Omar’s marriage history and paperwork her late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, submitted decades ago. Homan confirmed the search, saying the warrant was signed by a judge and that the Justice Department is leading the investigation along with the Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans have claimed, without evidence, that Omar married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi as part of an immigration scheme and that her father altered her childhood refugee paperwork. Omar has denied the allegations and called them offensive.
[The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the MSR’s request for comment by press time.]
Malika Dahir, executive director of Reviving Sisterhood, pulled her children out of school to watch Omar sworn into Congress in January 2019.
“I had never imagined that a Black Muslim woman who looked, dressed and sounded like me could hold elected office in this state. I wanted them to bear witness to the historic moment. I wanted them to see what was possible for them too,” Dahir said. “That is why what is happening to her feels so deeply personal. For years, Ilhan has endured inflammatory rhetoric, threats and attacks on her identity.”
Emily Phillips, an immigrant rights activist who frequently protests at the Whipple Federal Building, met Omar there in July during a tour with Rep. Pramila Jayapal. Phillips said she asked Omar to advocate for the release of Martin Soto and to connect with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein.
“They did reach out to their counterparts in New Jersey regarding Martin Soto and emailed me about that, and they also did connect with at least one Epstein survivor multiple times,” Phillips said.
Soto is a Peruvian asylum seeker who organized hunger and labor strikes at Delaney Hall, a privately run immigration detention center in New Jersey operated by GEO Group. A federal judge ordered him freed Oct. 6.
Marcia Howard, president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59, said the community has been bracing for a crackdown ahead of the midterms.
“We have been practicing drills in democracy defense in anticipation of November, and one of them was: What if one of your elected officials’ home was invaded by an authoritarian force,” Howard said. “It goes to show that you can never truly be prepared for the fall of democracy as you know it.”
Fighting back tears, Howard called the search an attack on a Black woman who is an elected U.S. citizen.
“My abject anger is for what the Trump administration is doing to a duly elected American citizen, Ilhan Omar, because he is trying to undermine our electoral process by questioning her citizenship before the midterms,” Howard said. “It is a direct attack on democracy, and I take that personally.”
Days before the search, Trump posted on social media that “Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants.”
Howard described the Somali community as funny, creative and resilient, and said she is angered by the harassment campaign aimed at it. As an African American, she said, she sees Somali Minnesotans being targeted and stereotyped the way Black Americans have been for 400 years.
“I wouldn’t wish that on anybody else,” Howard said. “The scrutiny, the stereotype, the laser-eyed focus. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”
At the rally, Somali American poet Farah Habad, wearing the jersey of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, spoke about his family’s roots in this country.
“This is the land where my grandmother was buried, and where my nieces and nephews were born,” Habad said. “And even if it wasn’t that, spite alone is an excellent motivation to build a lovely life here.”
Clint Combs is a freelance journalist and contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. He welcomes reader responses at combs0284@gmail.com.