Congresswoman Ilhan Omar citizenship row: What Trump officials found in 2019 review

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is at the center of controversy related to her citizenship as last week the US government officials raided her house as a part of “federal criminal investigation.”

On October 12, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents executed a search warrant at the Washington, D.C., home of Ilhan Omar while she and her husband were present.

According to The Wall Street Journal, federal authorities seized her passport, mobile phone, personal computers, and notebooks during the operation.

As per the multiple media outlets, at the heart of this investigation lies the issue pertinent to Omar’s US citizenship as she lied about her age when she arrived in the US in 1995.

However, in the latest update reported by the Washington Post, the US immigration officials did not find sufficient evidence of wrongdoing when they reviewed Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar’s immigration records in 2019.

During the reviewing process, the investigators assessed Omar’s background, her family’s history and controversy surrounding her marriage. But the Homeland Security Investigation officials found nothing significant, citing three former immigration officials.

A 2019 review was prompted by a political appointee in the first Trump administration and it previously looked into unsubstantiated claims involving her former husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, her birth date, and her father's military service.

The review's findings are significant as federal authorities investigate whether Omar or her late father submitted false information on immigration documents to gain legal status and US citizenship.

Now the current investigation revolves around examining whether Omar and her father intentionally misstated immigration paperwork information especially her birth date was altered to affect citizenship eligibility and whether her father misrepresented details about his military services in Somalia.

Representative Omar and her spokesperson have rejected the allegations, accusing the Trump administration of a politically motivated abuse of power and using federal law enforcement against political opponents.

“Trump has spread lie after lie about the Congresswoman in a desperate attempt to justify his extraordinary abuse of power,” her spokesperson said in a statement.