Family text messages on the phone of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) sister prompted the search warrant and controversial raid on the lawmaker’s Washington, D.C. home, the New York Times is reporting.
Three unnamed sources “familiar with the matter” told the newspaper that federal investigators seized the phone of Omar’s sister Sahra Noor earlier this year when they began investigating whether Somalia-born lawmaker conspired to commit immigration fraud when she came to the U.S. in the 1990s.
The text messages were used to obtain a federal judge’s approval for Department of Homeland Security agents for Monday’s where authorities seized the congresswoman’s phone, passport, notebooks and personal computers, according to the Times.
Homeland Security Investigations police search the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on October 12, 2026 in Washington, DC. According to reports, the search is part of an ongoing criminal investigation. (Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)
As Breitbart News reported Saturday, Omar is under federal investigation as the result of allegations that reportedly include she and/or her father lied about when she was born on immigration paperwork in order to obtain her citizenship after her family fled the troubled African country.
Noor, who currently lives in Kenya, skipped an event she had scheduled in Rochester, NY to promote her new book, Salt in the Snow: A Somali Immigrant Story. She cited a “family emergency” amid the fallout from the raid, according to the New York Post.
Before the raid, federal agents had been dumpster diving to collect DNA from Omar’s trash, sources told NewsNation. Perusing a suspect’s garbage put out on the street does not require a warrant, not only for DNA but any evidence of a crime. It is a common investigative practice by law enforcement.
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The Omar investigation is expected to be eventually submitted to a federal grand jury in Minnesota to help ascertain whether Omar and her family lied when they immigrated to the U.S.
As Breitbart reported, one matter at issue is whether the lawmaker was actually 18 and not 17 when she was made a naturalized citizen after her father, a former Somalian military officer, had achieved that status seeking asylum in the U.S..
If she actually was 18, a legal adult, she would have to seek citizenship through the process herself. If she was not really a minor at the time, then she could not become a “naturalized citizen” under her father’s status and was not legally eligible to serve in Congress.
Her Minnesota legislative colleague, GOP whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), the number three Republican in the House, told Fox News over the weekend that if she or the family did lie then Omar should be “jailed” and then deported.
“That judge had to determine that there was probable cause that a federal crime has been committed [to approve a warrant],” Emmer said. “And I’ll tell you what, as long as it was Ilhan Omar, it was going to be scrutinized to the very detail.”
“I think she is a liar,” Emmer also told Fox on camera. “I think she is a fraud.”
Reportedly, other members of Omar’s family have been subpoenaed in the probe.
According to the New York Post:
Omar and her family were admitted to the US as refugees after Somalia’s civil war, even though Omar’s father, Nur Omar Mohamed, was a high-ranking colonel for the brutal dictator who killed an estimated 200,000 people before was overturned. Sources previously told the Post he misrepresented his identity when he came to the US.
The lawmaker’s representatives and backers have continued to defend the left-wing congresswoman, again evoking a consistent theme — President Donald Trump is behind the probe.
“Trump has spread lie after lie about the congresswoman in a desperate attempt to justify his extraordinary abuse of power,” Jackie Rogers told the Times in a statement.
“This is politically motivated and an escalation of Trump’s personal vendetta against her lasting over a decade.”
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
