ILHAN OMAR’S ALLEGED BROTHER-HUSBAND WITHDREW HIS GREEN CARD PETITION THE MOMENT FEDS DEMANDED PROOF THE MARRIAGE WAS REAL
Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, the British national Ilhan Omar married in 2009, filed a petition to drop the conditions on his marriage-based green card. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services came back and asked for more evidence that the marriage was legitimate. Elmi withdrew the petition instead of producing it.
The Washington Post reported this detail while covering a 2019 review of Omar’s file under the first Trump administration. Career officials looked at the marriage claims and found insufficient evidence for a full fraud case at the time. They also looked at her citizenship paperwork and her father’s file and said they saw no clear problems. That is the version the paper is selling. The withdrawal itself is the part that does not disappear.
Benjamin Weingarten pointed out the obvious connection the Post left hanging. In 2016, while Omar was running for the Minnesota legislature and the brother rumors were already circulating in the Somali community, her lawyers used campaign money to pursue FOIA requests for immigration documents. Those requests specifically sought I-751 and I-130 materials—the same forms tied to converting a conditional marriage green card to permanent status. Months later they received responses. Years after that, the public learns Elmi had filed one of those exact petitions and then pulled it when investigators asked for proof.
Omar has called the sibling and sham-marriage allegations “absurd and offensive” and “bigoted lies.” She has said she does not have a brother by that name. No court has ruled that Elmi is her brother, and fact-checkers have long labeled the claim unfounded because public records do not prove it one way or the other. The Star Tribune investigated years ago and said it could neither confirm nor rebut the allegation. That remains the official line.
The timing still sits there. Omar was in a relationship with Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her children, when she legally married Elmi in 2009. She and Elmi separated in 2011 without a legal divorce. She reconciled with Hirsi, had another child, and only formally divorced Elmi in 2017 before legally marrying Hirsi. Elmi returned to England. Local Somali accounts from the period described Elmi as someone Omar introduced as a relative who needed papers. Those accounts are what started the rumor. They have never been tested in court.
Federal investigators are looking again. Homeland Security Investigations searched Omar’s Washington-area home on October 12 under a warrant that listed possible conspiracy, immigration fraud, and false statements. Reporting now says the current probe includes DNA evidence aimed at the question of whether Elmi is her biological brother, along with scrutiny of her age on earlier paperwork and her father’s military background. A prior review found no solid case. The new one is active. No charges have been filed.
One former official told the Post that Omar’s citizenship looked solid and that there was no fraud. Another part of the same reporting is that Elmi walked away from the petition the moment USCIS asked him to show the marriage was not a sham. That is the statement that is hard to spin. People who can prove a marriage is real usually do. People who cannot sometimes withdraw. The document is public now because the Washington Post put it in print. The rest is still under investigation.