Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told a GOP convention audience that Rep. Ilhan Omar "married her brother" in an immigration fraud scheme, and that a federal investigation into the Minnesota Democrat could end in deportation.

Mullin made the remarks Thursday at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas during an interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, going further than any sitting Cabinet official has gone in publicly describing the long-running allegations against the Somali-born congresswoman. He did not hedge. He did not say the government suspects fraud. He said the government knows it happened, and is building a case to act on it.

"We know that she married her brother to try to bring him to the United States," Mullin said, as reported by the New York Post. "We know he lives now in London."

Mullin went on to confirm that a federal investigation into Omar is "ongoing" and that the probe may extend beyond the marriage itself. He pointed to what he described as potential fraud in how Omar's broader family entered the country.

"There may be more to this, the whole family migration and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with."

The DHS secretary also laid out the legal stakes plainly. Marriage fraud is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. But Mullin signaled the consequences could go further than a criminal charge.

"If you lied about certain things about your application. There's no expiration to that. If we can prove it, that you shouldn't have been here in the first place, we'll deport you."

Omar became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000 at age 17. Mullin's comments raise the prospect that a sitting member of Congress could face the revocation of her citizenship if investigators determine she obtained it through fraudulent means.

Mullin insists the investigation is legal, not political

Mullin appeared to anticipate accusations that the probe is politically motivated. He told Johnson he wants any case the government brings to stand on its own merits.

"Here's what I want to make sure we do: if we actually move a case forward, it's not a political case, it's an actual case, because they did things wrong."

That framing matters. Omar's office has dismissed the allegations for years, and her chief of staff, Connor McNutt, issued a statement earlier this year calling the claims "a ridiculous lie and desperate attempt to distract." McNutt's statement did not address the specific evidence cited by investigators or journalists, it attacked the motives of those raising the questions.

Omar herself denied the allegations as far back as 2016, telling MPR News that "insinuations that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is my brother are absurd and offensive." She has described her relationship with Elmi as brief and said the two were separated for much of the marriage, except between 2009 and 2011.

But the paper trail and witness accounts that have accumulated over the past decade tell a different story, one the federal government now appears to be taking seriously.

A marriage certificate, a deleted photo, and a community witness

Omar legally married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a UK citizen, in February 2009 in Hennepin County, Minnesota. A marriage certificate previously obtained by the New York Post confirms the union. There is no record of the two having children together.

Omar dissolved that marriage roughly a month before she legally married Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi in January 2018. The timeline itself raises questions: why marry Elmi at all, if the relationship was as distant and brief as Omar has claimed?

One piece of evidence that has drawn sustained attention is an Instagram photo first reported by the Minnesota Star Tribune in 2019. The Star Tribune reported that the photo showed Elmi holding a newborn girl he referred to as his niece, posted in June 2012, the same month and year Omar's youngest daughter was born. The photo was subsequently deleted.

If Elmi was Omar's husband, the child would be his stepdaughter, not his niece. The "niece" label is consistent with a sibling relationship, and inconsistent with a spousal one.

Abdihakim Osman, a Minneapolis-based Somali blogger and community leader, told the Daily Mail in 2020 that he knew Omar when the two were growing up in Minnesota. Osman said Omar introduced Elmi as her brother from London to members of the local Somali community in the late 2000s. She told people, Osman said, that her sibling was looking for "papers", immigration documents such as a green card.

"No one knew there had been a wedding [to Elmi] until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later."

The original allegations that Omar and Elmi were brother and sister first surfaced on SomaliSpot, a Somali politics discussion board, at least a decade ago. Those posts were later deleted, a fact previously noted in reporting on a broader DOJ investigation into Omar and her family.

Vance, Trump, and Homan all weighed in before Mullin's Dallas remarks

Mullin is not the first senior official in the Trump administration to publicly state that Omar committed immigration fraud. Vice President JD Vance told Benny Johnson in March that the administration had reached its own conclusion.

"We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America."

President Trump told a crowd in May that he believes Omar "married her brother, which is totally illegal." And border czar Tom Homan confirmed in December 2025 that DHS was actively pulling records and investigating the fraud allegations. "We're pulling the records, we're pulling the files. We're looking at it," Homan said at the time, as Just The News reported. "I'm running that down this week."

That reporting also revealed that ICE refused a Freedom of Information Act request for records related to the Omar investigation. The agency cited the exemption under federal law that applies specifically to ongoing enforcement proceedings, a legal designation that confirms the investigation is more than talk. Vance separately told reporters that the Department of Justice is "looking at" the allegations as well.

The accumulation of on-record statements from a vice president, a Cabinet secretary, and a senior enforcement official, combined with ICE's formal invocation of an active-enforcement exemption, marks a significant escalation. These are not anonymous leaks or campaign trail accusations. They are named officials, on camera, describing an active federal case against a sitting member of Congress.

Omar's pattern of unanswered questions keeps growing

The marriage fraud investigation is not the only cloud hanging over Omar. Her revised financial disclosures wiped out millions in reported assets, and she has refused to explain the discrepancies. Separately, police raided her son's home and recovered weapons tied to a felon roommate, and Omar dodged questions about that, too.

A pattern emerges not from any single allegation but from the consistent response: deny, deflect, attack the questioner, and never address the substance. McNutt's statement this year is a case study. He called the marriage fraud claims "a ridiculous lie" and pivoted immediately to attacking Republicans over unrelated policy disputes. He did not explain the marriage certificate. He did not address the deleted Instagram photo. He did not account for Osman's testimony. He did not explain why Elmi called Omar's daughter his niece.

Omar has had a decade to provide a simple, verifiable answer to a simple question: is Ahmed Nur Said Elmi her brother? She has called the question "absurd and offensive." She has not produced evidence that settles it.

Meanwhile, a retired state trooper running against Omar in Minnesota has made the fraud allegations a centerpiece of his campaign, a sign that voters in her own district are paying attention even if Washington has been slow to act.

What happens next depends on whether DHS follows through

Mullin's public statements in Dallas raise the stakes considerably. A Cabinet secretary does not casually tell a convention audience that a sitting congresswoman married her brother and could face deportation unless the department is prepared to back those words with action. If the investigation produces charges, Omar would face a federal criminal case while serving in Congress. If it produces evidence of application fraud, she could face proceedings to strip her citizenship.

Several questions remain unanswered. Which specific agency or unit within DHS is running the investigation? Has Elmi been contacted or interviewed? What evidence does the government possess beyond the public record and witness statements already reported? And will the Department of Justice ultimately bring charges, or will this investigation quietly stall the way so many Washington probes do?

Mullin said he wants a real case, not a political one. Fair enough. The country has heard that promise before from officials on both sides. What matters now is whether the evidence leads where Mullin says it does, and whether the government has the will to treat a sitting congresswoman the same way it would treat any other person who lied on an immigration application.

Equal justice under law is not a slogan. It is a test, and the government just told the country it intends to take it.