Federal agents seized Rep. Ilhan Omar’s cellphone in a judge-approved raid on her Washington home tied to an immigration fraud probe, while her office calls it political intimidation and investigators say they will follow the facts.
Homeland Security Investigations agents entered the Minnesota Democrat’s Washington, D.C., residence on Monday and took her cellphone as part of a criminal fraud investigation into her immigration paperwork, Fox News reported.
A federal judge had approved the search warrant. The Department of Justice also issued more than a dozen subpoenas to Omar’s relatives over her immigration history. The probe examines whether her age was misrepresented when she came to the United States and later became a citizen, and whether related filings connected to her late father were untruthful.
Omar’s office denies any wrongdoing and frames the search as retaliation. Investigators describe a fact-driven review of immigration records, not a political stunt. No charges have been announced.
Breitbart News detailed the same core actions this week: the HSI raid, the cellphone seizure, DOJ subpoenas to relatives, and the immigration fraud focus shared by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
The search went beyond a single device. According to the New York Post, federal agents seized Omar’s cellphone, personal computers, notebooks, and passport during an early-morning raid on the D.C. home. Omar and her husband, Tim Mynett, were present.
That inventory matters. Passports, devices, and written notes are the kind of material investigators use to compare public statements, immigration forms, and later citizenship filings against one another. The warrant rested on a federal judge’s approval, not an informal request.
Readers following the fallout have already seen related coverage of the HSI search of Omar’s D.C. home that opened this chapter of the probe.
The Justice Department’s subpoenas to family members widen the paper trail. More than a dozen relatives received process tied to Omar’s immigration history and the reported age questions. Grand jury subpoenas signal a serious fact-gathering effort, not a press-release skirmish.
Omar, a Somali-born congresswoman, immigrated to the United States in 1995 and became a naturalized citizen in 2000. Reporting around the probe focuses on whether the age listed on citizenship-related filings matched her actual birth date, and whether her father’s entry filings contained false statements.
Those are not casual paperwork quibbles. Immigration and naturalization forms are sworn filings. Material falsehoods on them can trigger criminal fraud exposure and, in some cases, later denaturalization proceedings. The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office has been described as leading aspects of the immigration fraud review, with potential denaturalization and removal discussed as possible end points if fraud is proved, a path still uncharged and unproven in court.
Coverage of how federal investigators weigh stripping Omar’s citizenship after the raid has tracked that legal risk without treating it as a finished outcome.
Omar’s husband pushed back hard on the age narrative. “My wife came here when she was 12 years old as a child war refugee. No concerns,” Tim Mynett said.
Her office went further, casting the entire operation as presidential payback:
“For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back. Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid. The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong. No president should be able to use the power of the federal government to intimidate his political enemies.”
That statement answers a political charge. It does not erase a signed warrant, a cellphone and passport leaving the house in federal custody, or a stack of family subpoenas.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office has opened a financial investigation into Omar as well. Breitbart reported the review may pick up work that began under the Biden administration into Omar’s reported multimillion-dollar net worth.
Pirro did not announce charges. She did not declare guilt. She did describe a broader investigative posture.
“There are several investigations going on, and I don’t think there’s any question, but if there was a crime that was committed, it will be prosecuted.”
In separate comments she added, “We’re looking at the facts... we’ll follow them wherever they take us.”
Two tracks now run side by side: immigration paperwork and finances. One rests on entry and naturalization records from the 1990s and 2000. The other looks at wealth disclosures and how a member of Congress built a reported multimillion-dollar position. Neither track has produced a public indictment yet. Both are now live federal work product.
Family and public schedules felt the shock quickly. Reporting on how Sahra Noor canceled a Minnesota book stop after the raid on her sister’s home showed the immediate personal spillover beyond the Capitol.
Omar has vowed she will not be silenced and continues to insist she did nothing wrong. Her office’s line is consistent: political targeting, not evidence. Mynett’s defense of her age at entry is equally direct.
Investigators have a different duty. A judge signed a warrant. HSI agents executed it. Devices, notebooks, and a passport left the residence. Relatives face subpoenas. Pirro’s office is examining finances that earlier drew official attention. Those steps are the opposite of a closed case, and the opposite of a case that never started.
Questions about Omar’s movements after the search also entered public view, including accounts of her husband firing back as questions rose about her whereabouts following the D.C. raid.
Her public posture after the search has stressed defiance, a theme also covered when Omar vowed she “will not be silenced” after agents hit the D.C. home.
For taxpayers and lawful immigrants who filled out the same forms under penalty of law, the standard is simple. Sworn statements about identity, age, and entry are not optional. If the records match, the probe should clear her. If they do not, rank is not a shield.
Congress does not get a lighter rulebook on immigration paperwork than the people it regulates. Warrants, subpoenas, and seized phones are how that principle gets tested, in court, on evidence, not on cable-news spin.
Equal enforcement is not intimidation. It is the bare minimum of a system that still claims to mean what it prints on the forms.
