Federal agents searched Representative Ilhan Omar's home Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, according to reports in the Associated Press and Fox News that cited a statement from the department of justice.
A video posted by Fox showed what appeared to be law enforcement in HSI jackets at what Fox News said was Omar's Washington DC residence.
"Today in the Washington, DC area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice. This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal investigation," a DoJ spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
It was unclear what the nature of the warrant was – neither Omar's office, DoJ, the department of homeland security nor the White House immediately responded to the Guardian's requests for comment. Fox News reported based on unnamed sources familiar with the matter that agents were examining the immigration paperwork that the congresswoman's father filled out when she was a child.
The congresswoman has consistently denied the accusations, though Trump has repeatedly made them national news with gratuitous attacks against Omar, who along with Representative Rashida Tlaib became the United States's first Muslim congresswoman in 2019.
But even amid a presidency known for political and legal retribution against his critics, the search of Omar's DC home just three weeks before a crucial midterm Election Day will surely lead to new accusations that Trump was using the government for his own political ends.
Administration officials, and the president himself, have long hinted at a federal investigation into Omar. "Let's see what happens," Trump said at a rally on Saturday after attacking Omar by name, adding that Vice-President JD Vance "and our people are looking at it very strongly".
It was just the latest in months of talk about investigating Omar. Trump in December accused her of having "married her brother" and said she "should be thrown the hell out of our country", a reference to a years-old but unsubstantiated claim that Omar sought to help her ex-husband – who they allege is really her brother – obtain immigration papers via a sham marriage.
Days later, his "border czar" Tom Homan said: "We're pulling the records now," referring to Omar, and said a fraud investigator in Homeland Security Investigations, the ICE division that historically has been tasked with investigative work, would look into the matter.
In March , Vance told rightwing media personality Benny Johnson: "We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud" and that he had recently spoken to top Trump aide Stephen Miller about "what the remedies are". Homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin told Johnson last month that there was an ongoing investigation and "something's going to happen".
"We know that she married her brother to try to bring him into the United States," Mullin said. "We know he lives now in London. We feel that 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. But all of us, we're investigating."
Soon after, Homan said he could not "comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.
"We'll let HSI, Homeland Security Investigations continue to do their investigation," he added.
Omar has for years denied unsubstantiated rumors from Trump and others about herself and her family, including the accusation that her ex-husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, is in fact her brother, and that the marriage was part of an effort to earn him immigration status. Marriage fraud is a felony, though it has a five-year statute of limitations. Omar and Elmi formally divorced in 2017 after separating in a religious divorce years earlier.
The New York Post last month also quoted an unnamed "top immigration official" who said "the Trump administration could initiate a denaturalization process" against Omar if there is sufficient evidence that she or her father lied on immigration applications. The story noted accusations that Omar was older than her recorded age of 17 when she was naturalized, which could be relevant because she received citizenship via her parents. The report also raised questions about Omar's father, who reportedly claimed to be an educator, though his obituary later described a military career.
As the most prominent Somali-American in the United States, Omar has faced years of racist attacks from the president and his supporters.
At his rally Saturday, Trump said of Somalia: "All they have is crime and squalor" and suggested that "our" US constitution did not belong to Omar. Two days earlier, he had written that Minnesota "is being taken over by Somali Immigrants", even though the vast majority of Somali-Americans in the state are US citizens.
"The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing," Trump wrote, urging supporters in the state to "fight back!"
Somali-Americans, especially, have borne relentless insult from the White House in Trump's second term. In December, the president referred to them as "garbage" who "come from hell, and they complain, and do nothing but bitch".
"Let them go back to where they came from and fix it," he added.