In Washington, documents obtained by a Minnesota activist in 2023 indicate that Ilhan Omar’s father, Nur Omar Mohamed, has no official record of being a naturalized US citizen. This raises questions about Omar’s legal claim to citizenship through her family.
According to the documents, a US Citizenship and Immigration Services officer conducted a thorough search but found “no record” of Nur Omar Mohamed, nor any variations of his name, like Nur Said Elmi Mohamed.
AJ Kern, who ran against Omar in the 2022 Democratic primary, had sought information regarding her father’s citizenship status during her campaign but only received a response in September 2023.
This revelation complicates Omar’s assertion that she became a citizen at age 17 in 2000, coinciding with her claim that her father became a naturalized citizen then.
Kern shared her thoughts with The Post, suggesting that Omar might have misrepresented her age to claim derivative citizenship and was potentially 18 at the time.
When running for Congress, candidates must attest to their citizenship status under penalty of perjury, and Omar has consistently maintained she is a US citizen.
One document obtained by Kern shows an affidavit from June 2018, signed by Omar, declaring her as “a citizen of the United States.” In a 2018 interview, Omar recounted her early life in Somalia and her family’s journey through a refugee camp in Kenya before settling in the US in 1995.
Omar previously stated, “I became a citizen actually before I turned 18. My father became a citizen and so I got my citizenship through that process.”
However, Kern pointed out that the current system seems to lack adequate safeguards for foreign-born individuals running for federal office. She explained that refugees often obtain a Social Security number soon after arriving, which can lead to easy registration for various official documents, including voting.
Kern emphasized that in Minnesota, there isn’t a strong verification process for citizenship, leading to a scenario where someone can easily claim citizenship if they possess a Social Security number and driver’s license without effective checks.
Omar has faced scrutiny over her date of birth, and she has not provided a certificate, attributing the absence to the collapse of infrastructure in Somalia during the civil war. Her campaign previously stated this to the Associated Press in 2018.
On Monday, Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a search warrant at her Washington, DC home, removing boxes of evidence. Sources familiar with the investigation indicated it pertains to alleged false statements made by Omar on immigration documents, particularly about her citizenship eligibility.
In a later comment, Kern speculated that the search warrant was likely a response to the absence of records confirming her father’s naturalization and possibly her own citizenship status.
Federal officials confirmed that a judge in DC had signed off on the search warrant, which suggests there was some belief that evidence of wrongdoing could be present in Omar’s residence.
Omar condemned the raid as an attempt to intimidate political foes, claiming, “For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”
Kern initially highlighted the inconsistencies surrounding Omar’s father’s naturalization and noted that the congresswoman’s staff had requested online recordkeepers to alter her birthdate from October 4, 1981, to October 4, 1982, prompting a Federal Election Commission complaint.
Before her challenge against Omar, Kern had previously been a runner-up in the GOP primaries for Minnesota’s Sixth District. She identified herself as a “conservative” in her conversation with The Post.
As of now, Omar’s office, as well as representatives from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, have not responded to requests for comments.
