Civil rights groups and Democrats are condemning the federal raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., home.
Homeland Security Investigations executed a warrant at the Minnesota Democrat’s home early Monday morning, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
A spokesperson for Omar’s office called the raid an “outrageous abuse of power” and accused President Donald Trump of escalating his longstanding criticism of the congresswoman into unwarranted federal action.
“For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back,” said Jacklyn Rogers, communications director for Omar’s office. “Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid.”
“The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong,” Rogers added. “No president should be able to use the power of the federal government to intimidate his political enemies.”
Reports of the raid by federal law enforcement first broke around 8 a.m. The U.S. Department of Justice later confirmed the raid in a statement to The Center Square.
“Today in the Washington, D.C, area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice,” said a spokesperson. “This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”
Vice President J.D. Vance said when asked that neither he nor the President had advance notice of the raid.
“We try to let the law follow the facts, rather than creating facts just to prosecute people we don’t like,” Vance said. “I do know there are some serious allegations against Ilhan Omar . . . If there’s a real case there, we’re going to follow the facts.”
Still, supporters of Omar called the raid “politically motivated” and “persecution.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and its Minnesota chapter condemned the raid.
“From the first Trump administration until today, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has been subjected to relentless racist and bigoted attacks by President Trump and his political allies,” said CAIR-Minnesota Executive Director Jaylani Hussein. “We believe this latest incident is a continuation of that same pattern of political targeting and intimidation.”
Minnesota Democrats have also joined others across the nation in condemning the raid.
“This morning’s raid on the home of Ilhan Omar, a sitting member of Congress, has all the hallmarks of Donald Trump weaponizing the federal government against a political rival,” said Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. “Trump’s action marks a dangerous escalation of his authoritarian and fundamentally un-American behavior. It’s also an extension of his racist attacks on Somali Americans and yet another attempt to throw chaos into our elections.”
The raid comes just a month White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed that Omar is actively under investigation by DHS, though the exact potential charges are still unknown.
Omar, who immigrated to the United States in 1995, has faced scrutiny for years over the circumstances surrounding her naturalization as a citizen.
In September, Homan refused to reveal many details regarding the “ongoing criminal investigation,” besides that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are the ones conducting it.
“I know things are going on, but I can’t give specifics of what’s happening,” Homan said during an interview with Fox News. “If someone committed an immigration violation, if someone committed marriage fraud or anything like that, regardless if they’re a congressman or not, no one’s above the law. So, I’ll leave it at that.”
Allegations against Omar include theories that the congresswoman married her brother as part of an immigration fraud scheme. In 2016, Omar addressed those claims, calling them “disgusting lies.”
According to federal officials, the investigation has been ongoing for some months.
“I said months ago that there’s something that’s been reported and needs to be looked at,” Homan said.
Omar, who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, has served in Congress since 2019.
In December, she called an effort to examine records pertaining to her immigration “sick.”
“I have no response because I don’t know what they’ll be investigating,” Omar told a reporter. She added that investigators would “absolutely not” find anything.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has also discussed the issue, alleging that they’ve already determined that she married her brother.
“Something’s going to happen,” Mullin said. “We know that she married her brother to try to bring him to the United States. We know he now lives in London.”
Mullin also threw out the prospect of deportation, which would first require denaturalization.
“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,” Mullin said. “If we can prove it, that you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, we will deport you.”
