White House border czar Tom Homan has confirmed that ICE is conducting an ongoing criminal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar over alleged immigration fraud and marriage fraud, with senior administration officials now openly raising the prospect of deportation.
Homan made the confirmation during a Fox News interview over the weekend, telling the network that the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are actively pursuing the case against the Minnesota Democrat. Pressed directly about whether ICE was investigating Omar, Homan responded, "I'm confirming that ICE is, yeah."
He declined to lay out the details but made clear the probe is live and moving forward:
"I know things are going on, but I can't give specifics of what's happening."
Omar, who immigrated to the United States in 1995 and has served in Congress since 2019, has faced allegations for more than a decade that she married her brother to exploit the immigration system. She has denied the claims. In 2016, she called the allegations "disgusting lies." As recently as December, she dismissed a federal effort to examine her immigration records as "sick" and said investigators would "absolutely not" find anything.
Her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Center Square.
Homan framed the investigation in blunt terms, refusing to carve out an exception for a sitting member of Congress:
"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."
He also indicated the matter had been on his radar for months. "I said months ago that there's something that's been reported and needs to be looked at," Homan said.
The investigation is not limited to Omar individually. DHS is reportedly pulling records and files related to Omar's alleged 2009 marriage to Ahmed Elmi for immigration purposes. Just The News reported that Homan described the effort as urgent, stating, "We're pulling the records, we're pulling the files. We're looking at it... I'm running that down this week."
That same reporting indicated the probe is part of a broader DHS review of visa fraud within Minnesota's Somali community, with the department claiming that 50 percent of visas in the state are fraudulent.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin went further than Homan, speaking with a degree of certainty that moved past the language of an open investigation. Mullin has publicly stated that the department believes Omar married her brother to bring him to the United States, and that her brother now lives in London.
"Something's going to happen.... 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 raised the possibility that the fraud may extend beyond Omar herself, suggesting the entire family's immigration pathway could be under review:
"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. If we can prove it, that you shouldn't have been here in the first place, we will deport you."
Any deportation of a naturalized U.S. citizen would first require a denaturalization proceeding, a legal process in which the government must prove in federal court that citizenship was obtained through fraud or misrepresentation. No denaturalization filing against Omar has been reported.
The investigation's findings, as described by Mullin, represent some of the most direct public statements any cabinet official has made about the long-running allegations against Omar.
The pressure on Omar extends well beyond DHS. Vice President JD Vance said in March that he had discussed potential legal action against Omar with senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, telling reporters, "We think Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud." In May, Vance added that the Department of Justice was examining whether Omar committed immigration fraud.
President Trump has been the most direct of all. During a speech in Florida, Trump addressed Omar by name and called her "despicable."
"Get the h*** out. What a phony. She married her brother to come in. I would imagine they are looking at her... I have nothing to do with it."
Trump also publicly questioned Omar's personal finances. He announced that both the DOJ and Congress are reviewing the congresswoman, asking how someone who "left Somalia with NOTHING" is now "reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars." That financial scrutiny has drawn its own round of questions from federal investigators, who have pressed for answers about a reported $30 million swing in Omar's disclosed wealth.
The Omar investigation does not exist in a vacuum. Homan confirmed that an ICE personnel surge is coming to Minnesota's Twin Cities, linked to a broader Somali fraud investigation. The Washington Examiner reported that Homan declined to give operational specifics but confirmed the crackdown is imminent.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that "Tom Homan will be managing ICE Operations on the ground in Minnesota to continue arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens." Trump also called on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to cooperate with federal authorities and turn over criminal illegal immigrants to ICE.
Omar, for her part, has taken a sharply different posture toward immigration enforcement. She has publicly called for the abolition of ICE, the very agency now investigating her.
Omar's public responses to the fraud allegations have followed a pattern over the years: flat denials, followed by refusals to engage further. In 2016, she called the marriage fraud claims "disgusting lies." In December, she said she had "no response because I don't know what they'll be investigating" and insisted investigators would find nothing.
She has not, based on available statements, addressed the specific claims made by Mullin, that the department has determined she married her brother, or that her brother now resides in London. Her congressional office has not responded to the latest round of inquiries.
Several important questions remain unanswered. No formal charges have been filed. No denaturalization proceeding has been initiated. The evidentiary basis for Mullin's claim that the department "knows" Omar married her brother has not been made public. And the identity of the individual Omar allegedly married, beyond the name Ahmed Elmi, has not been detailed in any official filing referenced in the reporting.
What is clear is that the investigation is no longer a matter of speculation or political rhetoric. Multiple senior administration officials, the border czar, the DHS secretary, the vice president, and the president himself, have all spoken publicly about the case. ICE is pulling records. Homan says he is personally running the matter down.
For a sitting member of Congress who built her career on the claim that the immigration system treated her community unfairly, the question now is whether that same system will hold her accountable for how she allegedly used it.
