Federal agents search Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington home in a criminal probe of her childhood immigration paperwork — 22 days before the midterms

The paperwork at the centre of the federal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar was not, according to three sources who spoke to CBS News, filled out by Omar at all. It dates back to her childhood and was completed by her late father. That detail, more than the early-morning search of her Washington-area home on Monday, is what makes this case unusual: federal agents executed a search warrant at the residence of a sitting member of Congress in an investigation into immigration documents prepared when she was a girl, three weeks before she faces voters.

The Justice Department confirmed the search but said little else. "Today in the Washington, D.C., area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice," a spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. "This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation." The Department of Homeland Security, which houses HSI, declined to comment and referred questions to the Justice Department.

What happened on Monday morning

The search began at about 6 a.m., according to Fox News, which first reported it. The Associated Press reported that the street was blocked off during the morning as HSI agents remained near the home. Congress is out of session, and it was not clear whether Omar was there. Her office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CNBC, the BBC, the AP or HuffPost.

A person familiar with the matter told CNBC that the investigation into Omar is complex and has been going on for years. CBS News reported that HSI is leading the case with the Justice Department assisting. The contents of the warrant, and what agents were authorised to look for, have not been made public.

Who is investigating, and for what

Homeland Security Investigations is the criminal investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It is distinct from the deportation operations most people associate with ICE: HSI special agents conduct criminal investigations and execute federal search warrants, and their jurisdiction includes immigration document fraud, identity fraud and immigration benefit fraud. The unit has traditionally focused on transnational crime — human and weapons trafficking, smuggling, and cyber and financial crimes, as The Hill noted.

The Justice Department has, under the current administration, expanded the units that handle immigration fraud and begun a campaign to strip citizenship from people found to have misrepresented facts in their applications. That is the legal context in which any case about Omar's records sits. US citizenship is a requirement for serving in the House of Representatives.

Years of allegations, and Omar's denials

Questions about Omar's immigration history have circulated since before she was elected, largely in right-wing media and largely centred on a claim, roughly a decade old, that she once married her brother to help him come to the United States. Omar has repeatedly denied it, calling such allegations "disgusting lies". Earlier this year, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina tried unsuccessfully to subpoena her records.

Senior administration figures have spoken openly about pursuing her. Vice President JD Vance told reporters in May that "it certainly seems like something fishy is there, but everybody's entitled to equal justice under the laws," and added: "If we think there's a crime, we're going to prosecute that crime." In an interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, Vance said, without offering evidence, that he believed Omar had committed immigration fraud, and that he and deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller were "trying to look at what the remedies are".

In September, White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed an "ongoing criminal investigation". Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told a conservative podcaster last month that "something is going to happen". On Monday, asked about specifics, Homan told Fox News he would leave them to Todd Blanche or Mullin: "I don't want to get ahead of them."

"I will say it again so it's as clear as possible: I'm not at all worried about these investigations, because they are complete shams." — Rep. Ilhan Omar, in a campaign fundraising email last month

Omar said in September that she had not been contacted about any investigation. Her office dismissed Vance's claims in March as fabricated and defamatory. The congresswoman has also been the target of repeated attacks from President Donald Trump, who has called her "garbage", suggested she "should go back" to Somalia and, last week, wrote that Minnesota "is being taken over by Somali immigrants". Omar has described the president's fixation on her as a "creepy" obsession.

The election-year rule that isn't quite a rule

The search came 22 days before the November 3 midterm elections, in which Omar is seeking a fifth term representing Minnesota's 5th District, which includes all of Minneapolis. She won in 2024 with 74% of the vote, and the Cook Political Report rates her race against Republican John Nagel "solid Democrat".

The Justice Department has a long-standing policy discouraging prosecutors from taking investigative steps, bringing charges or making public statements for the purpose of affecting an election or advantaging or disadvantaging a candidate. Alongside the written policy sits an informal custom, often called the 60-day rule, under which the department avoids overt action against candidates in the final weeks of a campaign. The written policy turns on purpose; the custom turns on timing. A person familiar with Monday's search told CNBC the department does not believe it violated the policy, because the search was not meant to be public.

That argument has an obvious weakness: a search of a congresswoman's home on a blocked-off street was always likely to become public, and it did within hours. There is precedent for searches of lawmakers' homes — in January 2022, the FBI searched the Laredo, Texas, home and campaign office of Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, in a probe linked to Azerbaijan, and he was not charged until 2024. But that search came months before a general election, not three weeks.

The legal bar for taking citizenship away

If the investigation is ultimately aimed at Omar's citizenship, the government faces a demanding standard. In Maslenjak v. United States in 2017, a unanimous Supreme Court held that the government must show a causal link between a false statement and the grant of citizenship: the lie must have mattered, in the sense that a truthful answer would predictably have led officials to find the applicant unqualified. An error, or even a falsehood, that would not have changed the outcome is not enough under that ruling to revoke citizenship through the criminal naturalisation-fraud statute.

Omar, who was born in Somalia and came to the US as a child fleeing civil war, became a citizen in 2000 at the age of 17. If, as CBS's sources say, the documents in question were completed by her father, prosecutors would face further questions about what she knew, when, and whether any inaccuracy in a parent's filing bore on her own eligibility. None of that has been tested, and no charge has been filed.

The case for letting the process run

The administration's position is that no one is above the law. "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," Homan said in September. It is also true that a federal judge had to find probable cause before signing the warrant. A search is not a political statement by itself; it means investigators persuaded a court there was reason to believe evidence of a crime would be found at that address.

What a warrant does not establish is guilt, or that the crime suspected is the one politicians have described. The public record so far consists of a two-sentence Justice Department statement, anonymous sources, and years of accusations by officials who have said openly that they wanted to find a case against her. Those officials may yet be vindicated by evidence; they have not been so far.

The durable facts are these. A judge authorised a search of a sitting congresswoman's home. The investigation reportedly concerns documents filed when she was a child. The Supreme Court has set a high bar for turning a paperwork case into the loss of citizenship. And it all happened 22 days before an election the Justice Department's own traditions say it should keep its distance from. Whatever the warrant turns up, the department will now have to explain both its evidence and its timing.

This report is based on a Justice Department statement and on reporting by CNBC, CBS News, the BBC, the Associated Press, The Hill, HuffPost and Fox News as of Monday, October 12, 2026, together with the Supreme Court's 2017 decision in Maslenjak v. United States and contemporaneous reporting on the 2022 search of Rep. Henry Cuellar's home. Details of the investigation come from anonymous sources and have not been confirmed by the Justice Department. The warrant has not been made public. Omar has not been charged with any crime and has denied wrongdoing.