🚨 The Allegation: A Fraudulent Marriage for Immigration Gain
At the center of the controversy is Omar’s second marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a British citizen. According to reports from Somali community members and widely circulated marriage records, Omar married Elmi on February 12, 2009. She later divorced him in 2011 — but not before he used the marriage to enroll at North Dakota State University and receive federal benefits, including housing. Critics allege the union was solely to fraudulently secure U.S. immigration status for Elmi, who is also widely believed within Somali-American circles to be her biological brother.
Abdihakim Osman, a Minneapolis community member, has publicly stated that Omar confided in friends her intent to get “her brother papers so he could stay in the United States.” Osman, one of the first to go on record about the controversy, claims that no one knew about the wedding until the media uncovered the certificate years later.
📢 Trump’s Long-Standing Demands for Investigation
As early as 2019, President Donald Trump raised the issue. “There’s a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother. I know nothing about it,” he told the press. By 2020, Trump was more direct, calling on the Justice Department to open a formal inquiry. During a rally in Ocala, Florida, he stated:
“Come on Justice, let’s go Justice, Department of Justice.”
In a climate increasingly focused on securing the integrity of immigration systems, Trump and his supporters viewed Omar’s case as emblematic of political hypocrisy and selective enforcement. “If you look at the House with Pelosi and these people, it’s like they hate Israel and they believe in Omar, who came in here and married her brother or something, came in illegally,” Trump said at the rally.
