Trump Calls for Omar’s Deportation After Accusing Her of Marrying Brother
President Donald Trump has reignited one of the longest-running controversies surrounding Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), accusing the Somali-born congresswoman of marrying her brother to commit immigration fraud during a new interview with Politico released Tuesday.
“I don’t want to see a woman that, you know, marries her brother to get in and then becomes a congressman, does nothing but complain,” Trump said in the interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns, referring to Omar’s alleged 2009 marriage to Ahmed Elmi, who multiple reports and witnesses have claimed is her biological brother.
Trump made the remarks after Omar condemned recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minneapolis targeting illegal Somali nationals—a crackdown that followed revelations of a $1 billion welfare fraud scheme in Minnesota, portions of which federal investigators say were funneled to the Somali terror group al-Shabaab.
“All she does is complain, complain, complain, and yet her country is a mess,” Trump continued. “Let her go back, fix up her own country. So no, Somalia—and I was right about it.”
The president also accused Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of failing to address the crisis: “They have an incompetent governor there, too.”
Omar has previously called the allegations “baseless and absurd,” dismissing them as Islamophobic conspiracy theories.
But a 2019 Minneapolis Star-Tribune investigation found discrepancies in Omar’s marital and immigration records that she has never fully explained.
According to public records and Daily Mail reporting, Omar married Ahmed Elmi in a civil ceremony in 2009 while still religiously married to her first husband, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi. She claimed to have separated from Elmi in 2011, yet did not file for divorce until 2017.
During that time, she and Hirsi had a third child together. Omar later divorced Hirsi again in 2019 after reports surfaced of her affair with political consultant Tim Mynett, whom she later married.
In February 2020, the Daily Mail published explosive testimony from Abdihakim Osman, a Somali community leader in Minneapolis, who said Omar openly told friends that Elmi was her brother and that she “needed to get papers for him to stay in the United States.”
Osman told the outlet, “No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the certificate years later.”
Osman described Elmi as “very feminine in the way he dressed,” saying the Somali community was shocked to learn he had married Omar. “When Ilhan married Elmi, no one even knew about it,” Osman said. “She kept it quiet because an imam would have refused to marry them if he knew they were related.”
Now, former ICE director and current Border Czar Tom Homan says that may be changing.
Homan told Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt on Monday night that he has requested Omar’s immigration file for review.
“I asked the question: who reviewed the file and said there was no fraud involved? The fraud investigator I know personally, one of the best in Homeland Security Investigations, said there’s no doubt he reviewed the file,” Homan said. “So I’m running that down this week. We’ll see.”
At a campaign rally Tuesday night in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Trump again raised the issue and called for Omar’s removal from Congress. “She married her brother, she lied to our country, and she should be thrown out,” Trump told the crowd, prompting chants of “Send her back!”
Nearly 150,000 California Mail Ballots Rejected In Primary
California election officials are examining why nearly 150,000 mail-in ballots were rejected during the state’s June primary, with late-arriving ballots accounting for most of the increase.
The higher rejection rate comes despite years of election law changes designed to make voting more accessible and ensure more ballots are ultimately counted.
According to data compiled by the California Secretary of State’s office, 148,241 mail-in ballots were rejected during the June primary, representing 1.73% of all mail ballots returned.
That marks an increase from the 2024 primary, when 108,982 ballots were rejected, or 1.56% of all mail ballots cast.
The largest reason for rejection was ballots arriving too late to qualify under California law.
State data shows that 93,479 ballots were rejected because they failed to meet the state’s deadline requirements.
California allows mail ballots to arrive up to seven days after Election Day, provided they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
Voting experts believe many of the rejected ballots received postmarks dated after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted even if they arrived within the seven-day grace period.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the timing of postal processing appears to be a significant concern.
“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander said.
Election experts have questioned whether recent operational changes within the U.S. Postal Service may be contributing to delayed postmarks.
Earlier this year, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators wrote to the Postal Service expressing concern that mail-processing changes could affect ballot handling during federal elections.
Updated Postal Service procedures mean postmarks may reflect when mail is processed at regional facilities rather than when it first enters the mail system.
Because processing centers have been consolidated in some areas, election officials have warned that postmark timing could be affected.
Before the June primary, California election officials encouraged voters to mail ballots as early as possible because of potential postal delays.
The June election also featured a highly competitive race for governor, which some experts believe encouraged many voters to wait until the final days before casting ballots.
In addition to late-arriving ballots, approximately 44,000 ballots were rejected because election officials determined the voter’s signature did not match the signature on file.
Another 8,300 ballots were rejected because the return envelope did not contain a signature.
State records also show that 743 ballots were rejected because those voters had already cast another ballot.
Other rejected ballots involved missing ballots inside return envelopes or multiple ballots submitted in a single envelope.
The highest rejection rate in the state occurred in Tulare County, where 3.52% of returned mail ballots were rejected.
Alpine County and Merced County followed closely, each recording rejection rates of 3.36%.
California has frequently faced criticism for taking weeks to complete vote counting after major elections, largely because state law permits ballots meeting certain requirements to continue arriving after Election Day.
Following the June primary, President Donald Trump again criticized California’s election system, while the Department of Justice opened an investigation into election administration in Los Angeles County.
Election experts emphasize that the increase in rejected ballots should not be interpreted as evidence of widespread voter fraud.
A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found documented cases of mail ballot fraud remained extremely rare, estimating roughly four cases for every 10 million mail ballots cast, The Associated Press reported.
State officials have not identified evidence of widespread fraud connected to the June primary, but the increase in rejected ballots is expected to receive additional scrutiny as election administrators evaluate whether changes in postal operations, voter behavior or election procedures contributed to the higher rejection rate.
