Federal investigators collected garbage from Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington home in a bid for her DNA, part of an immigration-fraud case that already produced a home raid, phone seizure, and family subpoenas.
Homeland Security Investigations agents moved on the Somalia-born Minnesota Democrat’s D.C. residence after a federal judge signed off on a search warrant. The raid came last week. Investigators seized her cellphone and have issued subpoenas to relatives as the case examines whether Omar or her father lied about her age on her naturalization paperwork.
Breitbart News reported that agents gathered trash from the property before the search, aiming to secure DNA that sources say could prove critical. The steps fit a longer ICE look at Omar that had run for months.
Evidence in the matter is expected to go before a grand jury. The probe has widened beyond a single filing to include family members named in some of the subpoenas.
A family text message helped open the door. Federal investigators had earlier seized a phone belonging to Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor. Messages on that device were used to obtain the warrant for the D.C. raid, according to the New York Post. During the search, agents took Omar’s phone, passport, notebooks, and personal computers.
Former FBI special agent Tracy Walder described the trash collection as a straightforward investigative move when DNA is the target.
"To me, if they are obviously trying to obtain DNA, then, yes, that is a very easy get, especially if it was discarded even in a trash can."
ICE agents had been examining Omar’s background well before the warrant. In January they met with Scott Johnson of Powerline Blog, one of the earliest outlets to air longstanding allegations of immigration fraud surrounding the congresswoman, including claims tied to her marital history and path to citizenship.
Johnson later recounted the session to NewsNation and described the focus of the questions.
"They asked me questions that related to issues of [Omar’s] immigration and naturalization and also questions related to her father, which would bear on the same issue,"
He drew a clear inference from the hour-long meeting and the follow-up help agents requested.
"So I inferred at the end of that hour, and from other help that they asked me for, that they were looking at a possible civil proceeding that might lead to her denaturalization."
That possibility has already drawn public comment from enforcement officials. The border czar has said Omar could lose citizenship and face removal if fraud is proven in court.
While the immigration file advanced, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro revealed this week that her office has opened a financial investigation into the congresswoman. Reporting frames the step as a possible continuation of earlier scrutiny into Omar’s reported multimillion-dollar net worth that began under the prior administration.
No charging documents or case numbers have been made public. Absolute calendar dates for the warrant, the trash collection, and the raid remain unstated beyond the relative markers of “last week,” “before the raid,” and “this week.”
Omar’s office cast the entire sequence as politics. Spokeswoman Jackie Rogers issued a sharp response after the search.
"Trump has spread lie after lie about the congresswoman in a desperate attempt to justify his extraordinary abuse of power. This is politically motivated and an escalation of Trump’s personal vendetta against her lasting over a decade."
Investigators, for their part, followed the ordinary path: a judge-approved warrant, a targeted search, digital devices taken into evidence, and DNA sought from discarded material. Readers tracking the same matter have already seen coverage of how agents raided Omar’s D.C. home and seized her phone in the fraud investigation.
Multiple sources familiar with the work have described the inquiry as broader than many assumed. Relatives appear in subpoenas. Potential DNA evidence sits at the center of the immigration questions. The collected material is headed toward a Minnesota grand jury.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin has called the underlying immigration case strong after the multi-warrant activity. That assessment appears in reporting on how Mullin labeled the probe a strong case following the searches.
Omar’s legal team has pushed back on process, arguing in filings that search rules set by the judge were not followed. Those claims are detailed in accounts of how Omar’s lawyers accuse the DOJ of ignoring the judge’s search rules.
Former President Barack Obama also weighed in after the raid, a defense that quickly met public pushback and is covered in the report on how Obama defended Ilhan Omar after the federal raid.
The verified sequence is straightforward. ICE spent months on the immigration file. Agents spoke with a blogger who had published early fraud allegations. Trash was collected for DNA. A judge approved a warrant. HSI executed the search at the D.C. home. Devices and documents came out with the agents. Family members received subpoenas. A financial inquiry was announced on a separate track.
Whether the DNA effort yielded a usable sample, whether any sample was tested, and whether a civil denaturalization case will actually be filed remain open. No injuries, arrests, or courtroom verdicts are reported. The public record still lacks docket numbers and the full list of subpoenaed relatives.
Naturalization rests on truthful disclosures. When federal agents pull trash for DNA, seize a member of Congress’s phone, and put family members under subpoena, the system is doing the work voters expect on citizenship fraud, no matter how loud the politics become.
