On October 22, 2008, the U.S. State Department stopped accepting applications for the Priority 3/Refugee Family Reunification program — the process by which refugees can apply for asylum if one family member is already a legal U.S. resident. State halted the program because DNA testing — primarily of Somalis — had concluded that perhaps 87 percent of applicants were fraudulently claiming family relationships.
Despite continuing war, Somalia of 2008 was not comparable to the open hell of the early 1990s, when an eight-year-old Ilhan and her family fled to Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps. She lived there from 1991 until 1995, aged eight to 12. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services then helped Ilhan, her sister Sahra, and their father Nur Said receive asylum in the United States along with thousands of other Somalis.
The complicated moral question of fraud, let alone fault, among this 1990s wave of refugees escaping civil war will never be answered with accurate statistics. We will have to settle for adjectives like “widespread” and “rampant.” Yet the negative outcomes cannot be ignored.
Even refugees with strong desire to assimilate with Western civic order are hampered by the possible discovery of conflicting documents. And compromising information becomes leverage in a community already difficult to police. Twelve-year-old Ilhan had no say on the manner in which she arrived in the United States.
However, U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (D-MN) is now under scrutiny for acts she took beginning in 2009 — not 1995. In 2009, Omar was a 26-year-old U.S. citizen. She had been a U.S. citizen for nearly nine years.
Additionally, the foreign national Omar apparently helped commit fraud was not fleeing hell in 2009, either. Ahmed Nur Said Elmi was a long-time citizen of the United Kingdom. He even possessed a high school diploma from the United States: Elmi attended a St. Paul, Minnesota high school for his senior year of 2002-2003, and graduated before returning to London.
We look to 1995 not to incriminate a kid, but to answer questions about what Omar did 14 years later as an adult U.S. citizen. Please read the verified evidence below — and read it alongside the three years of verified evidence published by Scott Johnson, Preya Samsundar, and myself (our work is linked here).
The answers to those questions about 2009 appear to give probable cause to investigate Omar for eight instances of perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, up to eight years of state and federal tax fraud, two years of federal student loan fraud, and even bigamy.
The proceeding information was given to me by multiple sources within the Minneapolis Somali community. The verifiable evidence corroborating their information follows below:
In 1995, Ilhan entered the United States as a fraudulent member of the “Omar” family. That is not her family. The Omar family is a second, unrelated family which was being granted asylum by the United States. The Omars allowed Ilhan, her genetic sister Sahra, and her genetic father Nur Said to use false names to apply for asylum as members of the Omar family.
Ilhan’s genetic family split up at this time. The above three received asylum in the United States, while Ilhan’s three other siblings — using their real names — managed to get asylum in the United Kingdom.
Ilhan Abdullahi Omar’s name, before applying for asylum, was Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. Her father’s name before applying for asylum was Nur Said Elmi Mohamed. Her sister Sahra Noor’s name before applying for asylum was Sahra Nur Said Elmi. Her three siblings who were granted asylum by the United Kingdom are Leila Nur Said Elmi, Mohamed Nur Said Elmi, and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
Ilhan and Ahmed married in 2009, presumably to benefit in some way from a fraudulent marriage. They did not divorce until 2017.
MINNEAPOLIS, MN — On Wednesday, 7 November 2016, Ilhan Omar, DFL (Democrat Farmer & Labourer) Candidate in MN House District 60B broke her silence to speak with Cory Zurowski of City Pages. Omar has refused to speak with the press for the past two months about her personal life.
During her interview with City Pages, she spoke of her family background, her interest in politics, and her emotional frustration with the investigation into her personal life. Specifically, the part where she potentially married her brother, thereby committing marriage and immigration fraud.
Omar’s own statements regarding the controversy have been vague at best. As a candidate and as a campaign, #teamilhan has refused to give any information that would clear this situation up and allow the world the opportunity to move on from her candidacy.
However, as Scott Johnson of Powerline Blog points out, Omar’s first response was to hire Jean Brandl, a well-known criminal defense attorney to respond to the Powerline Blog author. Her refusal to rebut any new information and clear the matter up has created her own frustration. Johnson is the writer who broke the story of Ilhan Omar possibly marrying her own brother back in August 2016.
Whether or not Mr. Zurowski realizes it, he has shed new light into the Omar case. The story, which was originally published on Wednesday, October 26, Mr. Zurowski wrote that Ilhan Omar’s father is named “Nur Said Elmi Mohamed”. A day later, Zurowski’s article was changed and now Omar’s father’s name appears in the article as “Nur Omar Mohamed”.
Why the sudden change? It could very well be that by admitting that Ilhan Omar’s father’s name is Nur Said Elmi Mohamed, it validates the information discovered earlier by Alpha News that Ilhan Omar married her brother and committed immigration fraud. An investigation into the Omar controversy by Alpha News uncovered evidence suggesting she committed marriage and immigration fraud when she married her brother.
The St. Cloud Times wrote two pieces about Somali naming culture. One on how Somali names are chosen and the other on how they name their children. The St. Cloud Times consulted three sources: Cultural Care Connection, REL Northwest, and SCTimes Reporter and Somali native Ahmed Abdi.
Here is an excerpt from the St. Cloud Times post:
For example, a father named Omar Elmi Dihoud and a mother named Waris Abdi Duale could have a son named Ali Omar Elmi, and a daughter named Roda Omar Elmi. Retaining their grandparent’s name is a way to maintain their affiliation with the tribe of their birth. By a young age, Somali children can recite their grandparents’ names back many generations, Abdi said.”
The original name used by City Pages to identity Ilhan Omar’s father lends credence to the fraternal status of Ahmed Nur Said Elmi under Somali naming conventions. The change would also remove any suspicion from the reader that Omar married a man with an almost identical name to her father.
Alpha News, however, has been able to prove that the City Pages revised account of Omar’s father name is false. On his Facebook page, Omar’s father identifies himself as “Nur Said”. In a letter signed by community leaders for the creation of the Jubaland State in Somalia, we see that Omar’s father and brother-in-law have signed on as supporters for the creation of the State. Omar’s father signed his name on this letter as “Nur Said Elmi Mohamed,” the exact name that Zurowski first wrote in his article.
In the City Pages article, Zurowski also notes that Omar is the youngest of seven siblings. Admission by both Omar and her sister Sahra Noor shows that this statement given by Omar to City Pages is also false.
On August 21, Popsugar writer Georgia Bobley wrote about Ilhan Omar, The first sentence states, “18 years ago, Ilhan Omar left her life in Somalia with her parents and her four siblings as a refugee and landed in Minnesota, USA.”
In a profile done by Laura Oakes of WCCO in June of 2015, Sahra Noor, the sister of Ilhan Omar, also admits that she has four siblings. Oakes writes, “You might say 38-year-old Sahra Noor is a bit of an overachiever. In a Kenyan refugee camp during her teens, her single father and four siblings ended up in the U.S…”
This development of untruths and undocumented changes to Zurowski’s account of Omar’s life begs questioning of another change overnight – does she have five older brothers, three older brothers, or does she have only one older brother as Alpha News has been able to confirm?
The City Pages article mentions the siblings of Omar in vague terms, with the exception of her sister Sahra Noor. According to City Pages, Omar is the youngest of seven and has either five or three older brothers. As Alpha News has shown in previous articles, we have been able to identify her four siblings and their locations.
Mohamed Nur Said Elmi is her older brother who lives in London. There is Leila Nur Said Elmi, we have not determined her age, but can prove that she lives in London with her children. There is Sahra Noor, Omar’s older sister who is CEO of “People’s Center Health Services” in Minneapolis and lives in Minnesota.
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| Complaint by Freedom Watch USA To The DC District Court for The deportation of Ilhan Omar. |
The license application filed for Omar and Elmi’s marriage lists Omar’s birthdate at October 4, 1982 and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi’s birthdate as April 4, 1985. If Elmi is indeed Omar’s brother, Omar is not the youngest child.
Another piece of information from the City Pages article was brought up by Scott Johnson in his latest Powerline Blog post. Ilhan Omar states that “there are particular challenges to getting a legal divorce…one of those is getting the cooperation and presence of the other person who you are divorcing.”
According to the website of the divorce law firm “Cordell and Cordell”, Omar’s statement is false. Minnesota is considered a “no fault” state. This means that you do not need the consent of your spouse to obtain a divorce, nor are the reasons why you want a divorce considered in granting the divorce.
In Minnesota, the courts can enter a divorce decree upon showing that 1) one of the parties has lived in the state for 180 days prior to the commencement of the proceedings and 2) the marriage is irretrievably broken. Scott Johnson, who is also an attorney, points out that Ms. Omar does not need to get a divorce if she really is married to her brother. That marriage would be null and void.
Alpha News contacted the author of the City Pages article on Omar, Cory Zurowski. When asked why he changed the name of Omar’s father from “Nur Said Elmi Mohamed” to “Nur Omar Mohamed” and also changed the number of Omar’s brothers in the article, Zurowski replied, “I screwed up on the reporting end, hence the corrections…I wasn’t aware of your reporting on the controversy. But now I am. Thanks for letting me know.”
