by Sharon Rondeau
(Dec. 31, 2025) — In the wake of an explosive and ever-widening alleged Minnesota fraud scandal involving day care centers, healthcare and autism agencies and other social services in which individuals close to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN5) have been implicated, President Trump on Wednesday termed Omar a “scammer” and suggested she be deported to Somalia, the country of her birth.
While investigations of the abuse of government funds in largely Somali enclaves in and around Minneapolis dating to 2015 were largely ignored by the mainstream media, a November 19, 2025 article by Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe in City Journal broke through the inertia, giving way to on-the-ground citizen journalist Nick Shirley and others taking video footage of taxpayer-funded daycare centers appearing to have no children inside during what would be expected to be normal working hours.
Shirley’s recent video ignited a firestorm of investigations on the part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); its subsidiary, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the FBI and U.S. Treasury Department, among others.
On Tuesday, DHS halted all federal funds for child care to the State of Minnesota totaling approximately $185 million, Fox9 reported, pending the outcome of its investigations.
During the Biden era, Omar advocated for an expansion of the “Feeding Our Future” agency in the form of the 2020 MEALS Act, which provided COVID-19 “pandemic” funding for child nutrition programs traditionally provided in schools.
Because of the COVID-era lockdowns and school closures, many Minneapolis-area children were considered “vulnerable,” and the meal program was expanded to in-home delivery.
However, according to the Justice Department in a September 20, 2022 press release, $250 million was purloined by at least 47 indicted individuals “to purchase luxury cars, houses, jewelry, and coastal resort property abroad.”
As of Monday, that number had grown to 75, with “dozens of convictions” secured as of last July, according to Fox News.
In March, “Feeding Our Future” founder Aimee Bock and co-defendant Salim Said were convicted by a jury of wire fraud, bribery, and conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery.
“The fraudsters have leveraged their growing political influence to cultivate close ties with Minnesota’s elected officials,” Rufo and Thorpe wrote in their article last month. “Several individuals involved in the Feeding Our Future scheme donated to, or appeared publicly with, Ilhan Omar, the Somali-born congresswoman from Minneapolis. Omar’s deputy district director, Ali Isse, advocated on behalf of Feeding Our Future. Omar Fateh, a former state senator who recently ran for Minneapolis mayor, lobbied Governor Tim Walz in support of the program. And one of the accused, Abdi Nur Salah, served as a senior aide to Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey.”
In early 2022, Omar penned a letter to then-Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack stating her “deep concern and disappointment regarding the reports of fraudulent misuse of federal funding meant to feed hungry children.”
“I am appalled to learn of such heinous acts and the theft of resources strictly meant for our most vulnerable populations,” her letter continued. “I condemn such actions and I am grateful for the work being done by multiple local and federal government agencies to uncover these repulsive, fraudulent actions, and I am eager to know what steps are being taken to protect these critical resources going forward.”
In May 2023, Omar sponsored an expansion of the “Child Nutrition Act of 1966 and the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to make breakfasts and lunches free for all children, and for other purposes.” The proposal, HR 3204, did not become law.
Omar has herself been accused of citizenship and/or immigration fraud due to credible reporting she entered an ostensible marriage with her blood brother, Ahmed Elmi, in 2009. Elmi had arrived in the United States from the UK and not long afterward attended North Dakota State University at the same time as Omar while utilizing taxpayer-funded student aid.
Both Powerline‘s Scott Johnson and David Steinberg, then writing for The Blaze, have conducted extensive research into Omar’s background and multiple marriages. On July 18, 2019, Johnson posted at Powerline a lengthy excerpt from Steinberg’s then-most recent column wherein Steinberg accepted Omar’s claimed naturalization but maintained she had committed multiple felonies regarding her identity:
The preceding 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.
On December 3, Trump berated Omar from a formal gathering at the White House, where he called for her to be “thrown out” of the country after allegedly marrying her brother to commit fraud.
In 2019, Omar’s former fellow member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Steve Drazkowski, issued a press release claiming Omar was “a politician who uses her relationships to cover up her misdeeds and disregard for the law.”
“Congresswoman Omar knows that the truth reveals too much about her wrongdoings,” Drazkowski continued. “As such, you can always expect Rep. Omar’s words and the truth to be 180o apart.”
While Trump has characterized Omar’s alleged conduct as fraud carried out in order for her to enter the country illegally, she had reportedly been in the United States since 1995, having arrived with her father and sister from a refugee camp in Kenya.
According to Omar’s book, This is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman, in Somalia her family was well-off, employing a driver and living in what might have been considered very comfortable conditions at the time.
The family was displaced to Kenya as a result of the Somalian Civil War, reportedly remaining four years until being granted “refugee” status in the U.S.
As The Post & Email has reported since 2022, a primary challenger to Omar in Minnesota’s 5th District, AJ Kern, filed a lawsuit against Omar and another foreign-born candidate, Don Samuels, for proof each had naturalized as a U.S. citizen and was therefore constitutionally eligible to serve.
In May 2022, Kern discovered and later verified that Omar requested her birth year be changed from “1981” to “1982” on her former Minnesota House of Representatives website and on the internet’s biographical pages, including Wikipedia. The request came just several days after Kern posted a self-made video explaining that Omar, if born in 1981, could not have acquired derivative citizenship from her father in the year 2000 since she would have been over the age of 18 and therefore ineligible.
On July 1 that year, Judge Bridget Ann Sullivan dismissed the case, determining Congress alone was responsible for vetting the eligibility of its members.
Following the dismissal, Kern filed FOIA requests with DHS and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for the naturalization records of Omar’s father, Nur Omar Mohamed, and a year later received documentation stating no record of it could be located.
The significance of that discovery places into doubt Omar’s claim she was naturalized through derivation when she was 17 upon her father’s naturalization, and she has never released any documentation proving U.S. citizenship.
“Much of the Minnesota Fraud, up to 90%, is caused by people that came into our Country, illegally, from Somalia,” Trump wrote Wednesday. “’Congresswoman’ Omar, an ungrateful loser who only complains and never contributes, is one of the many scammers. Did she really marry her brother? Lowlifes like this can only be a liability to our Country’s greatness. Send them back from where they came, Somalia, perhaps the worst, and most corrupt, country on earth. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
In recent days and weeks, Trump has seemingly focused on Omar, with podcaster Megyn Kelly later discussing his comments and correcting his assertion that Omar married her brother so she could enter the U.S.
Also of late, Kern has interviewed with Liz Collin of Alpha News and Breanna Morello of The American Journal to speak on her findings relative to Omar.
As of press time, Trump has not amplified his comments on the “congresswoman.”