A newly surfaced marriage license shows Rep. Ilhan Omar crossed out her own surname twice while applying to wed a man she allegedly married to commit immigration fraud.
The Hennepin County document from Feb. 12, 2009, reveals Omar’s name was first written as “Ilhan Omar,” then scratched through and replaced with “Elmi,” before a final edit returned it to “Omar,” according to the certified copy obtained by The Post. The application was for her marriage to Ahmed Elmi, a British citizen who describes himself as gay.
The handwritten revisions are drawing fresh scrutiny as the Justice Department pursues a separate investigation into whether Omar, 42, fraudulently obtained U.S. Citizenship in 2000 by failing to use her accurate legal name and birthdate.
Scott W. Johnson, a retired Minneapolis attorney who has spent a decade investigating Omar’s immigration history, told The Post the document raises immediate concerns about the legitimacy of the union.
“The whole thing was a joke. The marriage was a fraudulent marriage, brazenly fraudulent,” Johnson said. “They didn’t take it seriously. It was entered into for a fraudulent purpose.”
Johnson, who served on the board of Alpha News — the Minnesota outlet that first published an image of the application in August 2016 — also questioned Omar’s refusal to address the mounting evidence.
“Questions should be asked. She’s never answered them,” he added.
The marriage certificate application includes a section asking whether the bride and groom are related by blood or adoption. The couple checked “no.” The form appears to have been completed in a single person’s handwriting, though it remains unclear who actually filled it out.
The Justice Department referred to Omar in a court filing last week as “Congresswoman Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar,” lending federal weight to claims that Omar was born with the Elmi surname. A source familiar with the investigation previously told The Post that Omar is not the congresswoman’s “real” name, meaning she shared her birth last name with the man she would later marry.
AJ Kern, a former Minnesota congressional candidate who has examined Omar’s immigration records and birthdate discrepancies, told The Post the accumulating evidence points toward deliberate deception.
“I think it’s pretty clear she married her brother and committed immigration fraud,” Kern said.
Kern also raised constitutional questions about Omar’s continued service in Congress if her citizenship is ultimately invalidated. “If the evidence seems to be pointing to the fact that she never obtained citizenship, Congress is failing to do their job. If we’ve had a foreign nationalist occupying a seat in Congress, that’s a problem,” she said.
Omar has broadly characterized the allegations as a racist conspiracy theory and politically motivated smear. But when MS NOW anchor Chris Hayes pressed her last week on whether she married her brother, she offered a notably qualified denial: “Not to my knowledge.”
President Trump has seized on the case, declaring Friday afternoon in the Oval Office that “Omar is not her real name” and repeatedly attacking her as a “complainer” overly critical of the United States government.
The Justice Department originally launched its investigation in 2016 under President Barack Obama, probing whether Omar illegally married Elmi to secure him a green card while she was running for Minnesota’s legislature. The FBI was unable to interview Elmi after he returned to the United Kingdom. The Biden administration closed the probe in 2021, determining the alleged crime fell outside a five-year statute of limitations that would have required charges by 2014 at the latest.
Legal experts previously told The Post that authorities are now examining whether ongoing acts — such as continued misrepresentation of a birthdate on government documents — could place conduct outside that previous limitations window. There is no statute of limitations for civil denaturalization, which could result in deportation.
The birthdate dispute adds another layer of complexity. Some records list Omar’s birthdate as Oct. 4, 1981, while others cite the same date in 1982. Omar maintains she became a U.S. Citizen at age 17 through her father Nur Omar Mohamed’s naturalization. If the 1981 date is accurate, she would have been of legal age at that time and ineligible for the minor benefit she claimed. Federal authorities are also investigating whether Mohamed improperly obtained citizenship.
Omar’s marital history spans three legal unions. She wed Ahmed Hirsi in an Islamic ceremony in 2002 and had two children with him before legally marrying Elmi in 2009. She gave birth to a third child fathered by Hirsi in June 2012, while still married to Elmi. Their divorce was finalized in 2017, and she legally married Hirsi in 2018 before filing for divorce after just one year. She married her current husband, Tim Mynett, in 2020.
Federal agents raided Omar’s Washington, D.C. Home on Oct. 12 as part of the expanding probe.
Omar’s office did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment on the marriage license file.