JD Vance Cranks Up Pressure On Ilhan Omar Over Immigration Fraud Scandal

The Justice Department is actively investigating Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for immigration fraud over allegations that she married her brother, Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday.

Vance, who is leading President Donald Trump’s crackdown on fraud, was answering a question from Daily Caller White House reporter Reagan Reese, who asked about a possible indictment against Omar.

“I don’t want to prejudge an investigation. I mean, you read the things about Ilhan Omar and about who she married and whether she didn’t marry this person or that person. It certainly seems like something fishy is there,” Vance said during a White House press conference.

“If we think that there’s a crime, we’re going to prosecute that crime, and that’s something the Department of Justice is looking at right now,” he said.

Omar is accused of marrying her brother in order for him to secure a green card.

President Donald Trump himself has advocated for the Minnesota lawmaker to be “thrown out of the country.”

The federal government can denaturalize foreign-born individuals if they commit fraud as part of the immigration process, though the Justice Department has not publicly confirmed Vance’s claim that it is investigating Omar.

Omar came to the United States as a refugee in 1995 and secured her citizenship in 2000 at 17 years old.

Omar married British citizen Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, whom some allege is her biological brother, in 2009. The pair reportedly separated in 2011 and divorced in 2017.

It was Omar’s second marriage.

Omar married Ahmed Hirsi in a religious ceremony in 2002, but the union was never legally recognized.

She claimed to have split from Hirsi in 2008. The couple reconciled just months after Omar’s split from Elmi.

Omar has called allegations that she married her brother “absurd and offensive.”

A spokesperson for Omar didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Vance’s announcement.

In March, Vance said Omar “definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America” and said that the Trump administration intended to “go after her.”

“We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America,” Vance said at the time. “And I talked to [Trump adviser] Stephen Miller about this recently, we’re trying to look at what the remedies are.”

“What are the legal remedies now that we know she’s committed immigration fraud? How do you go after her? How do you investigate her? How do you build the case necessary to get some justice for the American people?” Vance added.

The vice president also said that a spotlight is on Omar for her alleged ties to “a lot of the worst fraudsters in the Somali community” in Minneapolis.