Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is leaving her Washington DC home after a pre-dawn federal raid seized her phones, computers, and passport

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is leaving her Washington DC home after federal agents searched the residence on 12 October, seizing phones, notebooks, computers, and her passport as part of a federal criminal investigation whose scope remains undisclosed.

The search was part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Omar posted a statement online calling the raid ‘an outrageous abuse of power’ and ‘weaponisation of federal law enforcement to target political enemies’. She cited death threats as the reason she can no longer live there. ‘Because our address has been public and with the death threats that I deal with, it’s no longer going to be feasible to be in that house and have my kids visiting off and on, having people track them,’ she told MS NOW.

The raid

Agents began pounding on doors at around 06:00 EDT on 12 October. Omar and her husband were both in bed when agents arrived. ‘We were screaming,’ she said, as the couple ran downstairs. Omar estimated 15 to 25 agents encircled her home. She asked for a warrant and one was presented at the door. She then watched from the couch as agents spent roughly five hours searching, leaving with 17 items including multiple cellphones, notebooks, her personal computers, passport, and her husband’s camera from the 1960s. Omar said the agents ‘conducted themselves in a decent way’.

Omar gave her first public interview about the raid to MS NOW. ‘It obviously did freak all of us out,’ she said. More than a dozen subpoenas have been issued to members of Omar’s family as part of the investigation.

The investigation

The government has not publicly stated what crime Omar is accused of. According to NBC News, charges may include conspiracy and making false statements in her immigration paperwork. A Justice Department spokesperson described the search as conducted under a ‘judicially authorised search warrant’ as part of an ‘ongoing federal criminal investigation’. The BBC reported that it contacted the Justice Department for comment after being referred by DHS.

Political firestorm

Trump has denied involvement, saying it had ‘nothing to do with me’. Omar rejected that, saying ‘he’s got everything to do with it’ and tracing it back to 2019 when Trump was saying she needed to be sent back or deported. Trump has repeatedly targeted Omar over her Somali origins. At an Ohio rally in October, Trump said, ‘I don’t know what they’re doing with it, but I can tell you this: she’s a disaster.’

Former President Barack Obama blasted the federal probe, calling it ‘so appalling’.

Background and threats

Omar is Somalia-born, Muslim, came to the US in 1995 at age 12, and was naturalised as a US citizen in 2000. For years she has been the target of right-wing conspiracy theories about her immigration status, including allegations she married her brother, which she has denied as ‘disgusting lies’. In January 2025, Omar was sprayed with an unknown substance by an assailant at a town hall meeting in Minneapolis while calling for the abolition of ICE. The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs Bridging the Gap initiative found a ‘dangerous escalation in the political violence risk environment in the US’ in 2025.