Rep. Ilhan Omar’s deleted 2013 Father’s Day tweet calling her father “Nur Said” has resurfaced as a potential clue in long-running brother-marriage claims and a federal immigration probe.
Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar told Fox News Digital her real name is “Ilhan Abdullahi Omar” after a federal court filing tied to a search warrant listed her as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a.k.a. Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.”
The same week, a June 2013 social media post she deleted years earlier came back into view. In it she wished a happy Father’s Day to “my aabo Nur Said.” That wording sits at the center of renewed questions about her family names, her former marriage, and whether immigration or naturalization paperwork ever carried a false statement.
Federal agents searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., residence on Oct. 12 as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into possible false statements on immigration and naturalization documents. No charges are described in the available reporting. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Omar has denied wrongdoing and called the probe a political attack. Her office has also disputed any suggestion that “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi” is her legal name.
Recent court documents connected to the search warrant identify the congresswoman as Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, also known as Ilhan Abdullahi Omar. The filing, as described in the coverage, does not explain why that form of the name appears and does not by itself prove she used a false identity.
Two people familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital that “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi” may be Omar’s legal name. Omar pushed back hard on Friday.
She told the outlet:
"Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, you know it,"... "It’s Ilhan Abdullahi Omar."
That answer landed against the backdrop of earlier reporting on the name listed for Omar and the wider federal scrutiny of her records.
A former Minnesota federal immigration judge, speaking generally, said that if investigators later prove someone knowingly used a false name on federal forms, the conduct could be examined under the federal false-statements statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Application would still turn on the specific documents, whether the statement was material, and intent. No such finding is reported here.
In June 2013 Omar posted a Father’s Day message that read, in part:
"Happy Father’s Day to my aabo Nur Said, I am forever grateful to Allah for giving me the best father...,"
“Aabo” is a Somali term for father. The Daily Caller first reported the archived post in 2019. On the morning of Sept. 19, 2019, Omar deleted it.
A statement recirculated online and attributed to her spokesperson said “Nur Said” was her father’s childhood nickname, that he kept a public page under that name, and that the tweet was removed because Omar and her family had received threats. Omar’s office did not respond Friday when asked again about the deleted post.
Other public references point a different way. A Congressional Black Caucus memorial marking her father’s death in 2020 called him “Nur Omar Mohamed.” An Oxford University historian, Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, was quoted in a New York Post story referring to the father as “Nur Said.” Fox News stated it had not independently verified the longer form “Nur Said Elmi Mohamed.”
Name similarity alone does not prove a blood relationship. Still, the deleted post keeps drawing attention because it uses the same “Nur Said” construction that appears in the former husband’s name and in the court filing’s alternate identification of Omar.
Omar was previously married to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. That marriage ended in divorce in 2017. She later legally married Ahmed Hirsi in 2018.
For years, critics have claimed Elmi is actually her brother and that the marriage was a sham to help with immigration status. Omar and her office reject that claim outright.
On Wednesday she appeared on MS NOW and was asked whether her one-time husband may have been a “distant relative.” She answered:
"Not to my knowledge,"
The next day a spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Omar has “repeatedly and unequivocally denied” the “baseless, disgusting conspiracy theory” that she married her brother, and pointed reporters back to that interview.
Those denials sit beside the same cluster of facts now under federal review: the alternate name in search-warrant court papers, the deleted Father’s Day tribute to “Nur Said,” and the timeline of her marriages.
The Oct. 12 search of Omar’s D.C. home is the most concrete public step so far. Related coverage described agents seizing a phone and investigators issuing subpoenas to relatives in the same immigration-fraud probe. The core question described by Fox News Digital is whether false statements were made on immigration and naturalization documents.
That home search was first detailed in coverage of federal agents at Omar’s residence, and later reporting followed the paper trail in the warrant case.
Separate accounts have also described Justice Department subpoenas aimed at Omar relatives as the inquiry widened beyond a single address.
Omar has framed the entire matter as politics. In a press conference referenced in the same reporting cycle, she blamed President Donald Trump for death threats and attacks against her. Trump is not accused in the court filing summarized here; the filing’s operative public detail is the name under which the search materials identify her.
Put the verified pieces side by side and the tension is obvious. Omar publicly insists her name is Ilhan Abdullahi Omar. Court papers tied to a federal search use Ilhan Nur Said Elmi as a primary identifier. A 2013 post she later deleted called her father “Nur Said.” A 2020 caucus memorial called him Nur Omar Mohamed. Her former husband’s name is Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. She says he is not her brother and, to her knowledge, not even a distant relative.
None of those facts, standing alone, is a criminal conviction. Together they explain why the deleted tweet keeps being treated as more than old social media. It is one of the few instances in which Omar herself put the “Nur Said” wording into the public record in a family context, then removed it years later when the marriage allegation was already circulating.
Additional court filings in the immigration probe have kept the alias and document questions in view even as Omar’s office disputes the legal-name characterization.
Open gaps remain. The full search-warrant affidavit and case docket are not laid out in the reporting. The specific immigration forms under review are not named. Absolute calendar dates for the midweek interview cycle are given only as Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. No charging decision has been announced.
What is on the record is simpler. A sitting member of Congress is under federal investigation for possible false statements on immigration papers. Agents already searched her D.C. home. Court papers used a name she rejects. And a Father’s Day tweet she deleted in 2019 once named her father in the same distinctive style that fuels the marriage controversy she calls a conspiracy theory.
Voters and investigators can read the same documents. Name games and quiet deletions are not how clean government is supposed to work.
