Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose lawyers say federal agents ignored a judge\'s conditions when they searched her home. Official portrait, 116th Congress, U.S. House Office of Photography (public domain).
Lawyers for Rep. Ilhan Omar told Justice Department prosecutors on Oct. 16 that federal agents ignored conditions a magistrate judge attached to the warrant for the Oct. 12 search of her Washington home, and they demanded the return of everything taken. The department called the letter “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies.” The dispute opens a second front in the immigration-fraud investigation of the Minnesota Democrat: not only what her family’s decades-old records show, but whether the government collected evidence the way the court required.
The letter, from attorneys Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz and obtained by The Washington Post, says agents did not give Omar’s lawyers a copy of the warrant, did not contact the House Office of General Counsel before the search, and did not tell Omar about her protections under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause or ask whether she would waive them. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Sharbaugh set those conditions before signing the warrant, which remains sealed, and agents left with boxes of documents, her phone and her passport, the Post reported.
The lawyers also asked prosecutors to preserve any recordings of the search and the records of a 2019 review of Omar’s immigration history. The Post reported on Oct. 15, citing former officials, that career immigration officials who examined similar questions that year, including her birth date, found too little evidence to justify a full investigation. “There is no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status,” the lawyers wrote.
The Justice Department rejects all of it. A spokesperson said its attorneys and agents “complied with all court orders and legal obligations” and called the letter’s quick release to reporters “a publicity play.” The Department of Homeland Security, whose investigators lead the case, referred questions to the Justice Department. Fourteen news organizations, Reuters among them, have asked Sharbaugh to unseal the warrant records.
What a broken search protocol could and could not change
The conditions follow a line of D.C. Circuit decisions that keep a lawmaker’s legislative papers away from executive-branch investigators. In 2007, ruling on the FBI’s search of Rep. William Jefferson’s Capitol Hill office, the court held that agents violated the clause by reviewing legislative material without first letting the member identify it, and it ordered the privileged documents returned. In 2023 it applied the same protection to legislative communications on the seized phone of Rep. Scott Perry. If that screening was skipped, the likeliest remedy is the return or exclusion of legislative material, not the end of the investigation.
That limit matters most on the immigration side. A letter is not a court filing. The formal routes are a motion for return of property under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g), or a motion to suppress if charges are brought, and neither reaches the government’s own files. Refugee applications, green card filings and her father’s naturalization record already sit in federal archives, which is why former immigration officials told Reuters that search warrants are highly unusual in citizenship inquiries. A civil case over whether Omar is a citizen would rest mainly on those records, and the Supreme Court held in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza (1984) that the exclusionary rule generally does not apply in civil deportation proceedings. Courts have not settled how far that reasoning carries into civil denaturalization suits.
Nor does holding her passport cancel it. Under 22 U.S.C. 2705 a U.S. passport is proof of citizenship, and cancellation is a separate State Department decision that 8 U.S.C. 1504 conditions on written notice to the holder.
The case lands during an unusually active period for citizenship revocation. Reuters, citing the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, an immigrant-rights legal organization, reported that the Justice Department has filed at least 164 denaturalization cases in President Trump’s second term, compared with an average of about 11 a year from 1990 to 2017. The department says citizenship “must be obtained lawfully and honestly.”
The next markers are a ruling on unsealing, which would show what the government told the judge; whether Omar’s lawyers take their demand to court; and whether the Minnesota grand jury that has reportedly subpoenaed her relatives returns any charge. The lawyers also cite the department’s practice of avoiding overt steps against candidates near an election. Omar is on the ballot Nov. 3, and nothing so far points to a resolution before then. Earlier coverage: the Oct. 12 search and the reported birth-date theory.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice.
Sources
- The Washington Post, “Rep. Ilhan Omar’s lawyers say authorities ignored judge’s restrictions on home search” (Oct. 16, 2026)
- The Washington Post, “Trump officials scrutinized Omar in 2019. They didn’t find citizenship issues.” (Oct. 15, 2026)
- Reuters, “US probes Omar’s decades-old immigration paperwork with eye toward deportation, sources say” (Oct. 15, 2026)
- Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41
- 22 U.S.C. 2705, passports as proof of citizenship and 8 U.S.C. 1504, cancellation of U.S. passports
- United States v. Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2113, 497 F.3d 654 (D.C. Cir. 2007); In re Sealed Case (D.C. Cir. 2023) (Rep. Scott Perry’s phone)
- INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032 (1984)
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