New York Times Journos Dispute Trump’s Critique of Ilhan Omar

New York Times reporters squirmed and dodged when President Donald Trump said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) married her brother and should be deported.

Omar “should be immediately thrown out of Congress and sent back to her, her country, from where she’s always complaining about,” Trump told the New York Times reporters, according to a Sunday transcript of the long two-hour session.

“She married her brother,” Trump added, alluding to claims that Omar married her brother to help him migrate to the United States.

“That lacks evidence,” responded White House reporter Zolan Kanno-Youngs. “Not proven,” added David E. Sanger, the newspaper’s top D.C. reporter.

Neither Trump nor the New York Times reporters have used their authority or skills to settle the arguments about Omar’s controversial second marriage, her birth year and claim to citizenship, or competing claims about her father’s role in a civil war in northern Somalia.

In 2019, the newspaper posted an article presenting Omar’s defense claims. “Her father… was a teacher in Somalia,” the New York Times reported in 2020. “Ms. Omar became a citizen in 2000, when she was 17.”

However, Trump’s officials are now reviewing federal refugee records for possible immigration fraud by many Somalis in Minnesota.

“Many of the times we’ve dug into [Minnesota fraud] and it’s [enabled by] immigration fraud” within Somali families and clans, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem told Fox News on Sunday. Some Somalis, she said:

They came into this country lying on their documents, why they could come and why they were eligible to use our programs. Joe Biden facilitated this all, and as we uncover more of this criminal activity, we’re going to continue to surge resources to make sure that this abuse of government funds and government power no longer continues in Minnesota.

In 2017, federal officials sought to take back the citizenship awarded to four Somalis who allegedly claimed that unrelated individuals were members of their families, and so were eligible for family reunification visas. The Department of Justice described one case:

Fosia Abdi Adan, 51, a native of Somalia, applied for and received a diversity visa from the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, under the Diversity Visa (DV) Program on Jan. 10, 2001, and used her visa to unlawfully obtain beneficiary visas for the below individuals who were ineligible to be beneficiaries. Adan arrived and was admitted to the United States on Jan. 29, 2001, on her diversity immigrant visa as a permanent resident.

Throughout the diversity visa application process, Adan fraudulently claimed that she was married to Jama Solob Kayre, the fictitious identity used by Ahmed Mohamed Warsame, and that she and Kayre had three children together. Such children included Mohamed Jama Solob, the fictitious identity used by Mustaf Abdi Adan, and Mobarak Jama Solob, the fictitious identity used by Faysal Jama Mire. Adan and Warsame, who used the fictitious identity of Jama Solob Kayre, obtained a divorce in Minnesota for their fictitious marriage after Adan was admitted as a permanent resident. Adan continued to fraudulently represent her previous fictitious marriage and fraudulently represent her fictitious parentage of Mohamed Jama Solob and Mobarak Jama Solob, throughout the naturalization process. Adan naturalized on Aug.16, 2006. Adan has been residing in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

Among other counts contained in the complaint filed against Adan, the United States alleges that she was not lawfully admitted for permanent residence because she engaged in alien smuggling as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act, and thus was never eligible to naturalize.

The fraud in the family unification program used by Somalians was so high that officials suspended the program in 2008, according to a 2010 report by the Center for Immigration Studies. It reported:

Most of the “family reunification” provisions in the U.S. refugee program have been suspended for the past 2 years. The Priority 3 (P-3) resettlement category was closed for refugees since summer 2008 when U.S. officials found that most refugees from Africa using the P-3 program were not related at all.

“The fraud rate among Somali refugees was reported to be as high as 90 percent,” the report said.

Officials working for President Barack Obama dropped the anti-fraud measures in 2012, setting the stage for today’s federal crackdown on the Somali fraud-and-graft scandal in Minnesota’s Democratic Party.