Federal investigators have been reviewing family text messages as they aim to build a case implicating Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar of conspiring to commit immigration fraud, three people familiar with the matter said this week.
The messages were obtained from a phone that officials seized earlier this year from one of Ms. Omar’s sisters, Sahra Noor, a health care executive and author, according to the three people.
The messages contained information that investigators had used to get a federal judge to authorize homeland security agents to search Ms. Omar’s Washington-area residence on Monday, the three people said. Agents spent hours searching the home of the Minnesota congresswoman and were seen walking away with several boxes of seized items.
The people familiar with the seizure of Ms. Noor’s phone spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an open criminal investigation that is before a federal grand jury in Minnesota. Federal officials have issued subpoenas in recent days to Ms. Noor and several other people in Ms. Omar’s orbit.
The investigation seeks to determine whether Ms. Omar and her relatives lied or omitted crucial information in immigration paperwork they filed since moving to the United States in the 1990s. They were admitted as refugees after fleeing Somalia’s civil war.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin suggested last month that the investigation could ultimately result in Ms. Omar’s deportation.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Ms. Noor’s phone on Friday. It was not clear when or where her phone was seized.
Ms. Noor, who recently published a memoir about her upbringing and the family’s journey to the United States, did not respond this week to several requests for comment. In recent years she has split her time between the United States and Kenya, and she spoke at events in the Minneapolis area this month to promote her book.
The search of Ms. Omar’s home drew condemnation from Democrats, in part because it appeared to violate a Justice Department policy that advises against taking overt investigative steps within 60 days of an election if doing so could change the outcome of a contest.
Ms. Omar, who represents a district that includes Minneapolis, is seeking a fifth term in the House in next month’s midterm election.
President Trump has railed against Ms. Omar for years, and his attacks against her and Minnesota’s Somali diaspora have grown increasingly caustic in recent months.
Ms. Omar has been the subject of previous criminal investigations into her finances, campaign spending and interactions with foreign citizens, which have stalled without resulting in charges. Mr. Trump has put enormous pressure on the Justice Department to pursue investigations against his political enemies, and Ms. Omar and her supporters have called the current case against her a form of persecution.
Jackie Rogers, a spokeswoman for Ms. Omar, declined to comment when asked about the seizure of Ms. Noor’s phone.
“Trump has spread lie after lie about the congresswoman in a desperate attempt to justify his extraordinary abuse of power,” Ms. Rogers said in a statement. “This is politically motivated and an escalation of Trump’s personal vendetta against her lasting over a decade.”
Mr. Mullin said on Friday that the government was building a “strong case” against Ms. Omar. Speaking on Real America’s Voice, a conservative outlet, he said: “We perceive a law was broken, our laws were broken, and we’re enforcing our nation’s laws.”
Earlier this year, Vice President JD Vance told an interviewer that Ms. Omar “definitely committed immigration fraud,” and said the question officials were wrestling with was how to hold her accountable.
Among the issues investigators are examining is whether Ms. Omar was over the age of 18 when she became an American citizen as part of her father’s naturalization process. Ms. Omar has said that she naturalized before turning 18, but officials have suggested they have reason to believe she may have been an adult, and thus ineligible for citizenship derived from a parent.
Lawyers representing Ms. Omar sent the Justice Department a letter on Friday in which they called the search of her home unjustified and unconstitutional given Ms. Omar’s role as a member of Congress. The lawyers, Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz, demanded the immediate return of all the items investigators seized.
“There is no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status.” the letter says.
In a series of fund-raising emails her campaign sent this week, Ms. Omar asked supporters for donations, saying she was bracing for a lengthy and complex legal battle.
“This is no longer just racist rhetoric,” Ms Omar wrote in a campaign email sent Thursday, which cited a Wall Street Journal article that said the government was aiming to denaturalize her. “Trump’s fascist administration is going to use every lever of power they hold to try to take away my citizenship.”
Ms. Omar won the Democratic primary for her seat in a landslide and does not face a competitive Republican rival in the general election. Her campaign has received “a huge windfall” of donations from every state in the country since the search on Monday, Ms. Rogers said.
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