“The federal investigation of Representative Ilhan Omar is focused in part on whether she entered into a sham marriage in 2009 to help a man suspected of being her brother obtain a green card,” the New York Times reports.
“The FBI and Department of Homeland Security investigated the marriage in summer 2016, during the Obama administration, and found some evidence that it was fraudulent.”
New York Times: Justice Dept. declines to unseal warrant for search of Ilhan Omar’s home.
“An activist group published a searchable database of more than 41,000 Department of Homeland Security employees and contractors on Wednesday, exposing the identities and contact information for immigration officers, border agents and undercover investigators,” the Washington Post reports.
Wired: “ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is engaged in far-reaching spying against left-wing activists that rivals the FBI and CIA crackdowns on the Civil Rights and anti-war movements.”
“The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to move forward with construction of a border wall along hundreds of miles in the Big Bend region of southwest Texas,” the New York Times reports.
“A federal judge in Texas had blocked construction of the barriers, which had drawn local objections. In an emergency application to the justices, Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to intervene and allow the project to proceed.”
“The Pentagon has given the Department of Homeland Security permission to test a military-grade heat ray and develop tactics to potentially use it in operations at the southern U.S. border,” CNN reports.
“The heat ray, officially known as the Active Denial System, is a nonlethal weapon that shoots an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves that can reach a little more than half a mile away, according to the U.S. military.”
“The energy beam causes a burning sensation when it comes into contact with the human skin — which Pentagon officials have previously compared to feeling a blast of heat when opening a hot oven.”
“Seven Boeing Co. 737-700 jets, acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars and meant to ramp up President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign, have barely left the ground at southwest Louisiana’s Lake Charles Regional Airport,” Bloomberg reports.
“They are the fleet that was acquired this year by Kristi Noem for the Department of Homeland Security, before she was fired after spending more than $200 million on a self-promotional ad campaign and amid withering criticism from Republicans over her leadership.”
“Each of the planes has conducted fewer than five flights since April 2026.”
“Federal prosecutors are planning to use DNA evidence to prove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) committed immigration fraud, as part of the sprawling investigation into the congresswoman,” the New York Post reports.
“People familiar with the years-long criminal probe said the feds have made use of whistleblowers, government records and now obtained DNA in an effort to substantiate decade-old allegations that Omar — and possibly members of her family like her father — defrauded immigration authorities.”
“Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate arrested last year by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents amid campus protests, appealed to the Supreme Court on Monday in an attempt to prevent his deportation,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Khalil, a legal permanent U.S. resident who is married to an American, became an early and high-profile example of President Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses.”
“President Trump urged France Monday morning to seal itself off from the rest of Europe following a weekend of rioting that led to at least 2,400 arrests and reduced the country’s major cities to a state of anarchy,” the New York Post reports.
Said Trump: “The migrants have taken over France.”
“White House border czar Tom Homan defended the raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s D.C. home last week, arguing that the federal government has a ‘strong case’ against the Minnesota Democrat,” the Washington Sun reports.
“The highest-ranking House lawmaker from Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) home state is calling for the embattled progressive to be jailed and deported if it is found that she or her father lied on federal paperwork to get her U.S. citizenship,” Fox News reports.
“Omar is under federal investigation over allegations that she or her father lied about her birth year on immigration paperwork in order to obtain her citizenship when her family fled Somalia in the late 1990s…”
“But Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) the No. 3 leader in the House of Representatives, told Fox News that ‘there have been rumors for years’ about Omar and, if proven true, she should face consequences.”
“The Trump administration announced on Friday that it was banning unauthorized drone activity along the southern U.S. border with Mexico as part of efforts to curtail criminal cartel operations and other cross-border security threats,” the New York Times reports.
“One of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House is running on immigration — and taking on both parties over it,” Politico reports.
“Rep. Mike Lawler is hammering Democrats over ‘sanctuary’ policies while criticizing the Trump administration’s aggressive — and at times lethal — immigration enforcement tactics.”
“Lawler is betting his self-described ‘common sense’ approach can win him a third term in a suburban Hudson Valley district Kamala Harris carried in 2024. His race against Democrat Cait Conley, an Army veteran and first-time candidate, could help determine control of the House.”
“Seven years ago, a political appointee in the first Trump administration approached U.S. immigration authorities with a request that alarmed career staffers: Scrub the immigration records of Rep. Ilhan Omar, then a newly elected Democratic lawmaker from Minnesota, for evidence of fraud,” the Washington Post reports.
“That 2019 demand, detailed by three former immigration officials, struck staffers at the time as a highly unusual effort to wield federal power to dig up compromising material on a prominent critic of President Donald Trump and sitting member of Congress.”
“Last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott repeated a claim he’s made for the past five years. He stated that the number of people crossing the Texas-Mexico border illegally ‘posed an ongoing and imminent threat’ across the state. In doing so, he renewed a border security disaster proclamation that has greatly expanded his powers without going through the state Legislature,” Texas Tribune reports.
“Abbott’s declaration stands in sharp contrast to the numbers reported by the Trump administration, which says the drop in the flow of migrants crossing the border has been unprecedented and has reached historic lows since it took over in January 2025.”
“Yet, since Abbott first declared an emergency at the border during the Biden administration in 2021, he’s renewed or amended the proclamation at least 69 times — 21 of those during Trump’s tenure.”
“The Trump administration’s investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is aimed at building a case to strip her of her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the U.S. from Somalia decades ago. Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father… Nur Omar Mohamed brought his daughter and other family members to the U.S. from a refugee camp in Kenya in 1995.”
Washington Sun: Ilhan Omar’s phone was seized and relatives were subpoenaed for criminal probe.
“The Trump administration pushed for an unusually aggressive search of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s house in recent days in an immigration fraud probe that targets the congresswoman, possible false statements made on government documents, and a potential conspiracy, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation,” CNN reports.
“Prosecutors, however, first had to contend with a federal magistrate judge, in a prolonged back-and-forth that hasn’t previously been reported. Judge Matthew Sharbaugh of the DC District Court ultimately limited how the Justice Department could access Omar’s documents in Monday’s search, before he would approve the warrant, because of her role as a member of Congress and the Constitutional protections that affords.”
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement is fast-tracking a $100 million domestic surveillance program to put 142 intelligence agents in more than two dozen cities and the District of Columbia, in what contracting and surveillance experts said would be a significant expansion of the agency’s ability to reach into private lives,” the American Prospect reports.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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