A new report is putting fresh focus on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s birth records and the immigration questions surrounding her citizenship. The issue centers on a reported change to her birth year that happened months after she was elected to Congress.
According to the New York Post, Omar’s congressional staff requested that her birth year be changed from 1981 to 1982 in May 2019. Omar had won her first congressional election in November 2018.
Before that change, October 4, 1981, had been listed as Omar’s birthdate in the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, on Wikipedia, and in major media outlets, including the BBC. The 1981 date had also remained in place during her time in the Minnesota House and during the early months of her congressional term.
The change reportedly came shortly after a political opponent released a video questioning Omar’s age. The Post reviewed an email from the library director explaining that Omar’s congressional staff contacted the library and asked that the year be changed.
“On May 17, 2019, Library staff were informed by Rep. Omar’s congressional staff that her birth year was incorrect and requested that we change it to 1982.”
The library director also said Omar’s team was working to “correct” the year on Wikipedia and in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. The library said its original listing had been based on information that was “widely available, in Wikipedia and the Biographical Directory, and so we added that birthdate without documentation.”
That timing is now a central point for critics. Under the immigration rules governing derivative citizenship at the time, certain requirements generally had to be met before a child turned 18. If Omar was born in 1981, she would have been 18 or 19 in 2000. Critics argue that this could have affected whether she qualified for automatic derivative citizenship as a minor or instead needed to complete the adult naturalization process.
The date change alone does not establish that any law was broken. But critics say it raises questions about whether information on immigration paperwork was accurate. Those questions are especially significant because they touch on the legal basis for citizenship, not simply a biographical detail.
The controversy is unfolding alongside an active federal criminal investigation. As previously reported by The Gateway Pundit, Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant at Omar’s Washington, D.C.-area home early Monday morning. Agents reportedly seized boxes of evidence.
The investigation is focused on immigration documents completed by Omar’s late father when she was a child. Officials are examining whether false statements were made that could potentially support denaturalization proceedings. The report does not describe a final legal finding, but the birth-year discrepancy is now part of the broader scrutiny.
Omar has denounced the investigation as political retaliation by President Donald Trump’s administration. After the search, she issued a defiant statement:
“I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”
Her response frames the investigation as an effort to punish a political opponent. Federal investigators, however, are examining the underlying immigration records and the statements connected to them. The reported change from 1981 to 1982, made after Omar entered Congress, is now part of the broader scrutiny surrounding the case.
Ilhan Omar’s staff helped change her birthdate in the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library after she was elected to Congress in 2018. pic.twitter.com/YjKWZiClL6
— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) October 13, 2026