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The former husband of Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar works as a political science researcher thousands of miles away from the federal immigration probe targeting the Somali-born lawmaker in Washington.
President Donald Trump called on Omar to immediately resign on Thursday after a federal court filing identified the Democrat as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” The president and other conservative critics have repeatedly alleged without evidence she married Elmi to skirt immigration laws.
“It was just revealed just a little while ago that … her name is not Ilhan Omar, the one that she used to get elected and sworn into Congress,” Trump told supporters in Iowa. “She used a fake name to be sworn in. I assume she must immediately have to resign from Congress.”
Omar, for her part, has repeatedly denied the accusation, which she most recently addressed during an interview with MS NOW’s Chris Hayes on Wednesday. The congresswoman traced the rumor to a Somali blog post later embraced by right-wing conspiracy theorists citing “random people” who claimed she had introduced them to Elmi.
Who Is Ilhan Omar’s Ex-Husband?
Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a British citizen who was married to Omar from 2009 through 2017, is currently listed as a doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol’s School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies. He also previously served as a visiting scholar at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and as an affiliate researcher at the British Institute in Eastern Africa in Kenya.
The 41-year-old’s research focuses on violence against “queer people in Kenya,” as well as the “intersections of sexuality, politics, and structural marginalization,” according to his University of Bristol profile.
“He is currently completing his doctoral thesis, provisionally titled: ‘Bravery Amidst Brutality: A Queer Resistance to Violence and Criminalization in Contemporary Kenya,'” the bio continues.
As a graduate teacher at the university, Elmi also previously led undergraduate seminars on political theory and contemporary global politics. He’s also interested in political party systems across Africa, with extensive prior research with the Political Parties Database Project and the Political Parties in Africa Project, according to his school biography.
“Through these works, he has collected quantitative data on elections, party organization, and political leadership in Malawi, Uganda, and Zambia, and produced comparative country-specific dossiers on Angola, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Zambia,” the profile continues, adding that he had been a “top-ranked student” while at the University of Bristol and the University of Leicester.
In 2022, Elmi received a full doctorate scholarship from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, according to his biography, which does not mention Omar, 44, who denied marrying him on Wednesday as part of any fraudulent activity and dismissed unsubstantiated claims that they are related.
“They just kind of went and found random people who were like, ‘She introduced us. She introduced him to us and said he was her brother,’ which is, you know, insane,” Omar said. “I mean, I don’t know those people that they talk about.”
Asked flatly whether she was related to Elmi, Omar replied: “Not to my knowledge.”
Attempts to reach Elmi on Friday were unsuccessful. An Instagram profile linked to his name had been recently removed, but his Substack account bills him as a “sidewalk social scientist.”
Elmi also detailed the months he spent in Johannesburg in an Instagram post earlier this year, describing a “deeply enriching and grounding” experience.
“As a researcher of African queer epistemologies, being in Johannesburg and collaborating with the Gay and Lesbian Archive (GALA) on ‘Margins for Error’ exhibition, where I contributed as a curator and helped bring queer East African perspectives and art into focus, was both meaningful and insightful,” Elmi wrote in a testimonial shared in January. “Spending time at the ‘Extremist Mythologies’ conference was equally encouraging. It allowed me to refine my ideas, listen to leading scholars, and be part of conversations that connected theory with lived experiences of diversity, power and social justice.”
Elmi has also worked at The Schumacher Institute in Bristol, England, and Duke University as a project consultant, his LinkedIn profile shows.
Omar, the first and only Somali-born lawmaker to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, has been criticized by conservatives regarding her background for years prior to last week’s raid at her home in Washington. Her spokesperson has characterized the marriage allegation involving Elmi as a “desperate smear” intended to distract from Trump and Republican governance while chiding media outlets for continuing to “give this lie oxygen.”
Federal investigators have obtained a sample of Omar’s DNA amid the ongoing probe, a
Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, also voluntarily spoke to investigators following last week’s raid, the
The October 12 raid followed months of federal scrutiny into Omar’s immigration history. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said last month federal authorities were examining an accusation that she married her brother to help him enter the United States.
Federal investigators have not contacted Omar since the search, she told reporters on Friday.
“My name is Ilhan Abdullahi Omar,” she said when asked about a federal filing that identified her as Ilhan Nur Said Elmi.
Who Is Ilhan Omar Married to Now?
In 2018, Omar married Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi. The couple, who have three children together, divorced a year later.
She then married her third husband, political consultant and businessman Tim Mynett, in March 2020. He graduated from the University at Albany in 2003 with a degree in political science and now works as a political consultant.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story:Jason LemonandGray R. Thomas
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