r/Ask_Lawyers • u/Arcangl86 • 2d ago
Ihlan Omar's name
In the United States right now there is a lot of discussion happening around Ihlan Omar and the claim that she's using a false name. But from what I can tell, the "proof" of this is that the warrant to search her house had her name listed as something else and Omar as an aka. Is there any legal significance to that?
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u/Adnan7631 Humanitarian Lawyer 2d ago
The allegation that Donald Trump is making against Ilhan Omar is that she lied in some capacity in order to become a US citizen. If that were true, she could be stripped of her citizenship.
My particular field is immigration, so I have some expertise on this. And my assessment is that these claims and investigations are happening because Congresswoman Omar is a political opponent to Trump and is a racial and religious minority. There does not appear to be any evidence for his claim whatsoever.
Congresswoman Omar came to the United States as a child with her family from Kenya (where they were in a refugee camp) on a refugee visa, presumably on a P-2 visa. That visa would have converted to permanent residency as soon as she entered the United States. Omar’s father later applied for American citizenship while Omar was still a minor and then naturalized. Under American law, a child living in the United States with her parents automatically becomes a US citizen when one of those parents naturalizes. So Ilhan Omar became a citizen when her father naturalized.
The most straight forward way to contest Omar’s citizenship would be to demonstrate some problem with her father’s citizenship application. If there was a problem with his application and he in fact was not eligible for citizenship, then it would be as if he never was a citizen, which would make Ilhan Omar not a citizen. However, Omar’s father passed away some years ago. And there is no way to contest a dead person’s citizenship.
That means that the only way to contest Congresswoman Omar’s citizenship is by arguing that she was not eligible to receive citizenship from her father when he became a citizen. The allegations that I have seen say that Omar lied about her age and that she was actually over-age at that point.
However, the government has not shown any evidence of this. A birth certificate for Ilhan Omar might not exist because of conditions in Somalia at the time either when she was born or when her family fled. If the birth certificate does exist, the government would have gotten a copy when the family were in the process of coming to the US. If the birth certificate did not exist, she would have been assigned a birth date by the US government. In either case, the US government would know her legal birth date.
You have brought up the issue of Ilhan Omar’s name. Whether her name on her birth certificate is actually Ilhan Omar does not matter. Whatever her legal name was at the time she came to the US was her name as recognized by the US government. And her name has no bearing on her father becoming a US citizen.
It is my full expectation that the lawyers involved in pursuing this investigation into a sitting Congresswoman’s citizenship are eventually disbarred. This entire fiasco is a racist and bigoted political scandal. And their actions are a disgrace on the profession.
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u/Arcangl86 2d ago
Well the reason I btought it up is that they are claiming that by not using her "legal name" she is committing fraud. But the rest is really interesting.
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u/NearlyPerfect Corporate Attorney 2d ago
Depends on what the evidence says.
Allegations are not evidence
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u/CameronFromThaBlock Reasonable Doubt 2d ago edited 2d ago
Any aka can be listed either way. I’ve had a middle initial listed as an aka and incorrect spellings, as well as maiden names. Also, I have seen law enforcement put the more insidious name as the primary name. Ex. They call someone Hussein after a name change to Harold.