It started with a simple request to change a number on a page. Minnesota officials were requested by Rep. Ilhan Omar’s congressional staff in May 2019 to change her recorded birth year from 1981 to 1982. This request came just months after she entered Congress. It also followed a viral video from a political opponent that questioned her age.
For years, her biography in the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library listed her birthday as October 4, 1981. That date appeared throughout her time in the state House. The entry remained on the library’s website throughout the initial months of her congressional term. Then the staff intervened.
The library’s director explained the situation in an email on May 24, 2019. He wrote that his team received a direct call from Omar’s office. “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 director wrote. He noted the original entry had no supporting documents.
The director said the initial 1981 date was used because it was widely available online. He added that the date appeared in Wikipedia and the Biographical Directory. “We added that birthdate without documentation,” he said. He also noted that Omar’s staff were trying to fix the error elsewhere.
“Rep. Omar’s congressional staff are working with Wikipedia and with the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and other sources to correct her birth year on those sites,” the director wrote. But the work was not done yet. “As of today, the birth year has not been corrected on the two sites I mentioned,” he stated.
This change matters for her citizenship story. According to reports, she acquired U.S. citizenship in 2000 via her father. Her family arrived from Somalia in 1995. My father acquired citizenship, and I obtained mine through that same process.
But the math depends on the year. An individual born on October 4, 1981, would have reached the age of 18 in October 1999. A person born on October 4, 1982, would have stayed 17 until October 2000. Should her birth year be 1981, she would have been 18 or 19 years old in 2000. That would mean she was a legal adult then.
Eligibility to get citizenship through a parent requires meeting rules before turning 18. If she was 17 at the time, she could have gotten it automatically. But a 2023 search for any record of her father’s naturalization found nothing. AJ Kern, her opponent in the 2022 primary, asked for the info during the campaign. He was told a year later that the search failed to find proof.
The New York Post reported that this alteration could offer a big clue about what federal agents were looking for. They raided her DC home on a recent Monday. Critics contend that if she is one year older, she could not have legally become a citizen in 2000.
Omar’s office and she herself have denied claims of fraud. She called the accusations a smear campaign on X. Over the last decade, Trump has relentlessly attacked me using false accusations and smear tactics. Omar stated, “This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.”
The library director confirmed the staff asked for the change. He confirmed the original date lacked proof. He confirmed the change was not yet complete on major sites. The question of her age remains tied to the legal rules of 2000.
