The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, which Americans are meant to trust with matters of life and death, is unable—or unwilling—to confirm claims that Representative Ilhan Omar perpetrated fraud by marrying her brother, Ahmed Elmi, to enable him to obtain the coveted Green Card, thus granting him permanent-resident status in the U.S., and a path to citizenship. But the agency is said to be “investigating.”
Conversely, the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, had little difficulty gathering a critical mass of facts, enough to conclude that, in 2009, Omar did indeed secretly wed said sibling. The newspaper, and anyone else suggesting the same, has yet to be sued by Omar. Could the story be true?
As it happens, a Somali community leader has also outed Ilhan Omar as an outlaw. Abdihaikm Osman Nur contends that the Somali-born representative from Minnesota “had indeed married her brother.” So reported Tucker Carlson, a Fox News anchor.
Despite “a lack of paperwork in war-torn Somalia,” which complicates an investigation and a definitive determination, the British tabloid dug up the requisite information that the FBI has yet to release. The young man whom Omar is alleged to have married certainly bears a remarkable resemblance to the congresswoman.
It was in August of 2016 that Mr. Nur, aforementioned, seconded the story first published by Scott Johnson, of the Powerline blog: Omar had married her sibling, ostensibly to allow him to stay in the U.S. As the Daily Mail had relayed, Mr. Nur took issue with Omar’s alleged marriage-cum-immigration fraud. It would appear that the British tabloid was more vested in the truth, as this patriotic Somali told it, than was the FBI.
To date, these are the facts on the fraud alleged to have been committed by a member of the U.SCongress. Yet nobody is likely to do more than mutter at the striking absence of scruples in Ilhan Omar. For not only does she appear to flout the law, but she also offends sensibilities: Omar had first married Ahmed Hirsi, father of her children, in 2002. Bigamy and incest (even if the relationship is unconsummated) are cultural taboos.
Contrast Omar’s treatment in the U.S. with the manner in which the Dutch government treated a lesser form of immigration fraud committed by another Somali, Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Conservatives love Hirsi Ali, as we should. Ms. Hirsi Ali has been a lionheart when it comes to exposing Islam as an inherently radical political system, impervious to reform in its current form, and incompatible with the Enlightenment values to which she ascribes and for which she has been a valiant champion.
Hirsi Ali first became known for her artistic and idealistic collaboration with Theo Van Gogh (1957-2004), a Dutch filmmaker. Van Gogh was a descendant of painter Vincent van Gough (1853-1890), who, one hopes, needs no introduction. The relative of the great Dutch artist was slaughtered on the streets of Amsterdam by a Muslim because he produced a docudrama, “Submission,” for which Ali had written the script. The film depicted the subjugation of women in Islam and across Muslim countries. A note targeting Ali by name was pinned on the poor man’s body.
A Somali refugee just like Omar, Ms. Hirsi Ali put shoulder to the boulder and rose to prominence in The Netherlands. Unlike Omar, who is always in full roar against her fellow Americans, Hirsi Ali has been a model of lucidity. She certainly embraced and promoted classically liberal views, more compatible with her adopted homeland than the views militantly spewed stateside, by the seething Ilhan Omar.
Nevertheless, and perhaps because the Dutch pride themselves on being a nation of laws, Ali’s Dutch citizenship was forthwith revoked, in 2006, when it was discovered that the parliamentarian had lied on her 1992 asylum application. Ali had the decency and dignity to resign her post and express contrition.
Contrition and humility are not in the behavioral repertoire of Ilhan Omar. Her putative infractions, moreover, are way worse than a few fibs on an application form. “Tax avoidance, violations of campaign financing laws and the marriage fraud”: America has a con-woman for a lawmaker, but where’s The Law?