FATHER of Ilhan Omar, questionable refugee status.

quote:

---

This brings us to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and her family. On October 12, 2026, Homeland Security Investigations and the Department of Justice executed a raid on her Washington, D.C. home as part of a criminal investigation into allegations of immigration fraud. Omar denies the allegations. Whether the allegations are founded or not, her family’s immigration history deserves a closer look.

Omar’s father was a colonel in the army of Siad Barre’s murderous dictatorship in Somalia, serving until its collapse in 1991. Her grandfather was national maritime transport director.

Many Americans have never heard of the Barre regime, so here’s a quick reference. Barre seized power in a 1969 coup and ran a Marxist military dictatorship until 1991. In the late 1980s, his regime committed genocide against the Isaaq, carrying out systematic mass executions, killing as many as 200,000 civilians. It conducted state-sponsored terror through atrocities, including the routine use of sexual violence and rape as weapons of war.1

Omar’s family was part of this murderous regime. A Somaliland Chronicle commentary argues that her father’s high rank and service make his participation in the Barre regime’s crimes highly likely.2 The regime was in power for decades. One has to wonder: how can you rise to the rank of colonel without at least partially accepting the regime’s methods and goals?

Even Operation Paperclip, which imported German scientists thought vital to U.S. national defense after WWII, prohibited anyone who was “more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazism or militarism.” It seems like a colonel in a genocidal regime would likely be more than a “nominal participant,” and ought to be excluded by default.

Nevertheless, in 1995, Omar’s father and grandfather, along with their family, were admitted to the U.S. as refugees.

Worst case: bad code or asylum for genocidaires?
In principle, U.S. law already keeps genocidaires out. Anyone who “ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated” in persecution is barred from refugee status. In practice, the bar is only as good as the screening behind it, and the screening has repeatedly failed: Ngombwa, Boškic, and hundreds of others passed through it.

Ilhan Omar herself was a child when the Isaaq genocide occurred, so she bears no responsibility for any crimes her father and grandfather may have committed. However, one has to wonder: why in the hell are we admitting people with any possible chance at all of being complicit in genocide? Especially given our spectacularly bad track record for granting asylum to genocidaires.

The problem is that the burden effectively falls on the government to prove an applicant’s guilt, often decades later and with records from a collapsed state. For former officers and officials of regimes that committed atrocities, that burden should be reversed. Applicants should have to categorically prove they were not involved, and if they can’t, they shouldn’t be admitted.

I don’t know what Omar’s father did. Neither did the officials who admitted him, and that’s the problem.

We can afford to be strict. The United States turns away millions of would-be immigrants, and many more wait years for a visa, including highly trained doctors and engineers from stable democracies like India. Strictness costs us little when the pool of qualified, low-risk applicants is that deep. Yes, this means some innocent officers from Third World dictatorships will be turned away. Given the alternative, that’s a price worth paying.

Evaluate the worst-case scenarios, and the answer is straightforward: make a mistake admitting an Indian software engineer and you might get some racist complaints from Bo French and some bad code; make a mistake admitting a colonel from a genocidal Marxist dictatorship and you’ve granted asylum to another genocidaire.

---