A date on a public record changed months after a newly elected lawmaker arrived in Washington.
The request came from her own congressional staff, and its timing is drawing fresh attention during a federal investigation.
Representative Ilhan Omar’s staff asked Minnesota’s Legislative Reference Library to change her listed birth year from 1981 to 1982.
Emails reviewed by the New York Post show the request was made in May 2019, months after Omar entered Congress.
The library had previously listed the Minnesota Democrat’s birthdate as October 4, 1981.
Its current biography lists October 4, 1982, and notes that Omar’s staff sought corrections in other public sources.
The change followed a viral video from a political opponent questioning Omar’s age, according to the Post.
In a May 24, 2019, email, the library’s director described a request received one week earlier.
Omar’s staff said her birth year was incorrect and asked the library to change it to 1982, the director wrote.
The director said staff were also working with Wikipedia and the U.S. House’s biographical directory.
For critics, the one-year difference matters because of Omar’s account of how she became an American citizen.
Omar has said she obtained citizenship through her father when he naturalized in 2000, while she was still a minor.
“I became a citizen actually before I turned 18,” she said in a 2018 interview cited by the Post.
Someone born in October 1981 would have turned 18 in 1999; someone born in October 1982 would turn 18 in 2000.
That distinction has fueled questions about whether Omar was a minor when her father became a citizen.
The public biography, however, does not establish her legal birthdate or what her family submitted to immigration officials.
The library director said the original 1981 entry had been taken from widely available sources without supporting documentation.
That admission is central: an unsupported entry may have spread through other biographies before Omar’s staff requested its correction.
The reported emails show who asked for the change, but they do not show that the new date was false.
Nor do they show that Omar altered an immigration application, passport, or other legal document.
Those distinctions matter as federal investigators examine Omar’s family immigration history.
Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home Monday under a warrant authorized by a judge.
Federal investigators have also reportedly subpoenaed Omar’s sister and at least one other person in her family circle.
The Justice Department has described the search as part of an ongoing criminal investigation without publicly detailing its evidence.
People familiar with the inquiry have said investigators are examining possible false statements in immigration paperwork.
The government has not said the 2019 library correction prompted the search or the family subpoenas.
Omar and her representatives have repeatedly denied allegations of immigration fraud.
After the search, Omar accused President Donald Trump of targeting her through federal law enforcement.
She called the action political intimidation and said she would not be silenced.
Her former political opponent AJ Kern argues that investigators should examine Omar’s birthdate and her father’s naturalization records.
Kern unsuccessfully challenged Omar in a Democratic primary and has pursued complaints concerning her citizenship account.
Her claims remain allegations, and the reported library emails do not establish that Omar was ineligible for citizenship.
The records raise a specific, answerable question: which birth year appears in the original documents used for citizenship?
A second question is when Omar’s father became a citizen and what records establish that date.
Those facts would carry more weight than a state biography assembled from other public sources.
Congressional accountability demands clear answers when an elected official’s citizenship account comes under federal scrutiny, The New York Post reported.
The same standard demands that investigators distinguish a corrected biography from evidence of a crime.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
