Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar‘s birth year has been questioned again by a journalist who referred to her memoir stating she was eight when civil war in Somalia broke out.
Jim Geraghty, who writes for National Review and has contributed to The Washington Post, shared a photo of Omar’s memoir – ‘This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman’ – directing attention to the chapter ‘War: 1989-1991, Mogadishu, Somalia’.
He noted that Omar had written “I was eight years old when civil war broke out in Somalia. One day everything was okay, and the next, there were bullets piercing not only buildings but also people”. The journalist added that Somalia had seen many civil wars over the years, but Omar’s writing referred to the riots in Mogadishu in July 1989, which included a mass execution that came to be known as the “Jazeera beach massacre.”
Ilhan Omar’s birth year called into question again
This led the journalist to question Omar’s birth year again.
“If, in her own words in her own autobiography, Omar was eight when this occurred in 1989, then she was born in 1981, and was 19 years old in the year 2000, when her father purportedly obtained his citizenship, not 1982 as she currently claims,” Geraghty added.
Why Ilhan Omar’s birth year has been a point of controversy
Critics have argued that Omar’s birth year plays a significant role in affecting the timeline of her US citizenship. Omar claimed she’d become a citizen as a minor when her father was naturalized. However, if she were born in 1981, then Omar would be an adult in 2000 when her father was naturalized, and would not automatically become a US citizen.
Omar’s Congressional staff reportedly asked for a change of her birth year listed in public biographies, claiming there was a clerical error. Her staff reportedly asked the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library in May 2019 to change her listed birth year from 1981 to 1982.
“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 library’s director wrote in a May 24, 2019 email, as per The New York Post.
While Omar’s staff reportedly worked with Wikipedia, the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress to change the year of birth, the original entry in the library was not based on the lawmaker’s birth certificate or any such supporting documentation. As per the Post, the 1981 date had been drawn from other reference sources.
The discrepancy about Omar’s birth year does not prove she falsified records, but comes at a time the Democrat is under scrutiny with federal agents searching her Washington DC home and subpoenaing relatives.