How did Ilhan Omar become the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress?

In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, representing New York's 12th Congressional District. Born Shirley St. Hill, she was raised by immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York, and in Barbados.

Omar's firsts are about religion and national origin, not race. She also described herself as the first woman of color to represent Minnesota in Congress, which is a state-level first, not a national one.

The first Black woman elected to the Senate came later: Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois was elected in 1992.

Chisholm was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the first African American to make a serious bid for the presidency of the United States. She served seven terms and championed anti-poverty programs and education reform.

So the two historic milestones are distinct: Chisholm broke the racial barrier in 1968; Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib broke the religious one exactly 50 years later.

Quick facts

• Born Shirley: December 12, 1982, Ramsey County, Minnesota
• Resided: Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Occupation: Clinical specialist, Allina Health
• Party: Republican

The 2018 race

In a seat that has historically been held by Democrats, Ilhan Omar won the bid for the state's 5th Congressional District, defeating Jennifer Zielinski for an open spot left by U.S. Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison. Omar took 78% of the vote with 267,703 votes, while Zielinski received 21.7% with 74,440 votes.

Zielinski, a clinical specialist for Allina Health and a Republican activist, ran on a platform that included continuing Trump's tax cuts, repealing the Affordable Care Act only if another plan was in place, and enforcing existing immigration laws. She had not held elected office before the race, but had been a Republican activist for more than 10 years, working on various campaigns.

The lone debate

Omar and Zielinski met in their only debate of the campaign, hosted by Minnesota Public Radio. Zielinski said she did not always agree with then-President Donald Trump and insisted she would represent the interests of the district. On healthcare, she vowed not to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a proper replacement ready, and said she "definitely" wanted to see pre-existing conditions still covered as part of any new plan.

After 2018

Zielinski sought office again, running in the 2020 general election for State Senate District 61, where she received 8,727 votes, or 15.08% of the vote, and lost. That appears to be her last run for office on the public record.

Why the names sound alike

• Zielinski (Zieliński) is a common Polish surname.
• Zelensky (Zelenskyy) is a Ukrainian surname.
• The shared root: Both come from the Slavic word for "green" (Polish zielony, Ukrainian zelenyi). That is why they sound alike, and why thousands of unrelated families carry versions of the name.

What is on the record

• Jennifer Zielinski is a Minneapolis-based Republican activist and healthcare professional. She lost the 2018 race for Minnesota's 5th District to Representative Ilhan Omar.
• Volodymyr Zelensky was born in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, in 1978 and has been President of Ukraine since 2019.
• No public record links the 2 families by birth or marriage.

Sources: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Wikipedia, 2018 House elections in Minnesota, Wikipedia

Quick facts

• Nationality: British citizen
• Relationship to Ilhan Omar: Second husband (married 2009, legally divorced 2017)
• Current whereabouts: Reported to be in Johannesburg, South Africa

The marriage

Public records show that Omar legally married Elmi in February 2009, identifying him as a British citizen. Omar says she and Elmi divorced in their faith tradition in 2011 and he moved back to England, though the legal divorce was not finalized until 2017.

Omar maintained her religious union with her long-term partner Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi during this period and continued to have children with him. She later legally married Isra Hirsi in 2018, and Tim Mynett in 2020.

The controversy

Questions about Omar's marital history have lingered, including whether she once married Elmi to skirt immigration laws. Omar has denied the allegations, dismissing them as "baseless rumors" first raised in an online Somali Army politics forum and championed by conservative bloggers during her 2016 campaign for the Minnesota House.

Omar stated plainly:

"Insinuations that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is my brother are absurd and offensive."

The claim that Omar married her brother for immigration fraud originated in 2016 and remains unproven. Fact-checks from PolitiFact, Snopes and others found no conclusive evidence, relying only on circumstantial social media posts and records. No official proceedings or new proof have emerged.

Snopes found no public records or credible sources contradicting Omar's account, nor any substantive evidence that Elmi is her brother or that the marriage was otherwise fraudulent. Separately, Elmi's refugee resettlement documents, which Omar shared with reporters, did not list anyone by his name among her siblings.

Where he is now

Elmi, 40, who spent time abroad after leaving the United States, is now believed to be in Johannesburg, where he has been chronicling his life there on social media. His reappearance online coincided with President Donald Trump renewing the immigration allegations against Omar, claims that remain unsubstantiated.

Quick facts

• Born Shirley: February 22, 2003, Minneapolis, Minnesota (age 23)
• Parents: Representative Ilhan Omar and Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi
• Education: Barnard College, Columbia University (enrolled fall 2021; suspended 2024)
• Known for: Co-founding and co-directing the U.S. Youth Climate Strike
• Awards: Brower Youth Award (2019); Voice of the Future Award (2019); Fortune 40 Under 40, Government and Politics (2020); BET Future 40 (2020)

Her story

She got involved in the climate cause after joining her high school's Green Club. She attended Minneapolis South High School, graduating in 2021, and enrolled at Barnard College that fall.

At 12, she was already showing up at protests, participating in demonstrations against the killing of Jamar Clark at the Mall of America. Her public profile grew fast once she turned her energy toward climate.

What she built

She co-founded and served as co-executive director of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike, the American arm of the global school strike movement. Together with Haven Coleman and Alexandria Villasenor, Hirsi organized the U.S. component of the International Youth Climate Strike, a protest in which students around the world walked out to demand urgent action on climate change.

While the country rallied either for or against her mother, instead of keeping a low profile, Isra Hirsi chased down presidential candidates to confront them in person about whether they'd sign on to a live discussion on the climate crisis. After speaking directly to Senators Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang, she was able to get the candidates to agree to a climate change debate, though the Democratic National Committee refused to host such a forum.

She has been outspoken about the links between environmental damage and racial justice. She has spoken about the need for a person of color to be a key voice on climate change, arguing that people of color are disproportionately affected by climate change and that this tends to get ignored.

In her own words

Hirsi told Essence: "knowing that I have the power to inspire so many other young black girls and so many other like Muslim girls within the movement… gives me the motivation and the joy to keep doing the work that I do."

To The Cut, she said:

"I think that young people sense the urgency. These adults don't really have to live with the problem of climate change, and young people have to deal with it for the rest of our lives."

She also wrote publicly:

"I didn't want to be known as Ilhan Omar's daughter, I wanted to be known as myself."

The Barnard suspension

Ilhan Omar said she was "enormously proud" of Isra, who was suspended from Barnard College for her participation in anti-Israel protests on the campus of Columbia University. Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student organizations at the university, said Hirsi and 2 other students were told of their suspension by Barnard's dean, Leslie Grinage. Omar cited Hirsi's involvement in a school walkout over gun violence and a youth climate rally while in high school, "and now pushing her school to stand against genocide."

Hirsi was subsequently arrested by the New York Police Department in the mass arrest of student demonstrators and released that evening. She has said she will continue protesting until her demands are met.

The logic the question raises is sound, but the age figures need one correction before the reasoning holds. Representative Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman born October 4, 1982, is 44 now, which is right. However, UK Companies House records list Ahmed Nur Said Elmi's date of birth as April 1985, making him about 41, not 40. The premise is close but slightly off on Elmi's age.

What the ages actually tell us

Omar's mother, Fadhuma Abukar Haji Hussein, died when Omar was two, which puts her death around 1984. Elmi was born in April 1985, meaning he was conceived after Omar's mother had already died. That makes it a biological impossibility for them to share the same mother, which rules out full siblings.

The allegation that has circulated, however, has never been precisely defined as "full siblings." It has floated loosely as a claim that they are related, without specifying whether that would mean a shared mother, a shared father, or something more distant. No substantiated public records detail Elmi's parentage, so while the shared-mother question is closed by this arithmetic, the broader claim remains as unverifiable as it ever was.

What is actually established

Fact-checkers including Snopes rated the allegation "unfounded," with no evidence from investigations by the FBI, ICE or others. Omar has consistently and flatly denied the claims, calling them "baseless rumors" first raised in an online political forum and amplified by conservative bloggers.

Your reasoning is a good example of using publicly available facts to test a claim. The math closes one door, the shared-mother door, firmly. It doesn't close every door the allegation has gestured at, but it does narrow the already thin evidentiary ground the claim stands on.

Quick facts

• Born Shirley: Somalia, around 1980 (age about 46)
• Nationality: American citizen
• Also known as: Ahmed Abdisalan Aden (birth name, changed after receiving U.S. citizenship)
• Relationship to Ilhan Omar: First husband (religious ceremony 2002, legally married January 2018, divorced November 2019); father of her three children
• Children: Isra Hirsi (born 2003), Adnan Hirsi, and Ilwad Hirsi

His story

Hirsi was about 12 when his native country, Somalia, was largely affected by civil conflict after the end of the dictatorship. The onset of political disturbances triggered constant war among the tribes and resulted in large-scale immigration. Hirsi and his family fled and relocated to the United States. He changed his name after receiving U.S. citizenship.

Omar married Hirsi in a religious ceremony in 2002. After having two children together, daughter Isra and son Adnan, the couple's relationship deteriorated and they followed Islamic procedure to end the union in 2008, having never been legally married.

Omar reconciled with Hirsi, with whom she had a third child, daughter Ilwad, in 2012. Ilhan and Ahmed were married to each other religiously for nearly two decades and legally married on January 5, 2018. Ilhan officially filed for divorce on October 4 in Hennepin County District Court, with the filing citing an "irretrievable breakdown" of their marriage relationship. The marriage was dissolved after paperwork was signed by court personnel.

Career

Before entering city politics, Hirsi worked for St. Paul College helping students with financial aid and registration issues. He also once worked for Ka Joog, a Minneapolis-based Somali Army youth organization, before parting ways with it.

Minneapolis City Council Member Alondra Cano hired Hirsi as a senior policy aide. Minneapolis city records show Hirsi held the job of Council Member Assistant/Aide in 2019.

More recently, LinkedIn records list him as associated with New American Financial Literacy, a Minneapolis organization focused on equipping community members with financial knowledge.

His place in the marital timeline

The thread has established the overlapping relationships in some detail. To put Hirsi's role plainly: Omar first married Hirsi in a Muslim faith ceremony in 2002, had two children, and later separated. After legally marrying British citizen Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009 and separating from him in 2011, she reunited with Hirsi in 2012 and, after legally divorcing Elmi in 2017, remarried Hirsi legally in 2018. There is no verifiable evidence to back up allegations that either Hirsi or Elmi is Omar's brother.