When and how did Ilhan Omar's parents immigrate to the United States?

1. How the family left Somalia and where they lived before coming to the U.S.

Multiple profiles report that the Omars fled violence in Somalia and spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before being admitted to the United States, a pattern consistent across Ilhan Omar’s official and encyclopedic biographies ^{[1] [2] [4]}. Those accounts present the family’s movement as the standard refugee arc: flight from civil war, refuge in a U.N.-supported camp, then resettlement abroad when a receiving country — in this case the United States — approved asylum status ^{[1] [2]}.

2. When the family — including Ilhan’s parents — arrived in the United States

Reporting consistently gives March 1995 as the year the Omar family arrived in the United States, with Ilhan Omar herself noted as a 12‑year‑old migrant that year; biographies and official materials use 1995 as the arrival date for the family’s U.S. resettlement ^{[1] [2] [3]}. These sources use the legal language “granted asylum” to describe the family’s admission, indicating they entered the U.S. through the asylum/resettlement process rather than via an employment or family‑preference visa ^[2].

3. Where the family settled and what followed after arrival

After being granted asylum, the family initially settled in Arlington, Virginia, where Ilhan and her sisters learned English and attended school; later reporting notes a 1997 move to Minneapolis, the community that would become central to Ilhan Omar’s political life ^{[2] [3]}. These accounts portray a single family relocation and integration timeline rather than separate staggered immigrations by individual family members ^{[2] [4]}.

4. What is known about the parents specifically — and what is not covered in the reporting

Public profiles identify family members and refer to “her family” or “the Omar family” receiving asylum in 1995 but stop short of a granular, independently sourced timeline focused solely on Ilhan Omar’s parents — for example, their individual asylum applications, subsequent naturalization dates, or later immigration filings are not documented in the cited materials ^{[2] [4]}. Because the available sources emphasize the family unit’s refugee resettlement, they do not provide separate documentary evidence about the parents’ separate entries or legal steps beyond the family’s arrival and resettlement ^{[1] [2]}.

5. Contested claims, political attacks, and limitations of available sources

Conservative outlets and online rumors have long circulated allegations about fraud in family asylum claims — notably the suggestion that names or relationships were used improperly — but those claims are presented in the sources as rumors or political attacks rather than established facts, and the mainstream biographies and official profiles do not substantiate them ^{[5] [6] [7]}. The reporting reviewed here documents the asylum and resettlement narrative, notes Ilhan Omar’s later naturalization as an individual (reported in some sources as 2000 for her), and explicitly records that the public record lacks the kind of parental‑specific immigration paperwork or provenance that would satisfy those skeptical claims ^{[8] [2] [4]}.

6. Bottom line and reporting limitations

The best-evidenced answer is that Ilhan Omar’s family, including her parents, were refugees in Kenya and were granted asylum to resettle in the United States in 1995, arriving first in Arlington, Virginia, and later moving to Minneapolis ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Precise, independently sourced documentation about separate later immigration or naturalization steps taken by her parents alone — beyond the family’s 1995 asylum admission and subsequent life in the U.S. — is not present in the supplied sources, and therefore cannot be asserted from this record ^{[2] [4]}.