Image of Ilhan Omar mugshot is fake
- Published on December 19, 2025 at 22:21
- 2 min read
- By Mia DOUGLAS, AFP USA
As Ilhan Omar launched criticism of the White House's planned expansion of its travel ban and US President Donald Trump hurled fresh insults at the Minnesota Democrat, social media users promoted an image supposedly depicting her mugshot. However, the picture being shared of Omar is altered and there is no evidence of the US representative's arrest in 2025.
"I understand Ilhan Omar despises this picture and wants it taken down and no longer shared. OK Patriots, you know what to do!" reads the text above a photo shared December 16, 2025 on X.
The attached image supposedly shows Omar, who is Muslim and normally wears a head covering, with her hair and scalp exposed. She appears to stand in front of a height chart similar to that found in mugshots.
Identical versions of the image spread on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok throughout 2025. Some of the posts included demeaning captions such as, "Why I wear a diaper on my head!"
Omar recently took to X to denounce a December 16 announcement on the White House's plans to expand a travel ban restricting the entry of some foreign nationals to the United States, including from her birth country of Somalia (archived here and here).
"The racism is not subtle," the lawmaker who represents a large Somali diaspora population wrote.
The Trump administration maintains the travel measures would be to protect citizens from foreign national threats.
A longtime target of insults from Trump, the president launched new allegations at Omar following her criticism, including questioning her American citizenship and marriage status.
While a photo of Omar's mugshot would appear to confirm a negative framing of her, reverse image search reveals that it has been altered.
The original photo was taken in March 2019 by J. Scott Applewhite for the Associated Press during a committee meeting (archived here). Both images include Omar wearing the same earrings and displaying the same facial expression.
Additional images searches reveal the hairline featured in the altered photo comes from a 2019 mugshot of a South Wales man (archived here), as previous fact-checks have also reported.
Omar was arrested for civil disobedience while protesting the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. But keyword searches for "Ilhan Omar arrested 2025" yield no credible results (archived here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation about US politics here.
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