Sahra Noor, the older sister of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., skipped a scheduled book tour stop at the University of Minnesota Rochester on Thursday night amid the fallout from a federal raid on her sister's home. Noor, who is currently promoting her memoir "Salt in the Snow: A Somali Immigrant Story," was expected to appear at the Intercultural Student Center at 6:30 p.m., but the venue was empty when Fox News Digital arrived. The outlet had RSVP'd via a QR code on an event flyer but received no notification that the event was canceled, rescheduled, or relocated.
Noor reportedly came to the United States as a refugee in the 1990s alongside Omar and other family members. According to Fox News Digital, she was subpoenaed in relation to an immigration investigation into her sister. While her LinkedIn page lists her residence as Nairobi, Kenya, she is currently on a worldwide book tour. Neither the University of Minnesota Rochester nor Garden City Books returned requests for comment, and Noor did not respond to inquiries at the time of publication.
The absence from the tour stop coincides with rumors that Omar fled the United States following a raid earlier this week. Federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), executed a search warrant at Omar's home starting around 6:00 a.m. on Monday. Fox News Digital first reported that the raid is part of an inquiry into allegations that Omar or her late father, Nur Mohamed, provided false information on her citizenship forms decades earlier. Two sources noted that the investigation could lead to the congresswoman's denaturalization.
Omar has not been seen in public since Monday's raid. Her husband, who was asked outside the home on Wednesday about rumors that she fled the country, stated he had no concerns. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Omar's phone, passport, and computers were seized during the search. Omar has described the search as an "outrageous abuse of power" and an "unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies."
The Rochester event was organized by Garden Party Books, the University of Minnesota Bookstores, and the Rochester Public Library, who were listed as "proud supporters" on the flyer. The description characterized Noor as a "poet, storyteller and health system leader" and framed her book as a "story of migration, motherhood, grief and family." Noor officially launched the book during an event in a Nairobi bookstore on Aug. 13, 2026. She appeared at a festival in Cape Town, South Africa, in early September before beginning her U.S. leg of the tour.
Noor held an event in Minneapolis on Oct. 1 and another at the University of Minnesota five days later. She hosted an event in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Oct. 7. Her next scheduled appearance is at the Somali Community Cultural Innovation Hub in Seattle on Oct. 23.