ROCHESTER, Minn. — Sahra Noor, the older sister of Rep. Ilhan Omar, did not appear at a scheduled book event Thursday evening at the University of Minnesota Rochester, according to Fox News Digital’s account of the event. The stop was part of Noor’s tour for her memoir, “Salt in the Snow: A Somali Immigrant Story.”
A flyer shared by Rochester bookstore Garden Party Books listed the event for 6:30 p.m. at the university’s Intercultural Student Center. Fox News Digital said it had registered through the flyer’s QR code but received no notice that the event had been canceled, moved or rescheduled. The outlet reported finding the venue empty when it arrived.
Noor did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment by publication. The University of Minnesota Rochester and Garden Party Books also did not respond to the outlet’s requests, according to its report. The supplied material does not establish why Noor was absent or whether organizers later addressed the event.
The missed appearance came during a week of developments involving Omar, a Minnesota Democrat. Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations searched Omar’s home on Monday, according to the report. Fox News Digital said the search was connected to an investigation into whether Omar or her late father, Nur Mohamed, improperly completed citizenship paperwork decades ago. The report also described a separate investigation into Omar’s financial disclosures. The material provided does not detail the evidence underlying either inquiry.
The report said Noor had reportedly been subpoenaed in connection with the immigration investigation involving her sister. It did not identify the source of that information or provide details about the subpoena. Noor, who arrived in the United States as a refugee with Omar and other family members in the 1990s, lives in Nairobi, Kenya, according to her LinkedIn profile, as described by Fox News Digital.
Omar has characterized the search as an abuse of power and said it represented an escalation in the use of federal law enforcement against political opponents. The report also recounted online rumors that Omar had left the country after the search. It said she had not appeared publicly since Monday and that her husband reacted sharply when asked about the rumors outside the home on Wednesday. The account does not establish that Omar left the United States.
Noor’s book tour had included events in Minneapolis on Oct. 1, at the University of Minnesota five days later, and in St. Paul on Oct. 7, according to the report. Her book was launched at a Nairobi bookstore on Aug. 13, and she appeared at a Cape Town festival in early September. The next listed stop was scheduled for Oct. 23 at the Somali Community Cultural Innovation Hub in Seattle.
The Rochester event flyer said Garden Party Books, University of Minnesota Bookstores and the Rochester Public Library supported the event. It described Noor as a poet, storyteller and health system leader, and characterized the memoir as dealing with migration, motherhood, grief and family.
