President Donald Trump has been attacking Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar since she first entered Congress in 2019. He has repeatedly called for Omar to be investigated, arrested and deported. Omar is a progressive congressman who came to the United States from Somalia as a child refugee and one of Trump’s fiercest critics.
Now, Trump’s Justice Department appears to be trying to make good on his threat. Last week, Omar’s home in Washington, D.C., was raided by federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations agency. According to the Wall Street Journal, the raid was part of an investigation into her immigration documents with the explicit goal of revoking her citizenship and deporting her.
The timing alone makes the raid unusual — the Justice Department rarely takes action in political cases so close to an election — but it also feels like a troubling excuse, as Washington Post immigration reporter Ted Hutson explained. “It’s almost as if the findings were announced before it happened,” he told us Today, explain Co-host Sean Rameswaram.
Hutson joins Shawn to discuss Trump’s long history of attacking Omar, what agents might be looking for, and whether the administration will actually weaken Omar’s citizenship or even deport her.
Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s more in the full podcast, so you can listen to Today Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora and Spotify.
What do we know about what federal agents were looking for in Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., home?
What we know from the report is that the investigation took into account both her date of birth and whether she [Omar or her father] You may have lied on your naturalization application.
The second question, looking at her father’s military service, is whether she was born in Somalia, where she was during the civil war, fled with her family as a child to a refugee camp in Kenya and lived there for many years before they eventually came to the United States as refugees.
This is when the President of the United States and his administration enter the home of a current representative to find out when her original birthday is. As far as we know, what’s the motivation here?
President Trump has criticized Rep. Omar for years and made unsubstantiated claims related to immigration fraud.
There have been theories circulating on the far right that she married her brother as part of an immigration fraud scheme, but again these have not been confirmed. President Trump himself has repeated this. Over the past few months, several senior Trump administration officials have said they believed her background was fraudulent. They made these statements before an investigation was conducted and before evidence was presented. It’s as if the results of the investigation were announced before it happened.
One thing I should say is that while they do look at her birth date, it’s extremely common for people to have unreliable birth records when trouble comes into the United States, as people flee countries that are often in chaos, whether due to civil war or other reasons.
Often, countries like Somalia do not keep accurate birth records. Therefore, refugees who leave their home country as children, spend time in a refugee camp, and then come to the United States often do not have a full understanding of their exact birth date. I’m not sure that’s the case here, but I know that usually when you’re dealing with refugees, that’s the case.
I know there’s a lot we don’t know here, but investigators went into Congressman Omar’s home. They may be looking for some documents that may list her birthday. If they uncover some information that may be contrary to official government records, what does that mean in theory?
It’s unclear what charges that might bring. Part of the question is, was she 17 and a child when she submitted the application, or was she 18?
Even if it were established that she was not a child, I don’t believe they would be able to initiate denaturalization proceedings based on that fact alone. Even if they do try to do something similar, these things are not taken lightly, it is a long and complex legal process, and it is rare that something like this is pursued over something as simple as this paperwork difference.
The president’s hatred of Somalia and Somali immigrants is long-standing.
How does the investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar fit into the president and his administration’s broader efforts to strip Americans of citizenship?
Particularly over the past year, we have seen President Trump use highly inflammatory and derogatory language in reference to Somali Americans and Somali immigrants in the United States. Even for someone who regularly makes anti-immigration rhetoric, which the president has done in the past, some of what he said went beyond that. He does seem to be specifically targeting Somalis and Somali-Americans in the United States, of which Rep. Omar is a part.
I think what’s interesting here or what might be interesting is that this case goes into a different realm, a naturalized citizen who has lived in the United States as a citizen for several decades and then says, “We might reopen this issue and go back and look at your file and see if we see anything that might be irregular?”
The idea that you could do that to a sitting legislator probably means you could do that to anyone else who might file.
Now, one thing we know is that in the case of Congresswoman Omar, the government has considered the idea of possibly revoking her citizenship certificate if criminal charges cannot be brought. It’s almost like a fast track to destroying someone’s citizenship.
It won’t delete it. You are still a citizen, but you have lost the documents that are essential proof of your citizenship, which can cause problems with federal government documents or even immigration proceedings where the government tries to prove that you should be deported.
Rep. Omar’s response?
Her camp strongly disputes the accusations.
Regarding the searches, they have actually said that court-ordered guidelines should be followed, which include consulting with House lawyers before they occur. They say this has never happened, and if it did, Rep. Omar might have had time to prepare for it or some kind of legal recourse.
They say President Trump’s continued attacks on her are not only politically motivated but that the actual legal guidelines outlined in the search warrants have not been followed.
Are other Democrats speaking out on her behalf?
Former President Barack Obama, in particular, is a very well-known figure and she published a post on social media promoting her views.
Interestingly, President Obama does not often engage in such public debates, or at least considers the opportunity when he does. So to hear him step in and raise concerns about this is even more serious.
I think that says something about how important he thinks this is. If you recall, President Trump built his political career on the narrative that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
And look for his birth certificate. You can imagine that former President Obama saw something similar here and realized it reflected the attacks on him while he was in office.
We talked a lot about President Trump during this conversation, and he has made no secret of his disdain for Rep. Omar and his home country. What did he specifically say about this investigation?
He said the Justice Department acted independently. Nonetheless, he has been, and remains, extremely critical of Rep. Omar in his public statements. The president himself and other senior officials have said it should be investigated.
For months we have been publicly encouraged by senior officials to say they should look into this. So whether he’s contacting them directly or they’re just reading his social posts, it can be a subtle distinction. He has publicly stated that he hopes this will happen.