The Trump administration is reportedly investigating Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with a view to revoking her US citizenship and eventually deporting her, according to a major American newspaper. The paper cited US officials and people familiar with the inquiry.
The investigation centres partly on how the Minnesota lawmaker obtained citizenship after arriving in the United States as a refugee from Somalia, the newspaper reported on Wednesday. Authorities are reviewing her family’s immigration records and have issued more than a dozen subpoenas, some to relatives, seeking testimony before a grand jury in Minnesota. Omar’s office dismissed the probe as baseless.
Raid on congresswoman’s home weeks before midterms
The report follows a search of Omar’s home by federal agents only days earlier. Her office called the operation an “unprecedented escalation” by the administration against its political opponents. The raid took place just weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, a vote Republicans see as crucial to keeping control of Congress. Omar is seeking a fifth term representing Minnesota’s 5th congressional district.
The Department of Homeland Security said the search was part of “an ongoing federal investigation”. Agents from Homeland Security Investigations, part of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, carried it out under what the department described as a “judicially authorized search warrant”. According to people familiar with the search, agents took Omar’s passport, mobile phone, personal computers and notebooks. On Monday morning, officers had cordoned off the street outside her home and removed boxes marked “Seized Property Evidence”.
Questions over Omar’s age and her father’s application
At the heart of the citizenship question is whether Omar or her late father changed her age on immigration paperwork, making her appear to be 17 rather than 18 when he applied for citizenship, the newspaper reported. Investigators are examining whether this allowed her to become a citizen through her father rather than through a separate application.
Omar arrived in the US in 1995 after living in a refugee camp in Kenya and became a citizen in 2000. She has previously denied committing immigration fraud. Her father died in 2020, which complicates efforts to gather evidence. A former senior immigration official at the Justice Department told the newspaper that the administration’s case would hinge on whether Omar herself lied about her age, or whether her father did so on her behalf.
Legal limits and earlier reviews of the case
The newspaper said Homeland Security Investigations officials had examined a similar allegation under former President Joe Biden but did not pursue it, because they lacked evidence of fraud. It did not report that anyone had filed a lawsuit to revoke Omar’s citizenship. Such a case would require court proceedings, since the investigation alone does not strip citizenship or authorise deportation.
The newspaper also reported that a nonpartisan congressional watchdog had previously cleared Omar of wrongdoing over disclosures that overstated her assets. Omar, a prominent progressive Democrat, has faced years of attacks from Trump and his allies over her Somali background and immigration history.
Hours after the Monday raid, Trump told reporters he had “nothing to do” with the search. He said it was “really up to the DOJ [Justice Department]”.
