Homan's comments on Fox News

Tom Homan, the border czar in the Trump administration, said the administration could strip Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of her citizenship and deport her. He made the remarks on Fox News on Saturday, days after federal agents raided the Minnesota US House representative's home on 12 October. According to the report, they were the first remarks explicitly mentioning denaturalization and deportation in connection with Omar that were attributed by name to a top administration official since the raid.

Asked whether the citizenship investigation could involve denaturalizing and deporting Omar, Homan answered: "Of course".

Homan also laid out what he said would trigger such a move. "If you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody", he said, adding that it has been done before and that the process is long and tedious, but could happen if evidence points that way.

He implied Omar is investigated over other allegations but declined to give details: "I'm not going to go there. I know things, but that's a question for the FBI."

The citizenship investigation and the raid

The federal investigation is examining whether Omar or her family violated any laws when obtaining her citizenship. It was launched only weeks before the November midterm elections, in which Omar is on the ballot.

During the raid on her Minnesota home, the government reportedly seized Omar's phone and has issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including of her relatives. Her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, who filled out the immigration paperwork now being scrutinized, died in June 2020.

Omar fled Somalia's civil war when she was eight and spent years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the US in the 1990s. She became a naturalized US citizen in 2000, according to her lawyers.

Omar and her attorneys respond

The raid drew accusations that the Trump administration was weaponizing the federal government to target a political rival. On X, Omar wrote: "Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement".

She said Trump has targeted her for years with baseless lies and smear campaigns, calling the raid "just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation". In the same posts she wrote: "I will not be silenced".

Her attorneys accused the US justice department of potentially influencing an election in violation of longstanding internal policy, and said there is "no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status". Omar denies the accusations, which also include allegations that her ex-husband is her brother. The attorneys demanded that the federal government return her property and preserve any audio or video taken during the search; their letter was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

How denaturalization works

Homan said that lying during naturalization sets a denaturalization process in motion, and the report describes that process as lengthy, requiring a federal investigation and drawn-out court proceedings.

The case sits within a wider effort by the administration:

• •It is pursuing dozens of denaturalization cases nationwide against foreign-born citizens it claims fraudulently obtained citizenship.
• •As of April, the justice department had reportedly identified nearly 400 foreign-born citizens that it sought to investigate.

The federal investigation is ongoing. Omar is on the ballot in November's midterm elections, and her attorneys have demanded the return of her property and preservation of recordings from the search.