Following years of threats from President Donald Trump and other Republicans to deport Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman’s Washington, DC home was raided on Monday morning by agents with the Department of Homeland Security.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has confirmed that the raid was carried out as part of a judicially authorized warrant, which it said was part of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Fox News, which first reported news of the raid, said it was part of a probe into the naturalization paperwork filed by Omar’s late father when she became a US citizen in 2000 after immigrating to the US as a refugee from Somalia in 1995.
In September, The New York Post reported that federal investigators were examining whether Omar may have been older than 17 when she obtained citizenship through her father as a minor in 2000. The allegation, which stems partly from a discrepancy in historical records of her birth year, has not been substantiated.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a fellow at the American Immigration Council, argued that the case was “even weaker than it already seems,” since federal immigration law includes a waiver for people who obtain legal status through fraud they were unaware of.
Joyce Vance, who served as the US attorney for the Northern District of Alabama under President Barack Obama, noted that the raid took place just weeks before the November 3 midterms, inside the 60-day window where DOJ typically avoids such dramatic actions.
“To state what’s obvious to prosecutors here, we are within the period before an election where DOJ doesn’t take overt steps in an investigation that might influence its outcome,” she said, adding that it was “another hard norm out the window.”
The search comes after years of demands from Trump and other Republicans for Omar—a US citizen since 2000 who has served in the US House of Representatives since 2019—to be deported, imprisoned, or otherwise removed from office.
Last November, Trump remarked that Omar should be thrown out of the country because she is “always complaining” and referenced her religious attire, referring to it as a “swaddling hijab.” In another post that day, he called for the US to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility.”
He also said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, should be “sent back” along with Omar after the two protested his state of the Union address in February.
Trump has often referenced Omar while calling for all Somali immigrants to be deported from the country—even though most are US citizens. Trump has referred to Somalis collectively as “garbage” and said they have “low IQs.”
Last week, Trump called for the people of Minnesota to “fight back” against Somalis living there in a post on Truth Social, which was widely interpreted as an incitement to violence.
In March, Vice President JD Vance said on a podcast that the administration believed Omar had “definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America” and that he’d discussed with senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller—who is not a federal prosecutor—how to “go after” her.
Several other Republicans have referenced Omar’s religion and political viewpoints as reasons for her to be stripped of citizenship and deported.
Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), who introduced a resolution to expel Omar from Congress last year, referred to her as a “Muslim terrorist” because of her outspoken criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and said she should not “be a citizen.”
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) has also called for her deportation, claiming she helped to facilitate the “invasion” of the US after she discussed informing Somali American residents of her district of their constitutional rights should they encounter immigration officers.
Omar has not yet commented on the raid as of Monday morning, and the DOJ has not indicated what, if any, specific charges have been filed against her.
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