US probe into Ilhan Omar's immigration papers could aim at deportation

The predawn raid on Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s home stemmed from an expanding investigation into her immigration paperwork, and one aim could be to strip her of US citizenship and deport her, people familiar with the case told Reuters, as reported by Geo News.

The investigation appears to focus on whether the Somali-born Omar or her relatives gave false information when they entered the United States as refugees in the mid-1990s, or during the process of becoming citizens. The sealed warrant listed conspiracy, false statements on immigration paperwork and immigration fraud as possible crimes, one source said.

Omar denies wrongdoing and has called the raid “political intimidation”.

What happened in the raid

• Phone seized: Homeland Security Investigations agents took Omar’s personal phone, two sources said
• Subpoenas: prosecutors issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including to at least one of her relatives
• Family: one of Omar’s sisters spoke voluntarily with federal agents, a source said
• Legislative records: the judge ordered screening to stop investigators reviewing material linked to her work as a lawmaker, which the Constitution protects, but Omar’s lawyers had not been told about the protocol, a source said

A coalition of 14 news organisations, including Reuters, has asked a judge to unseal records related to the search.

“Nazi war criminals”

Former immigration officials said denaturalisation investigations have historically been rare, and that it is extremely unusual for them to involve search warrants, since the government should already hold the relevant records.

“Most of the denaturalisation cases that we engaged in related either to very serious international human rights violations, or very serious crimes, such as Nazi war criminals,” said Kerry Doyle, a former deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security.

• Trump’s second term: the Justice Department has filed at least 164 denaturalisation cases
• 1990 to 2017: an average of just 11 cases a year, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Centre

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on Omar but said US citizenship “must be obtained lawfully and honestly”.

A long campaign against her

Omar arrived in the United States in 1995 aged 12, after fleeing Somalia’s civil war and spending years in a refugee camp in Kenya, and became a citizen in 2000. Trump has repeatedly attacked her heritage, her Muslim faith and Minnesota’s Somali community.

Asked by The New York Times in January whether Omar should lose her citizenship, Trump replied: “Oh, absolutely.” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin suggested last month that there may have been “some illegal activity” when her family came to the US.

The raid came three weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, in which Omar is running for re-election. The Justice Department has traditionally avoided public steps against political figures within 60 days of a vote.

Why it matters

Stripping a sitting member of Congress of her citizenship would be unprecedented. For many Muslims and immigrants in America, the case against Omar has become a test of whether citizenship can be taken away from those the president dislikes. Read our report on the raid on Omar’s home.

This article draws on reporting by Geo News and Reuters.