White House border czar Tom Homan says investigators have built a strong case that could strip Rep. Ilhan Omar of citizenship and deport her if immigration fraud is proven, a claim Democrats call a political hit.
Tom Homan told Fox News on Saturday that Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar could lose her American citizenship and face deportation if federal investigators prove immigration fraud in her family's paperwork. He said he had been told the case against her is strong.
Homan told Fox News the law already allows the government to revoke citizenship when someone lies during naturalization, and that the process has been used before. Omar, a Somali-born Minnesota Democrat, has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.
Federal agents searched Omar's Washington, D.C., home last Monday and seized her cellphone as part of the probe into her family's immigration records. Homeland Security Investigations officers were seen at the residence and carried boxes from the property.
The federal search of Omar's D.C. home sits at the center of a wider immigration-fraud investigation that has already drawn fierce pushback from Omar's allies and former President Barack Obama.
Homan framed the matter as equal enforcement, not a personal feud. Asked whether denaturalization and deportation were on the table, he answered directly.
Homan said on Fox News:
"Of course. We've done it before, and it is a long, tedious process, but it's been done before. I've been involved with those investigations before, and certainly if the evidence points that way, yes, it could happen."
He added that he had been briefed on the strength of the file.
Homan continued:
"I've been told we have a strong case. We'll let the evidence see where it leads. She'll be held to the same standard you and I are held. If she violated law then she'd be held accountable."
He tied the probe to a broader administration effort to review refugee cases and pursue denaturalization where fraud is found. "Deterrence is a part of what this administration is doing," Homan said. Pressed on other possible offenses, he declined. "I won't go there."
Omar is 44. She has long faced conservative claims that she once married her brother to ease immigration hurdles. She has called those claims "absurd and offensive." Officials have not publicly released the underlying documents that would prove or disprove fraud.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the search was not a freestyle raid. On The Charlie Kirk Show, he said a judge signed the warrants and that agents executed multiple court-authorized searches the same day as the residence raid.
Mullin said:
"We had a judge sign it, and we expect to be able to take the case to a grand jury."
He rejected the charge that the case was a political crackdown. Mullin said neither he nor President Donald Trump wanted to proceed unless the evidence stood clear of politics.
Mullin stated:
"We wouldn't move forward, and President Trump didn't want to move forward either, unless we knew that it couldn't be politically driven."
He also floated a wider theory. If investigators found a coordinated scheme, he said, that "can be considered a RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] case, right?" No RICO charge has been filed. No indictment has been announced.
Related reporting has tracked how the Justice Department subpoenaed Omar relatives in the same immigration-fraud probe, widening the paper trail beyond the D.C. search itself.
Former President Barack Obama took to X on Sunday and cast the investigation as punishment for speech. He said the government was bringing its full weight down on a sitting member of Congress for criticizing the president.
Obama wrote:
"It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can't selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say. But that's exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota."
He went further, saying the effort should "outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar's political views," and that a "law-abiding elected official" was being targeted because she "dared to criticize the president."
Obama also sketched a citizenship timeline. He said Omar arrived in the United States at age 12 and automatically gained citizenship five years later when her father naturalized, and that investigators were probing whether she had actually been 18 at the key moment. That age dispute, as he described it, sits near the heart of the fraud theory. The government has not released the records that would settle it in public.
Trump, for his part, has kept formal distance from the charging decision even while speaking bluntly about Omar. After the search, he said, "I think she's a terrible person, but that's really up to the DOJ."
Omar's legal team sent a letter to the Justice Department denying any citizenship crime and demanding the immediate return of property seized in the search. The lawyers called the probe unlawful and political.
They wrote there is "no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status." They also charged that the investigation into "one of the President's chief congressional critics violates Representative Omar's constitutional rights and threatens the separation of powers."
The letter accused authorities of brushing past Justice Department practices meant to keep investigative steps from influencing elections. Justice Department spokesperson Emily Covington rejected the claims. She called the letter "riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies" and said department attorneys and law enforcement partners "complied with all court orders and legal obligations, as they always do."
Earlier steps in the case included agents' efforts to gather physical evidence before the raid, including reporting that federal agents sought Omar's DNA from trash ahead of the D.C. home search.
Homan stressed that stripping citizenship is not a novel invention. It is an established civil path when naturalization was obtained by fraud or willful misrepresentation. It is also slow. Courts, records, and appeals stand between an allegation and a final order. Deportation would follow only after citizenship is lost and removal grounds are met.
That steep climb is why legal observers have mapped the obstacles in detail, including analysis of the long legal path to strip citizenship in a marriage-fraud theory. Homan's public comments do not replace a prosecutor's filing. They do signal that the administration is willing to use tools past leaders left on the shelf.
As of now, Omar faces no criminal charge. Officials have not publicly disclosed the specific immigration documents they say prove fraud. The cellphone and other seized items remain in dispute while her lawyers demand their return. Mullin says the next step he expects is a grand jury. Obama says the whole effort is intimidation. Homan says the evidence should decide.
Watchdogs following the raid have already flagged wider fallout from the search and the questions it raised about enforcement priorities after agents moved on a sitting member of Congress.
Citizenship is not a press-release privilege. If the records show fraud, the law supplies a remedy. If they do not, the case ends. What cannot stand is a two-tier system where connected politicians get a softer rulebook than the public they regulate.
