Challenge to Rep. Ilhan Omar's citizenship would be unprecedented, some say
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Rep. Ilhan Omar is up for reelection next week amid a new wave of verbal attacks by President Donald Trump, as well as a criminal investigation targeting her home and possibly her U.S. citizenship.
Some legal experts say it’s an unprecedented escalation against a lawmaker.
Mark Osler is a professor at the University of St. Thomas, and a former federal prosecutor. He said the timing of the raid of her D.C. home, weeks before an election, broke from the Justice Department’s typical interpretation of its rules.
“If something is likely to raise an issue, or the perception of an issue, with doing something like this close to an election, there are special approvals that need to be made. There has to be a good reason to do it,” Osler said. “There's not a complete bar, but there's definitely traditionally been a strong weight against doing anything public in the 60 days before an election.”
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But he wasn’t surprised to see Omar at the center of this investigation.
“What is constant is that the president of the United States seems to be a little bit obsessed with Ilhan Omar and wants her to leave the country,” Osler said.
Omar, a progressive Democrat, has consistently spoken out against Trump’s policies. Since his first term, he’s responded with criticism, racist remarks and suggestions that she return to her country of birth, Somalia. At a recent rally, Trump’s supporters launched into a chant of “deport,” in response to his digs at Omar.
He’s also referenced unproven rumors that Omar entered into a fraudulent marriage to help someone gain legal status in the U.S., and that her father may have lied about her age on citizenship applications.
The New York Times this week reported that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in 2016 found some evidence the marriage was fraudulent but that investigators ultimately dropped the case since it fell outside a five-year statutory limit to bring charges.
Omar has denied any wrongdoing.
The recent investigation raised speculation that the federal government could now be making an attempt to prove some of those rumors. Homeland Security Investigations agents searched her home as part of a criminal investigation, according to the Justice Department. Other federal officials have indicated they’re looking into her immigration history. The Wall Street Journal reported the investigation aims to build a denaturalization case against her, though federal officials have not confirmed that this is the goal of the investigation.
Amanda Frost is a law professor at the University of Virginia and a historian of citizenship law. She said the news of this investigation reminds her of other historical cases of denaturalization she’s studied, in which the federal government attempted to strip activists and labor leaders of their citizenship.
Those cases weren’t motivated by egregious errors in their citizenship applications, she said, but rather by the government’s desire to get them out of the country.
"It's not the way in which law enforcement or immigration enforcement is supposed to work, where you pick out a person you don't like and then look to see whether you could undermine their status,” Frost said.
While the government has wielded denaturalization against opponents before, she said it’s unprecedented for the federal government to bring those claims against a sitting lawmaker.
"It does raise this question of, ‘are we using this immigration tool to intimidate political enemies?’” she said.
The uncommon process of civil denaturalization requires the government to prove that the person committed fraud or that there was a legal error in the process of granting them citizenship.
Omar naturalized in 2000, so the statute of limitations would likely bar any criminal charges stemming from her naturalization process. She could still be subject to a civil denaturalization case, but Frost said the bar for that is typically high.
Frost said that, for decades, there were only about 10 denaturalization cases a year, and often for unique cases — like Nazi war criminals who had lied about their past in their citizenship proceedings. The Trump administration has said it intends to step up denaturalization cases.
Frost sees that as part of Trump’s broader aims to tighten the rules of citizenship following his administration’s attempts to end birthright citizenship, and dating back to Trump popularizing false rumors that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
“This has been a key issue for him to redefine what it means to be an American and who is an American,” Frost said.
She sees the investigation into Omar as a way to scare other naturalized Americans.
“There's 20 million naturalized citizens, so when you do this to one, you make the rest of them think, ‘Well, I better not come to the government's attention, or maybe my status will be questioned,’” Frost said.
Omar said in an interview with MS Now that she thinks fear is the point.
"I think ultimately their goal is to intimidate and scare people from wanting to participate and vote,” Omar said.
Omar won her last two elections with more than 70 percent of the vote and she’s expected to win her deeply Democratic Minneapolis district again next week. She faces a challenge from Republican John Nagel.
It's still unclear what could come out of the investigation. The warrant used to search her house remains sealed. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in court filings this week that the government is still carrying out the search warrant, and legal action could follow once it’s fully executed.
