Tom Homan: Ilhan Omar can be denaturalized and deported "of course"

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Tom Homan: Ilhan Omar can be denaturalized and deported "of course".

Tom Homan, Trump's "Border Czar," answered the question on a nationally broadcast Fox News appearance on Saturday of whether the federal government could denaturalize and deport Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with one word — "of course." When pressed, he explained: "If you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody. We've done it before. It's a long, tedious process, but it's been done before. And certainly, if the evidence points that way, that could happen." According to the Guardian, Homan is the first named senior Trump administration official to explicitly raise denaturalization and deportation in connection with Omar.

What triggered the October 12 home search

Federal agents searched the home of the Minnesota congresswoman in Washington D.C. on October 12 — in a press photo, they are carrying boxes out of the residence. The raid is considered the trigger for the ongoing investigation: The federal government wants to determine whether Omar or her family violated laws when obtaining US citizenship. Which specific violations the authorities have and which family members the allegations relate to is not made clear in the available reporting.

Omar's attorneys have sharply rejected the action and called the search "neither justified nor lawful." The investigation was launched only weeks before the November midterm elections, in which Omar is on the ballot — the attorneys accuse the US Department of Justice of potentially seeking to influence an election. The letter was first published by the Wall Street Journal.

What else Homan said — and what he didn't want to say

In the same Fox News appearance, Homan indicated that the federal government is also reviewing Omar over additional allegations. He provided no details: "I'm not going to go there. I know things, but that's a question for the FBI." The central statement remains his "of course" — a politically and legally extraordinary remark delivered on primetime television.

Homan belongs to Trump's inner circle. Three days before the home search, on October 9, he was seen on stage at a Trump rally in Syracuse, New York, while the president spoke.

The paperwork at the center of the case

Omar was still a child when her father filled out the immigration paperwork that the federal agency now appears to be reviewing. Her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, died in June 2020. According to her attorneys, Omar fled with her family as an eight-year-old from the Somali civil war, spent years in a refugee camp in Kenya, and came to the United States in the 1990s. In 2000, she became a naturalized US citizen.

During the home search, federal agents seized Omar's phone and issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including to relatives. Her attorneys are demanding the return of her property and the preservation of any audio and video recordings from the search.

What Omar is saying herself

After the raid, Omar posted on X that she was "ok." At the same time, she struck a combative tone: "Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement." Trump had subjected her for years to "baseless lies and smear campaigns" — "this is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation." Her bottom line: "I will not be silenced."

The allegations against Omar are not new. Right-wing Trump supporters have for years accused her of fraudulently obtaining her citizenship and spread unverified claims that her ex-husband is her brother, whom she only married to secure him a US residence permit. Omar denies it. Her attorneys' letter states that there is "no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status."

The bigger picture: dozens of denaturalization cases nationwide

The Omar investigation does not stand alone. According to the Guardian, the Trump administration is pursuing dozens of cases nationwide in which it is attempting to denaturalize foreign-born Americans accused of obtaining their citizenship through fraud. The process is lengthy: it requires a formal federal investigation and extensive court proceedings. By April, the Justice Department had identified nearly 400 foreign-born US citizens it wanted to investigate — a figure that puts the scale of the ongoing campaign against legal immigrants in plain view.

Status: Saturday, Tom Homan Fox News appearance. Background: Ilhan Omar home search on October 12.