Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “border czar”, was asked on Saturday, on Fox News, whether the investigation into Representative Ilhan Omar could lead to denaturalization and then deportation. The answer: “Of course”. That is a condition, not a sentence. “If you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody,” Homan said. “We’ve done it before. It’s a long, tedious process.” And: if the evidence points that way, “that could happen”. The Guardian notes that this is the first time, after the 12 October search, that a senior administration official has explicitly tied the case to denaturalization and deportation, with Homan’s name on the quote.

Omar has not been charged, in the texts consulted. The Hill: she has not been charged and denies the allegations, which she calls politically motivated. Her attorneys, in a letter reported by the Wall Street Journal and taken up by the Guardian: “no legitimate basis” for any suggestion she violated the law on her citizenship. After the search, on X: she was “ok”. And: an attempt to target political enemies. Homan, still on Fox: she will be held to the same standards. The Hill quotes him: if she violated the law, she will be held accountable. “If” remains “if”.

The investigation, the Guardian writes, is to see whether Omar or her family violated any laws when obtaining her citizenship. Omar, born in Somalia, was a child when her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, filled out the paperwork the government is now examining. He died in June 2020. The family fled Somalia’s civil war, spent years in a Kenyan camp, came to the United States in the 1990s. Naturalized in 2000, according to her lawyers. Federal agents searched her Washington home on 12 October. Her phone, seized, as reported. More than a dozen subpoenas, including of relatives. That is an investigation. It is not a verdict.

Homan seemed to imply there are other tracks. Details: none. “I know things, but that’s a question for the FBI.” Accusations from the right, which the Guardian calls unsubstantiated, include that her ex-husband is her brother. Omar denies them. That remains an accusation. The search, a few weeks before the November midterms, in which Omar is on the ballot. Her attorneys accuse the Justice Department of potentially influencing an election. The Hill: Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin denied on Thursday that the investigation was political.

The Guardian: the administration has been pursuing dozens of denaturalization cases nationwide. As of April, the Justice Department had reportedly identified nearly 400 foreign-born citizens to investigate. The process, long, runs through a federal investigation and court. Homan said it too: tedious. Saturday’s quote does not shorten the court.

Until a charge, what remains is the search, the phone and “of course”. After a charge, what remains is a judge. Between them, a congresswoman on the ballot and an official talking on Fox as if the process were already on the table.

Image: Taylor Dahlin, Ilhan Omar rally, 3 August 2024, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph is from a campaign event, not the 12 October search.

Sources consulted: Trump ‘border czar’ says Ilhan Omar could be ‘of course’ denaturalized and deported — The Guardian; Tom Homan says federal investigators have ‘strong case’ in investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar — The Hill.