Trump administration seeks to strip Ilhan Omar of US citizenship: WSJ

The administration of US President Donald Trump is investigating Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to revoke her citizenship and eventually deport her, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing US officials and people familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry centres partly on how the Minnesota representative obtained citizenship after arriving in the US as a refugee from Somalia, the newspaper reported on Wednesday. Authorities are examining her family’s immigration records and have issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including to some of her relatives, seeking testimony before a grand jury in Minnesota.

Omar’s office rejected the investigation as baseless in remarks to the Journal.

The Journal’s report comes just days after US federal agents raided the congresswoman’s home in what her office described as an “unprecedented escalation” by the Trump administration against its political opponents.

The search came just weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, a crucial vote for Republicans vying to retain control of Congress. Omar is seeking a fifth term representing Minnesota’s 5th congressional district.

The Department of Homeland Security said the raid was part of “an ongoing federal investigation”.

Agents took Omar’s passport, mobile phone, personal computers and notebooks, according to people familiar with the search, the newspaper said.

Omar arrived in the US in 1995 after living in a refugee camp in Kenya and became a citizen in 2000. She has previously denied committing immigration fraud.

At issue in the citizenship inquiry is whether Omar or her late father altered her age in immigration paperwork to indicate that she was 17 rather than 18 when her father applied for citizenship, the Journal reported.

According to the newspaper, investigators are examining whether that allowed her to acquire citizenship through her father rather than having to undergo a separate application process.

Omar’s father died in 2020, complicating efforts to collect evidence on whether Omar lied about her own age – which, according to a former top immigration official in the Justice Department, the Trump administration would hinge its case on – or whether her father lied on her behalf.

The Journal also reported that Homeland Security Investigations officials examined a similar allegation during the administration of former President Joe Biden but did not pursue it because they lacked evidence of fraud.

The newspaper did not report that anyone had filed a lawsuit seeking to revoke Omar’s citizenship. Such a case would require court proceedings, as the investigation itself does not revoke her citizenship or authorise her deportation.

The newspaper reported that a nonpartisan congressional watchdog had earlier cleared Omar of wrongdoing over disclosures that overstated her assets.

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), part of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), searched Omar’s home under what the department called a “judicially authorized search warrant”.

On Monday morning, agents blocked off the street around Omar’s home and removed boxes labelled “Seized Property Evidence”.

Omar, a prominent progressive Democrat, has faced years of attacks from Trump and his allies over her Somali background and immigration history.

Hours after the Monday raid, Trump told reporters he had “nothing to do” with the search, saying it was “really up to the DOJ [Justice Department]”.