Former US president Barack Obama condemned comments by Donald Trump’s “border czar” that the Republican presidential administration could “of course” strip Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of her citizenship and deport her.
Obama wrote Sunday morning, on X, that “the full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president.”
He urged all Americans to defend Omar, regardless of their political beliefs, adding: “if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her – or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.” Obama, too, has had his citizenship scrutinized by Trump, who more than a decade ago fueled false conspiracy theories that Obama was born in Kenya and therefore not eligible to be president.
Related: Ilhan Omar’s attorneys say federal search of her home was ‘neither justified nor lawful’
Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, was asked on Saturday by a Fox News host whether the investigation into Omar could involve “denaturalizing and then deporting her”, Homan answered: “Of course”.
“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, but it’s been done before.
“And certainly, if the evidence points that way, that could happen.”
Homan’s comments were the first remarks explicitly mentioning denaturalization and deportation in connection with Omar that were attributed by name to a top Trump administration official since federal agents raided the Minnesota US House representative’s home on 12 October.
The search of Omar’s home sparked major backlash and accusations that the Trump administration was weaponizing the federal government to target a political rival whom the president and his supporters have openly fantasized about denaturalizing and deporting.
The federal government’s investigation into the most prominent Somali American in the US is to see whether Omar or her family violated any laws when obtaining her citizenship. The investigation was launched only weeks before the November midterm elections, in which Omar is on the ballot.
Homan also seemed to imply during his Fox News appearance that the federal government is investigating Omar for other allegations – but refused to give details.
“I’m not going to go there,” Homan said. “I know things, but that’s a question for the FBI.”
Omar – a naturalized US citizen from Somalia – was a child when her father filled out the immigration paperwork which the federal government is evidently scrutinizing. Her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, died in June 2020.
Obama stated in his post on X that Omar arrived in the US with her father when she was 12, and five years later, when her father became a naturalized citizen, she became one, too, because she was 17. (An 18-year-old would have had to apply for citizenship separately, he noted.)
“Now the Administration is actively trying to deport Congresswoman Omar, seemingly based solely on the unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized, and therefore is not a citizen,” he wrote. “Federal agents have raided her home, confiscated personal records, and seized her phone – all to try and uncover a nonexistent smoking gun from 20 years ago that will somehow make their case.”
In a letter after her home was searched, Omar’s attorneys accused the US justice department of potentially influencing an election in violation of longstanding internal policy.
The move to investigate Omar came amid a heightened offensive by the administration in pursuit of its aggressive anti-immigrant crackdown. In addition to funneling resources and deploying droves of officials to arrest, detain and deport undocumented immigrants throughout the country, the administration has also escalated its on offensive on legal migration.
The administration has been pursuing dozens of cases nationwide in which they are attempting to denaturalize Americans born outside of the US, who they claim fraudulently obtained their citizenship.
As Homan alluded to on Sunday, the lengthy denaturalization process requires a federal investigation and drawn-out court proceedings.
Nonetheless, as of April, the US justice department had reportedly identified nearly 400 foreign-born citizens that it sought to investigate.
The investigation into Omar follows unsubstantiated accusations by rightwing figures who support Trump that she obtained her citizenship fraudulently. Omar denies the accusations, which also include allegations that her ex-husband is her brother, whom she only married so he could obtain immigration status in the US.
Related: Ilhan Omar’s phone seized and relatives subpoenaed in criminal inquiry, source says
The federal government reportedly seized Omar’s phone during the raid on her home and has issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including of Omar’s relatives.
Omar’s attorneys have demanded that the federal government return her property and preserve any audio or video taken during the search.
Omar has said she and her family fled Somalia’s civil war when she was eight and spent years in a refugee camp in Kenya. She and her family came to the US in the 1990s, and she became a naturalized US citizen in 2000, according to her lawyers.
There is “no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status”, said her attorneys’ letter, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Even veterans at the Department of Justice expressed shock over the targeting of Omar, according to reporting by NBC News. “I was astounded to see a search of a sitting congressperson this close to an election,” said Peter Carr, a former career justice department spokesperson, NBC News reported.
“Historically, the department has been very adamant that politics plays no role in investigative decisions they make and they try very hard to avoid taking overt actions that might even have the perception of influencing an election.”
After the raid on her home, Omar posted on X that she was “ok”.
“Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,” Omar also wrote. She said: “Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns” for years – and “this is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.”
“I will not be silenced,” Omar added.
This article originally appeared on The Guardian at https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/trump-border-czar-says-ilhan-171602251.html