Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin delivered a blunt warning at last week’s Republican National Committee Midterm Convention: “Something’s going to happen” regarding Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Border Czar Tom Homan has now confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is actively investigating long-standing allegations that the Minnesota congresswoman committed immigration fraud by marrying her own brother to help him enter the United States.
“I’m confirming that ICE is,” Homan said during an appearance on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing.” “I said months ago that it’s something that has been reported and needs to be looked at.”
Homan declined to discuss specifics of the ongoing criminal investigation but made one thing clear: “No one is above the law. We will let HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, continue the investigation.”
The allegations against Omar have circulated for years, and her office has consistently denied them. Her chief of staff dismissed the claims as a “ridiculous lie” last year. But federal authorities appear to be taking a different view.
At the RNC event, Mullin spoke directly about the case in an interview with political commentator Benny Johnson. “We know that she married her brother to bring him into the United States; we know he lives now in London,” Mullin stated. “There may be more to this, the whole family migration, and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with.”
“If we can prove it, that you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, we’ll deport you,” Mullin said.
Omar is a naturalized American citizen, which means any deportation effort would require the government to first strip her of that citizenship. It’s a high legal bar. But Homan says it’s been cleared before. “Denaturalization is a process; it’s a very serious process,” Homan explained. “So, if someone lies through that process to become a citizen and we can prove they, in fact, lied or misrepresented themselves, we can absolutely denaturalize them. We’ve done it before many times over the last 40 years that I’ve been around.”
The investigation comes as the Trump administration has taken an aggressive stance on immigration enforcement across the board. Critics have accused DHS of politically targeting Omar, a progressive Democrat and member of the so-called “Squad” who has been a frequent critic of the administration’s border policies.
Homan pushed back against any suggestion that politics is driving the investigation. “ICE is enforcing the law that Congress wrote,” he said. “I mean, these are all laws that are in statute in the Immigration Nationality Act, which was written by Congress, enacted by Congress, and signed by the president. ICE, HSI, DHS, none of us are making this up.”
He added: “Our job is to enforce the laws enacted by Congress, and that’s exactly what we are going to do.”
The case presents an extraordinary situation. A sitting member of Congress facing a federal investigation that could theoretically result in her deportation. While denaturalization cases are rare, they do occur, typically involving individuals who obtained citizenship through fraud or who concealed serious crimes during the naturalization process.
Omar, who came to the United States as a refugee from Somalia in the 1990s, has represented Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District since 2019. She became one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress.
