Homan Says Omar Could 'Of Course' Be Denaturalized, and Obama Calls the Probe Intimidation

Six days after federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington home, a named senior official has put the word "denaturalization" on the record, and a former president has answered him.

Tom Homan, President Trump's border czar, was asked on Fox News on Saturday, Oct. 17, whether the investigation could end with Omar being stripped of citizenship and deported. "Of course," he said.

"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." He added that "if the evidence points that way, that could happen."

What Homan said and did not say

Homan went further than the process. "I've been told we have a strong case," he said, and promised that Omar "will be held to the same standard you and I are held." He also described deterrence as "a part of what this administration is doing," pointing to reviews of refugee cases and denaturalization efforts generally.

He offered no evidence. By his own phrasing, the "strong case" is something he was told, not something he laid out. The Justice Department has not revealed what it has against her.

Pressed on whether Omar is being investigated for anything beyond immigration, Homan hinted at more and gave nothing. "I know things, but that's a question for the FBI," he said.

Obama's response

On Sunday, Oct. 18, Barack Obama posted a statement of more than 400 words on X. "It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can't selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say," he wrote. "But that's exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar."

Obama laid out his version of the facts. Omar arrived from Somalia at 12 with her father. Five years later her father became a naturalized citizen, and because she was 17, she became one automatically. An 18-year-old, he wrote, would have had to apply separately.

He described the administration's apparent theory as the "unsubstantiated" claim that she was actually 18. The characterization comes from Obama.

"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 wrote. He added that 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 is scheduled to campaign in Michigan next weekend for Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson.

What the paper trail shows

The facts in the public record are thin. Omar, 44, has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. She has called the allegations "disgusting lies" and the search "an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement."

A person familiar with the investigation told NBC News that the possible charges federal officials have cited include conspiracy and making false statements in immigration paperwork. The paperwork is more than two decades old, and her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, died in June 2020. That leaves records, not testimony from the man who filled them out.

The Washington Post has reported that the first Trump administration looked at similar allegations in 2019, including questions about her birth date and her father's immigration, and found insufficient evidence to pursue a full investigation.

A second thread complicates the picture. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office is examining Omar's financial disclosures. The search warrant, though, listed potential immigration violations, not financial ones. Pirro's announcement also came despite a congressional watchdog's recommendation last month to dismiss misconduct allegations tied to those filings, according to Axios.

NBC News reported that the timing alarmed Justice Department veterans, since the search came close to the midterms and fell on a federal holiday. Omar is on the November ballot. Her lawyers have separately demanded the return of everything seized.

The process Homan is describing

Homan's description of denaturalization as long and tedious is the part of his comments least in dispute. As the Guardian noted, the process requires a federal investigation and drawn-out court proceedings. It is not an administrative shortcut. Vice President JD Vance claimed in March, without evidence, that she "definitely committed immigration fraud."

The administration's position, as Homan stated it, is that a naturalization lie is a lie like any other and a member of Congress gets no exemption. Obama's position is that the target and the timing tell the story. Both are arguments about motive. Neither has been tested against documents the public can see.

What remains open is concrete. Prosecutors have yet to say whether a charging decision is coming, which documents the warrant was built on, and whether the financial-disclosure inquiry Pirro described and the immigration case Homan described are the same investigation or two. The midterm elections are weeks away, and the answers may not arrive before them.