Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home raided by Trump’s Department of Justice as deportation threats against her increase

Federal authorities have raided the DC home of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, reportedly hunting for information to support the Trump administration’s criminal fraud investigation against her. The exact purpose of the raid, as per Fox News, was to try to find incriminating immigration paperwork filled out by her father.

The raid itself was reportedly conducted by Homeland Security Investigations, operating as a division of the Department of Homeland Security (which declined to comment on the raid). It’s unclear what paperwork they were hoping to find, though if it’s related to her arrival in the United States, it would be decades old – the Omar family claimed asylum in the United States in 1995 and Omar herself became a United States citizen in 2000 at the age of 17.

The Department of Justice was quizzed by CNBC about the raid, but would not give specifics, saying only: “Today in the Washington, D.C., area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice. This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal investigation.”

“There’s no expiration to that”

The raid comes against the backdrop of the November midterms, in which Omar is standing for re-election as a representative for Minnesota’s 5th District. Forecasters are confident that Minnesota voters will once again pick Omar, with prediction markets currently giving her around a 97% chance of winning.

However, CNBC does underline that the Department of Justice has a policy in place discouraging taking investigative steps against a political candidate close to elections. The argument is that even the appearance of a criminal investigation has a chance of affecting an election and giving someone’s opponent an unfair advantage.

But whether she wins in a landslide or not, MAGA Republicans are openly targeting her. Donald Trump himself singled her out, saying she and Rashida Tlaib should be sent ​back to “where they ⁠came from.” That’s been echoed by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who said, “If you lied about certain things about your application. There’s no expiration to that. If we can prove it – that you shouldn’t have been here in the first place – we’ll deport you.”

Mullins has also claimed that he knows “that she married her brother”, a claim which has been repeatedly dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

It can only be underlined that Omar is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and any deportation would require the high legal bar of a successful denaturalization process in court proving fraud in obtaining citizenship. But, even if the Trump administration cannot prove that in court, the simple effect of being able to raid her home so close to an election certainly sends a message. Omar herself has not commented on the raid.