Feds probe Ilhan Omar's citizenship paperwork with eye toward stripping it and deporting her from the US
Federal agents seized Omar's phone, passport, notebooks and computers during a raid on her Washington DC home on 12 October, as investigators examine whether her staff falsified her birth year to secure derivative citizenship through her father. The ultimate goal of the immigration probe is reportedly to denaturalize and deport the sitting Minnesota congresswoman. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office is separately pursuing an inquiry into Omar's financial disclosures. Omar has called the investigations "complete shams" and branded the raid "the latest escalation" in Trump's "campaign of political intimidation."
Investigators have issued more than a dozen subpoenas to Omar's family members since the raid, with the probe centring on whether she was 17 or 18 when she gained citizenship in 2000 — the difference between eligibility and fraud.
Omar's congressional staff reportedly contacted a Minnesota library after she took office to have her recorded birth year changed from 1981 to 1982, a change that would make her a minor at the time of her father's naturalization.
Omar has not been seen publicly since the raid; husband Tim Mynett, spotted walking their dog, told reporters asking whether she had fled the country: 'You guys are annoying the hell out of all the neighbors.'