Trump says Ilhan Omar could go to jail as the citizenship investigation widens, and Omar tells supporters she will not be silenced

The question came from Fox Business correspondent Edward Lawrence at an Oval Office event on Tuesday, where Trump stood with Vice President JD Vance, Medicare and Medicaid chief Mehmet Oz, Federal Trade Commission official Andrew Ferguson and Nick Shirley to announce a whistleblower incentive program for reporting fraud. Lawrence asked whether a problem with Omar's age on her immigration paperwork could lead to her deportation. "Well, she could be. She could also go to jail," Trump said. "You know, they keep talking about deportation. No, she could go to jail. This is just my opinion." He called Omar a disgrace to the country and a very dishonest person, used a crude term for Somalia, her country of birth, and then added, "I hope they treat her fairly." At the same event he said Omar and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz were "100 percent guilty" of facilitating benefit fraud in Minnesota. Neither has been charged with any such offense.

The investigation behind the remarks became public on October 12, when Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant at Omar's Washington area home. Agents seized her phone, laptops, notebooks and passport, according to reports of the search, and investigators have since interviewed her sister, Sahra Noor, a law enforcement official told CNN. Fox News Digital has reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter, that the inquiry centers on immigration paperwork filed by her late father when she was a child, and on whether her age was misstated when she became a citizen in 2000. The Justice Department has said only that the search was part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Reporting on her public records has noted that her birthdate was moved up by one year after she was elected to Congress in 2018, a change her critics point to and she has not been charged over.

White House border czar Tom Homan said on Fox over the weekend that denaturalization is an established process when a person lied during naturalization. "Of course, if you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody. We have done it before," Homan said. "I am not going to get ahead of the bureau or HSI, but I have been told they have a strong case, and we will let the evidence lead where it leads."

Omar says she arrived in the United States from Somalia at age 12 in 1995 and became a citizen at 17 through her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, who was naturalized in 2000. She has denied committing immigration fraud, and her attorneys say there is no legitimate basis to suggest she violated the laws governing her citizenship. In a statement after the search she called the raid an outrageous abuse of power and an attempt to intimidate a political enemy. On Wednesday she held a press conference at which she blamed Trump's rhetoric for death threats and attacks against her, and she posted a campaign video asking supporters for donations. "It is going to be a very expensive and challenging time," she said. "We are not going to be silenced." No charges have been announced against Omar, and the allegations against her remain unproven, as of October 21.