Appearing on Fox News over the weekend, border czar Tom Homan gave the starkest indication yet that the administration is moving forward with plans to “denaturalize” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), stripping her of U.S. citizenship status that she’s had since she was 17 years old.

Last week, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) raided Omar’s residence in Washington D.C., seizing her phone, notebooks, personal computers, and passport. Members of her family have also received subpoenas relating to the investigation. So far, the details of the inquiry have not officially been made public, but sources with knowledge of it say it stems from paperwork Omar’s father submitted when she applied to become a citizen in 2000, at age 17.

Homan appeared to confirm that is the investigation’s focus.

“If you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody. We’ve done it before … And certainly, if the evidence points that way, that could happen” to Omar, he said on the program.

The border czar left some rhetorical wiggle room, but reiterated that the administration was looking into fraudulent behavior by the Minnesota lawmaker or her family members.

“I’m not going to get ahead of the bureau or HSI, but I’ve been told they have a strong case, and we’ll let the evidence lead where it leads,” Homan said.

A person can be denaturalized, or have their citizenship status revoked, only in extreme circumstances — generally, when evidence of fraud is discovered later on. Several conservative conspiracy theorists have alleged that Omar’s father lied about her age when she applied for citizenship, pointing to evidence that she once changed her birth year from 1981 to 1982 in official records, which would have made her 18 when her application was submitted.

But that change was made to correct another error, Omar maintains, and fact-checking websites have demonstrated there is no evidence that the change was for malicious reasons. For denaturalization to occur, there must be evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that fraud actually happened.

Notably, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) examined accusations of fraud relating to Omar’s citizenship several years ago, and found no evidence to justify moving forward on the matter. But President Donald Trump has targeted Omar for over a decade, including demanding that she and other lawmakers of color “go back” to their own countries after they criticized him in 2019. All four of those members of Congress, collectively known as “the Squad,” are U.S. citizens.

Trump reiterated that demand for Omar during a Newsmax interview this past week.

“I think she hates our country. She is a person that truly hates our country. … I’ve said it many times before, she ought to go back to her own country,” Trump said.

Responding to the raid on her home, Omar blasted the administration, decrying the action as “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”

“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation,” Omar said, adding: “I will not be silenced.”

Several critics described the raid as outright fascism. But some Democratic lawmakers, including party leaders, have been more muted in their response, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York), who appears not to have said anything publicly on the matter at all.

Schumer’s silence is a perplexing choice in the eyes of many observers — given its close proximity to the midterm elections, the HSI raid on a lawmaker’s home could easily be cited as additional evidence that a Democratic-controlled Congress is necessary to place a check on such actions by the Trump administration.

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