President Donald Trump said recently that the Minnesota congresswoman could face jail time in addition to deportation. He called Omar "a disgrace to our country" as she faces a federal investigation into allegations involving her citizenship.
During his recent midterm campaign stops, the president insisted that her real name is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. A Justice Department court filing in October also identified her as "Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar," the latter being the name Omar publicly insists is hers.
The name controversy is connected to longstanding allegations that Omar married her brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, to facilitate his immigration to the United States.
There is strong documentary evidence that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi was Ilhan Omar's legal husband from 2009 to 2017. The marriage itself is documented and acknowledged by Omar, but the allegation that Elmi is her biological brother has never been substantiated by publicly verified evidence.
Somali naming conventions differ from Western ones. People commonly use their given name followed by their father's and grandfather's names, rather than a traditional inherited surname. If she had taken Ahmed Nur Said Elmi's name when they married, her name might have been Ilhan Nur Said Elmi.
Meanwhile, Omar has hired two prominent left-wing attorneys to defend her. Amy Jeffress is a former federal prosecutor who previously served as President Joe Biden's attorney and represented former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Jan. 6 committee. Joshua Matz is a constitutional and appellate attorney who represented House Democrats in both of President Donald Trump's impeachment proceedings and represented E. Jean Carroll in her civil cases against Trump.
J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney, believes Omar knows she is in trouble.
"There seems to be some merit to this," he tells AFN. "If you commit immigration fraud, you can be thrown out of the country."
Adams, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, adds that people who lie on their immigration applications have no right to be in the United States.
"That is something that is always in play," he says. "It's playing with fire to lie on an immigration application. If you're getting into this country under false pretenses, you can be removed from this country."
Regardless of which party controls Congress, the president has no direct constitutional authority to remove an elected member of the House of Representatives.
Under Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, the House itself can expel one of its members, but doing so requires a two-thirds vote. With Democrats controlling the House, President Trump could encourage an investigation, refer evidence of potential criminal wrongdoing to the Justice Department or publicly call for the member's resignation or expulsion, but he cannot order the member removed.
If a member resigns or is expelled, the resulting vacancy is filled through a special election under applicable law.
If federal investigators establish that Rep. Ilhan Omar committed immigration fraud, the consequences could extend beyond criminal prosecution to her U.S. citizenship and potentially her congressional seat. The Justice Department could seek to have her citizenship, which she officially acquired through her father's naturalization, revoked through federal court proceedings if it proves she was not legally eligible or obtained citizenship through material misrepresentation.
If she were denaturalized, she could face separate deportation proceedings. However, even a criminal conviction or loss of citizenship would not automatically remove her from Congress; the House would still have to address her membership, and expulsion requires a two-thirds vote.
According to Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram, the federal investigations into Rep. Ilhan Omar's alleged immigration fraud and financial disclosure discrepancies could become a major political and constitutional battle.
