White House border czar Tom Homan defended the raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s D.C. home last week, arguing that the federal government has a “strong case” against the Minnesota Democrat.
Homan told Fox News on Saturday he doesn’t want to get ahead of Homeland Security Investigations — the criminal investigative agency for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that led the raid — but he has “been told they have a strong case.”
“We’ll let the evidence lead where it leads but she’ll be held to the same standard you and I are held,” Homan said. “If she violated the law, then she’ll be held accountable.”
Federal agents raided Omar’s D.C. home on Oct. 12 and seized items including the congresswoman’s cellphone and passport. The raid is part of a probe into immigration fraud and questions about citizenship paperwork Omar’s late father prepared in 1995. Neither Omar or any of her family members have been charged in connection with the investigation, though several of her relatives have received grand jury subpoenas from the Justice Department.
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Omar, who was born in Somalia and became a U.S. citizen in 2000, called the raid “an outrageous abuse of power” that had been conducted by President Donald Trump’s administration in an attempt to “intimidate his political enemies.”
Several prominent political figures have come to the Minnesota Democrat’s defense, including former President Barack Obama. He faced his own citizenship conspiracy theories known as the “birther” movement, which was perpetuated in large-part by Trump, despite being born in Hawaii. Obama said the president targeted Omar because “she has been one of the Trump Administration’s fiercest critics.”
“The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views,” Obama wrote Sunday on X. “Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.”
Homan’s comments echo remarks Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made about the raid earlier this week. On Friday, Mullin told the “Charlie Kirk Show” that federal authorities had served multiple other search warrants on the same day as the raid on Omar’s home.
“She wasn’t — or it wasn’t the only place we served the warrant,” Mullin said.
He added that the department and Trump did not and would not want to move forward with the operation “unless we knew that it couldn’t be politically driven,” but said now Omar “wants to try making it about themselves.”
“This was about enforcing once again our nation’s laws, and it’s a strong case,” Mullin said.
Omar has served four terms in the House, and she is the first Somali American elected to Congress. She is running for her fifth term for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.
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