Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., could face both criminal prosecution and denaturalization proceedings as two separate federal investigations into her continue, according to a former federal immigration judge.
Omar is the subject of two federal probes: one into alleged immigration fraud tied to her citizenship paperwork, and another into her financial disclosures, which showed a sharp discrepancy reported just one year apart.
Nathan Hansen, an attorney of 23 years who was appointed by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as an immigration judge earlier this year and served in that role for four months, told Fox News Digital that a criminal conviction would not automatically trigger denaturalization.
“If somebody who’s a naturalized citizen — which I believe Ilhan Omar is — is convicted of a crime, that doesn’t automatically mean that they face denaturalization or anything like that,” Hansen said. “They would be handled by any type of other normal punishment that would come from the court.”
Denaturalization is a separate, civil process from any criminal case. Omar is under investigation for alleged immigration fraud tied to how she or her late father filled out her citizenship paperwork. Sources familiar with the investigation say her “real name” is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi.
“A denaturalization proceeding, or somebody to strip somebody of their naturalization, is another proceeding, which would be a civil proceeding brought by the Department of Justice, presumably maybe on behalf of the Department for Homeland Security, who handles most of these things,” Hansen said.
Hansen said the Justice Department would have discretion over whether to pursue that path if a criminal case produced a conviction tied directly to her citizenship status.
“If there was some sort of nexus between the criminal conviction and somebody’s citizenship, it might be more likely that the Department of Justice would bring a denaturalization proceeding,” Hansen said. “But I think it would be a discretionary matter within the people who are running the Justice Department.”
Homeland Security Investigations, the principal investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, raided Omar’s Washington, D.C. home in the early morning hours of Oct. 12. Investigators reportedly seized her phone, passport and computer. Fox News has separately confirmed that authorities are in possession of her DNA.
Statute of Limitations Unlikely to Shield Her
Some observers have speculated that the statute of limitations could block prosecution even if Omar broke the law. Hansen rejected that argument.
“My view of that is generally that fraud stops any statute of limitations. In other words, if something isn’t disclosed or something’s hidden, then it would be unfair to the other party to toll a statute of limitations against them,” Hansen said. “That’s just sort of a general principle of law.”
A System Overwhelmed
Hansen said immigration fraud fits into a much larger problem of an immigration system buried under case volume. He estimated the country is dealing with tens of millions of people who have arrived in recent years, and said Minnesota alone has between 20,000 and 30,000 removal cases pending with no scheduled court date because of the backlog.
“Whether you want to call it fraud or whatever, it’s like an overwhelming of the system and the system is not being used in the way in which it was intended,” Hansen said.
He said bogus asylum claims make up part of that problem. Asylum relief is supposed to be reserved for people persecuted on protected grounds — race, religion, ethnicity or political views — but Hansen said he routinely saw claims during his time on the bench that “just totally didn’t add up,” along with applicants submitting documents that were “clearly fake.”
“There were other asylum applications that just clearly lacked merit under existing law,” Hansen said. “I mean, people would — I’ve seen cases where people would say, ‘well, people insulted me in my country.’ And my response to that is, ‘your country probably provides more protection against insults than the United States. In the United States we have freedom of speech, and for the most part, you can be as rude as you want to someone and insult them, and it’s not a crime.'”
