Can Trump deport Ilhan Omar?

Last week, federal agents rated Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar's home in Washington, D.C. Omar's currently up for re-election, and on the very same day of the raid, the president of the United States called her. He also called her. But in that same breath, the president said. And that's what we're going to get into on today's explain from Vox. Trump's Playbook, when it comes to investigating his opponent's be it Ilhan Omar or James Comey or Adam Schiff or John Bolton, the president in total control, the buck stops with him. He's going to lock her up, but once there's actual charges or an investigation. We're going to dig into the raid, and then we're going to dig into the playbook and find out if it's working for him. Are you running a marathon this season? Then I need you to know the ten mistakes that will disrupt your race before you even reach the starting line. I'm Rabinak Sun, and I am running my 28th marathon and 9th New York City Marathon in two weeks. In the latest episode of my podcast Project Swagger, I'm turning my mistakes into your lessons. Watch or listen now, wherever you get your podcasts, just search Project Swagger. See you there, and at the finish line. Hey guys, Cassidy Hubbard here. This week on An Mom, we spoke with three-time WMBA All-Star Deer Gahanby about navigating pregnancy in the public eye. Employer supports for expectant mothers in pro sports, and what it was like returning to the court after giving birth. Check out the latest episode of An Mom, wherever you get your podcasts. [Music] Today, explained, I'm Sean Ramesh from Ted Hessen, is an immigration reporter for the Washington Post. We asked him what we know about what federal agents were looking for in Representative Ilhan Omar's Washington DC residence. Well, we don't know specifically what physical things. We do know that thematically, what we've learned through our reporting is that the investigation has looked at both her birth date and whether they may have lied about it on the naturalization application. Sources familiar with the matter tell CBS News, the investigation centers on Omar's immigration paperwork that her late father filled out when she was a child. Investigators are looking into whether Omar's father changed her age on her citizenship application, making her 17 at the time and automatically qualifying her to become naturalized with him. And then a second piece is whether looking at her father's military service. She was born in Somalia and was there during the Civil War and fled with her family as a young child to a refugee camp in Kenya. And was there for years before they eventually came to the US as refugees. We've confirmed investigators are scrutinizing whether Mr. Muhammad, her dad, lied about his military background. But what do we know about Omar's relatively secretive family and her father whom some have claimed misrepresented himself as a refugee to get US papers? This is the President of the United States and his administration entering a sitting representative's home to figure out what her original birth date is. What is the motivation here to the best of our knowledge? For years, President Trump has criticized Representative Omar and made accusations without unsubstantiated accusations related to immigration fraud. There have been theories circulating on the far right, again unsubstantiated, that she had married her brother as part of an immigration fraud scheme. Well, there's a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother. I know nothing about it. Then she married her brother to come in. But I think I would imagine they're looking at her. I have nothing to do with it. And several top Trump administration officials in the last few months have said that they believe that there is fraud in her background. We actually think that Iliana were definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America. We know that she married her brother to try to bring him to the United States. And they're making these statements prior to their being an investigation, prior to their being evidence put forward. And it's almost as if the outcome of the investigation has been stated before anything has taken off. One thing I should say is that while it does appear they're looking at her birth date, when refugees come into the US, it's extremely common that their birth records are unreliable. Because people are fleeing countries that are often in disarray themselves for whether it's due to civil war or other reasons. And often nations like Somalia and other places don't maintain accurate birth records. So it'll be common that refugees who left their country as children spend time in refugee camps and then come to the US don't have a solid understanding of when exactly they were born. I don't know for sure that that's the case here, but I know that generally when you're dealing with refugees that is true. Now I know there's a lot we don't know here, but investigators enter representative Omar's home, potentially they're looking for some documents that may list her birthday. If they find some information that's maybe contrary to official government records, what could that mean in theory? Well, it's unclear what sort of charges could be brought from this. Part of the question is was she 17 and a child at the time of that application or was she 18? And even if it was determined that she was not a child, I don't believe they would be able to say launch a denaturalization process based on that fact alone. And even if they did attempt to do something like that, these things are not taken lightly and it's a long involved legal process and very uncommon to pursue something like this over something as simple as this sort of paperwork discrepancy. The president has a long history of hating on Somalia and Somalia immigrants to this country. How does this investigation into representative Omar fit into the president and his administration's broader efforts to take away American citizenship? In the past year, especially, I mean, we've seen President Trump use really inflammatory and derogatory language to refer to Somali Americans and Somali immigrants in the US. Their country stakes. Even for someone who frequently employs anti-immigrant rhetoric and the president has in his past, some of the things he said went beyond even that. They have nothing but crime, poverty, pollution, everything is horrible over there, nothing good. So he does seem to have particularly targeted Somalis in the US and Somali Americans and representative Omar has been part of that. I think what's interesting here or what could be interesting is that this case in a way does wade into different territory of, you know, as you mentioned, you're taking somebody who's a naturalized citizen, who's been in the US for decades as a citizen. And now saying, we're potentially going to reopen that and go back and look at your file and see, do we find anything that might be out of line? And, you know, the idea that you could do that with someone who's a sitting lawmaker could mean that could you potentially do that to any other person who may have applied. Now, one thing we've learned is that in the case of representative Omar, the administration has looked at the idea of in the event that criminal charges can't be brought of potentially canceling her citizenship certificate. It would enable, it's almost like a fast track way to disrupt someone's citizenship. It doesn't remove it. You remain a citizen, but you lose the document that is the underlying proof of that that could then cause problems with federal government documents. And it could even lead to immigration proceedings where the government tries to make the case that you should be deported. How has Representative Omar responded? Her camp has vociferously pushed back against the allegations. This raid by Trump's DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies. In regards to the search, they've actually said that there was a court-ordered sort of guideline that should have been followed and that involved consulting the council for the House of Representatives before the search happened. And they said that never happened. And if it had happened, it would have given Representative Omar perhaps time to prepare for this or some sort of legal recourse. So they're saying that not only is this continuation of President Trump's attack on her and the Trump administration and politically motivated, but also the actual legal guidelines that were outlined in that search warrant, they say were not followed. Are other Democrats speaking up on her BF? Former President Barack Obama in particular is one person, extremely prominent, who came out and made a social media post elevating her case. It is a basic principle of a man. American democracy that the government can't selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say. But that's exactly what the Trump administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. And the interesting part is that President Obama does not often weigh in on public debates like this or is at least measured in the opportunities when he does. So it comes with more gravity to hear him stepping in and raising concerns about this. You know, I think it spoke to the fact that, you know, he thought this is very significant. And if you remember, President Trump's political career was built on the narrative that Barack Obama was not born in the US. I do remember Ted and the hunt for his birth certificate. So you can imagine that former President Obama saw a parallel here and realizes, you know, this mirror is the sort of attacks that were made on him while he was in office as well. We've talked about President Trump a bunch in this conversation, Ted, and he's made no secret of his disdain for Representative Omar in the country from which she comes. What has he explicitly said about this investigation? He's saying that the Justice Department is acting independently. I think he's a terrible person, but that's really up to the deal, Jay, I have nothing to say. That said, he has been extremely critical of Representative Omar in his public statements and continues to be. And the President himself and other top officials have said that it should be investigated. So we've had for months now a sort of public encouragement of top officials saying that they should be looking into this. So whether, you know, he's directly liaising with them or whether they're just reading his true social posts, it may be kind of a nuanced distinction, right? I mean, he's publicly saying he wants this to be pursued. The Trump, it's got everything and nothing to do with me playbook is next on today's point. Are you tired of hearing about business, tech, and finance from the bros? We are the Tiger Sisters, a top business podcast with the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tiger Sisters releases every Monday and we decode money, power, and love. And who doesn't love all those things? We are the internet's Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters. 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There's no catch up front payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12 month plan required. That is equivalent. You will note to $15 per month. Taxes and fees are extra. This is the initial plan term only, greater than 50 gigabyte might slow down when the network is busy. This includes up to a 20 gigabyte hotspot, capable device is required, availability speed and coverage do vary, cementmobile.com. I'm David A. Graham, I am a staff writer at the Atlantic and author of the Atlantic Daily newsletter. For a said newsletter, you wrote something I would say distinct about this whole Ilhan Omar investigation. It's easy to say, "Oh, we're norm busting. Oh, democracy is on the brink. Unfortunately, we've said it a million times." You had something else to say when you looked at this investigation. What was it? Well, I was fascinated by the way Trump was playing around responsibility for this. He often likes to claim responsibility when he breaks these norms. In this case, he said, "Oh, you know, this is a DOJ thing. I don't know anything about it, although I like it." I hope they treat her fairly, but I think she's a very dishonest person. And that distancing, I thought, was interesting and a little bit strange. You see it as part of a pattern. Yeah, we've seen this thing from Trump sometimes, where he likes to hide behind lawyers if he thinks something is a little bit maybe hot or controversial. Even when he seems to be involved, he'll say, "Oh, you know, the lawyers in charge of this, I don't know anything about it." I'm not the one making this decision. We have lawyers that don't want to do this. I'm going to just follow what the lawyers say, but I've decided I shouldn't be involved the justice department will handle it. And then kind of wait to see how it plays out. Which is exactly what's happening here? It sure looks that way. What exactly does this clearly hogwash denial accomplish for the president? That's a great question, and I think it's a little bit hard to tell. I think he can have it both ways, basically. People who are in the MAGA coalition who really want to see the administration go after Ilhan Omar are getting what they want. You know, they get the search. They have Tom Homan going on the Sunday shows saying that he thinks the case against her is strong. We'll let the evidence lead, but she'll be held to the same standards you and I are held. For Trump, I think he sees these as a little bit, you know, times when he wants to wait and see how they play out. He wants to see how much backlash there is. Do Republican congressmen get nervous about the idea of investigating a member of Congress like this, even if they don't like Omar personally? And so by creating a little bit of distance, it's a bit of a trial balloon approach. He can see how it plays out before he claims credit or blame for whatever's happened. In your piece, you write about all the other times he's done this. Can you give us some of the highlights? Yeah, you know, I think one that jumps out to me in particular is the case of Kilmar Obrego Garcia. Kilmar Obrego Garcia has in many ways become the face of the Trump immigration crackdown. For the Trump administration admitted he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. The administration admitted that they had made a mistake and then they tried to sort of retroactively find some reason to justify why he needed to be thrown out of the country. And this is a case where Trump was going, oh, you know, I don't know anything about it. When Bondi is doing it, then the attorney general, he said, "I'm not involved in the legality or the illegality. I have lawyers to do that." You know, speaking of Bondi, one place where we can see Trump kind of trying to play both ways is this amazing message he posted on Truth Social, where he's demanding that Bondi go after Adam Schiff and Latisha James and wondering why there aren't results. And it was phrased in this very strange way as though it were a message to her directly. Truth Social. Nothing is being done. What about Komi, Adam Schiffy, Schiff, Latisha? They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. And in fact, we then had reporting from a couple outlets later on, and then it was intended as a DM. He was trying to direct her what to do. So even when he publicly pretends that there's some sort of distance, we can see that he is trying to direct the Justice Department to do exactly what he wants and to go after his political opponents, not over any particular allegations, but because they are his political opponents. Seems like there's this interesting tension here, right? I mean, Trump in every respect and avenue of his being wants to be utterly in charge, take credit for everything, be the smartest person on everything. He has authoritarian tendencies. We've seen time and again, but then he says, "Oh, I've got no idea what these lawyers are up to. They're in charge. They're leading the charge. Don't ask me what we're doing there." Does he ever acknowledge the great inconsistency there? I have never seen him acknowledge it, and I think it's interesting. I mean, if there's a downside for him, I think it's that it undercuts that, you know, the I alone can fix it kind of thing. be suddenly disclosed. claiming it, he's saying he has no control over these things. I think it cuts against his image, but I don't think he ever really acknowledges that contradiction. It's very odd. You know, it's interesting. He has a guy who wants to be all powerful, but also never wants to be held accountable, and those two things seem to be both at play in these examples. Has that ever backfired? I mean, do his followers say, oh, well, that's just the lawyers. That wasn't the president. It's not as important, I guess. You know, Trump tried to do that a little bit in the Epstein case. He said, oh, we should release the files, as long as everything is in order. You don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there, because it's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. And then once it turned out that voters actually wanted that, he sort of tried to shove it onto the Justice Department. We had Bondy and we had Cash Patel coming out and saying, we will continue to release whatever we are legally permitted to do so. Okay. I strongly encourage you to do that. Cash, I don't, this issue is not going to go away. And I don't think that worked for Trump, because, and we've seen this, we saw this at the time, and we've seen it since we see even in sort of trail reporting in these last weeks of the election, you have voters who are really upset that the files didn't get released, and they don't really care whether it was Trump's decision or not, they elected him because he would knock down the system, because he wouldn't follow the rules and protect all the old people, and here he is doing it. Yeah. I mean, the Epstein example feels like a great case in which even Trump's base or at least parts of his base just refuse to buy the rules. In these other cases though, the president feels very comfortable hiding behind lawyers. Epstein may have been the exception. The lawyers in these other cases appear to at least do whatever they think the president wants. Do they get results? I think that's part of the trick, too, is that they know very much what he wants. He makes that clear. There's no secret that Trump wanted James Comey to face consequences for, I don't know, opposing Trump, and there's no secret that he wanted them to go after Ilhan Omar, either, which makes the reliability not all that plausible, but they don't really get results. I think part of the problem here is Trump has pushed out many of the lawyers who are particularly skilled. He has people left who are willing to do whatever he would like them to do, but they don't necessarily have the chops in court to do that, which is why we've seen cases being thrown out, federal judges reproaching prosecutors, threatening sanctions, speaking very harshly, not giving them the benefit of doubt in court the way that federal prosecutors are accustomed to getting. I think back to somebody like Bill Barr, who in many ways was very willing to do what Trump wanted. He was very eager to bury the Mueller report. But when it came to, for example, post-election conspiracy theories, he said, "Look, there's not evidence. There's nothing here. Refuse to do it." I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit. People like Bill Barr are now seen as, you know, wishy washy rhinos by the MAGA people. They want only the most loyal. And there was an amazing comment that Peter Teel made in an interview not long ago. And he said, you know, in the first administration, they had people who were smart but disloyal. They've over corrected this time. They had people who are very loyal, but they're not that smart. And I think we see that in the kind of court results. To bring this back to the moment, we're in a representative Omar. How big a deal is it for Trump to take this playbook and apply it to citizenship of a sitting United States representative? I think it's really troubling. You know, we have seen Trump looking to strip citizenship from people for lying on, or for allegedly lying on, on applications, which is, you know, an authority that the government has. And I think it's clear that Trump has want, has had it out for her for a long time. You go back to 2019 where he was saying the members of the squad should go back to where they came from. So all I'm saying is if they want to leave, they can leave, John. They can leave. He was presiding over, send her back chance about Omar at, at a rally. So this is another case where he seems to have a target and then they're looking for evidence retroactively to find a way to go after it. It's troubling in any case, but especially for an elected member of Congress and the opposition party. You have cases of it. It, I think that makes it even more troubling than a lot of these other things. You know, all the talk, David here in Washington, DC, is that the president's going to lose big in these midterms. And I just wonder, does anything about the pattern that you've observed here suggest that he might get even bolder without the actual power to do anything legislation wise in this, in this country come, I don't know, early next year. Yeah, you know, Trump has already done so little with Congress. Congress has basically passed one bill in this term, but it was so big and beautiful. It was big and beautiful, and seems to be making his midterms harder for Republicans. He's already been so focused on executive power. And I think without even the possibility of Congress, he would be inclined to go even further. So I think we'll see him continue to push limits, continue to try these things. But again, I don't know if he'll be successful simply because the efforts are so slip-shod. But you know, knocking down norms, he will do as much of that as he can in the next two years, I'm sure. Read David at theAtlantic.com and Ted from earlier at the Washington Post. Miles Bryan produced this one for today, explain Jolly Myers-edited Gabriel Donatov with our fact checker, David Tadashore and Bridger Dunnigan mixed. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about midterm ads because they're getting weird. [BLANK_AUDIO]