White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed an ongoing criminal investigation involving Rep. Ilhan Omar, but the Minnesota Democrat insists no one from the federal government has reached out to her about it.
Homan made the confirmation on "The Sunday Briefing," telling the host directly that ICE is involved. When pressed on whether he was confirming an investigation tied to Omar, Homan told the program:
"I'm confirming that ICE is, yeah, look, I said months ago that there's something that's been reported and needs to be looked at."
He declined to say what the investigation centers on. He also refused to confirm whether the federal government has evidence that Omar committed immigration or naturalization fraud. But his public acknowledgment, paired with similar remarks from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Vice President JD Vance, marks the clearest signal yet that multiple arms of the federal government are scrutinizing the congresswoman's immigration history.
Omar, a naturalized citizen who represents Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District, pushed back. Asked by Fox News Digital whether DHS had reached out about any investigation, she offered a flat denial: "No, they have not."
The investigation appears connected to allegations that have trailed Omar for years, chief among them the claim that she married a man critics allege is her brother, potentially as part of an immigration fraud scheme. Omar has repeatedly denied the allegation.
When Fox News Digital asked her about the claims, she was dismissive. "The right wing has always had this s*** going, so I don't really worry about it," she said. The DHS probe into Omar's immigration history has drawn bipartisan attention, but Omar has consistently treated the matter as a politically motivated smear rather than a legitimate legal concern.
That posture grows harder to maintain when the White House border czar goes on national television and uses the word "criminal."
Homan went further than simply confirming the investigation. He described the legal process that could follow if fraud is proven, walking through the mechanics of denaturalization, the formal revocation of U.S. citizenship. In plain terms, denaturalization is a legal proceeding the government can bring when it determines a person obtained citizenship through lies or misrepresentation.
Homan framed the stakes bluntly:
"Denaturalization is a process. It's a very serious process, so if someone lies through that process to become a citizen, and we can prove they, in fact, lied or misrepresented themselves, we can absolutely denaturalize them."
He added that denaturalization has been carried out "many times," though he did not cite a specific number. No charges have been filed against Omar, and no court documents or grand jury proceedings tied to this investigation have been made public.
The fact that Homan confirmed the investigation publicly, rather than letting it proceed quietly, suggests the administration wants the congresswoman and the public to know the matter is being taken seriously.
Homan is not the only senior official to address the matter. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin alluded to a department investigation into Omar during a podcast appearance, raising the possibility of broader illegal activity tied to her family's migration to the United States.
"There may be more to this, the whole family migration and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with.... If we can prove it, that you shouldn't have been here in the first place, we will deport you."
Vice President Vance stated in May that the Justice Department was looking into allegations against Omar, including the marriage fraud claim and questions raised by her amended financial disclosure forms. Those disclosures revealed a steep drop in her reported net worth, drawing scrutiny from watchdog groups and political opponents alike. A congressional ethics panel previously dismissed a financial misconduct case against Omar, but the federal investigation appears to operate on a separate track entirely.
Omar denied that either DHS or DOJ has opened any investigation. That denial sits uneasily alongside public statements from three of the most senior figures in the administration, each of whom has, in different settings, described active federal scrutiny of the congresswoman.
The central tension is straightforward. Three administration officials, the border czar, the DHS secretary, and the vice president, have each publicly described some form of investigation or review involving Omar. Omar says nobody has contacted her.
Both things could technically be true. Federal investigations often proceed for months or years before a subject is formally notified. Investigators may gather evidence, interview witnesses, and build a case long before approaching the target. Omar's denial that she has been contacted does not, on its own, contradict the existence of a probe.
But her broader dismissal of the allegations as right-wing noise raises a different question: whether she is treating a federal criminal investigation with the seriousness it warrants. Omar has faced repeated questions about controversies in recent years and has consistently deflected rather than engaged.
What remains unknown is significant. No one has disclosed the specific subject of the ICE investigation. No charging documents exist in the public record. No court has weighed in. And the evidentiary basis for the marriage fraud allegation, the claim that has dogged Omar the longest, has never been laid out in an official legal filing, at least not publicly.
Omar has also faced unrelated legal attention in recent years, including an incident in which a man who sprayed vinegar on her at a Minneapolis town hall was sentenced to federal prison. That case underscored the security risks she faces, but it is a separate matter from the fraud allegations now under federal review.
Homan's on-camera confirmation moved this story from the realm of political rumor into something harder to wave away. It is one thing for conservative commentators to raise questions about a Democratic congresswoman's immigration history. It is another for the White House border czar to say, on the record, that ICE is conducting a criminal investigation.
Omar's response, a two-word denial and a dismissal of the underlying claims as partisan noise, may satisfy her political base. It does not answer the substance of what Homan, Mullin, and Vance have each described in public.
If the federal government has the goods, the process Homan described will play out in court, not on cable news. If it doesn't, Omar will have earned the right to say she told everyone so. Either way, "I don't really worry about it" is a strange posture for a sitting member of Congress facing a confirmed federal criminal probe.
