This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump wants to deport a member of Congress.
What’s happening? On Monday, Homeland Security officers raided the Washington, DC, home of US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in an investigation reportedly tied to immigration paperwork filled out by her father when she was a minor.
That was, at the time, more than enough cause for alarm. Trump’s animosity toward Omar, who is Somali-American and an outspoken critic of the administration, is well-known, and the raid is an extraordinary violation of the Justice Department’s usual rule to avoid taking visible action around politically sensitive cases within 60 days of an election.
On Wednesday evening, however, we learned more about the raid from the Wall Street Journal. The Omar investigation, the Journal reported, is explicitly aimed at stripping Omar of her citizenship — and thus her ability to hold office — and deporting her.
How would they do that? Omar came to the US as a refugee when she was 12 and became a US citizen when she was 17. The Trump administration’s investigation is said to focus on whether she or her family misrecorded her age in order to more easily gain citizenship.
The government cannot unilaterally denaturalize a citizen, however; it would have to ask a court to do so.
What’s the context? Historically, it’s rare for the US to strip citizenship from naturalized US citizens. But doing so at volume has been a major, if less visible, priority for the second Trump administration.
As of earlier this year, NBC News reported, DOJ was targeting hundreds of people for possible denaturalization, and has reportedly hoped to put forward hundreds of new cases per month (though successfully stripping them of citizenship is another matter).
Why does this matter? Trump’s campaign to bend the traditionally nonpartisan DOJ into a tool to punish and harass his enemies has been one of the major stories of his second term.
Even if it never advances beyond Monday’s raid, an investigation targeting Omar’s citizenship with the eventual goal of deporting her from the US represents a new and even more dangerous evolution of that effort — and it threatens to move the US to a far darker place, where citizenship and the rights it guarantees are predicated on the president’s goodwill.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
Hi readers — if you’ll allow me to depart a little from my normal approach to this section, I have a story about politics to share. It’s not, however, about the politics we’re currently dealing with, but about what could be: Democrats’ plan for a quietly ambitious “Project 2029” should they win the White House in 2028. You can read it with a gift link here.
Alternatively, if you’d prefer to just log off, here’s an adorable snow leopard cub with massive paws. Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow!