2026-10-17T10:30:46.010Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/17/politics/explainer-wouldnt-be-easy-to-strip-rep-ilhan-omar-citizenship
本周早些时候，联邦执法人员搜查了联邦众议员伊尔汉·奥马尔在华盛顿特区的住所，这是针对一名面临连任的现任国会议员采取的非同寻常的法律举措。
在奥马尔议员表示她认为政府最终旨在恐吓她的同时，司法部推动了对奥马尔住所的不同寻常的强硬搜查。
政府尚未表明将采取措施试图剥夺奥马尔的公民身份。但总统本人曾表示，他希望看到奥马尔被遣送回索马里。
“‘假国会议员’伊尔汉·奥马尔是个整天抱怨的人，她仇视美国，却自以为无所不知。她应该进监狱，甚至应该受到更严厉的惩罚——被送回索马里，那个堪称全球最糟糕国家之一的地方，”总统唐纳德·特朗普今年早些时候在Truth社交平台上发帖称。“她可以帮助‘让索马里再次伟大！’”
奥马尔尚未受到任何犯罪指控，司法部也未公布任何针对她的证据。
但法律专家告诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN），联邦政府试图剥夺奥马尔公民身份的道路绝非易事。
长期以来，公民身份一直被视为“一种安全港”，波士顿学院移民法教授丹尼尔·坎斯图罗姆说道。“获得公民身份很难，但一旦拥有，政府要将其剥夺的标准确实非常、非常高。”
消息人士告诉CNN，此次搜查与一项移民欺诈调查有关，该调查旨在查明奥马尔的父亲在她2000年获得公民身份时是否谎报了她的年龄。
奥马尔坚称自己1982年出生在索马里，并在该国度过了早年时光，当时该国正深陷致命的内战。她表示自己大约12岁时来到美国，约五年后成为美国公民。
联邦调查人员正在调查奥马尔在申请公民身份时是否谎报了自己17岁的年龄，以及近年来是否重复作出过虚假陈述，这些行为如今可能会被起诉。
剥夺公民身份，即剥夺归化公民国籍的程序，是一个艰难的过程，直到最近还相对罕见，通常仅适用于归化过程中犯下极其严重的谎言或遗漏行为的情况。
该程序曾被频繁用于剥夺前纳粹分子的美国公民身份，这些人在战时活动问题上撒谎——司法部曾设立一个名为特别调查办公室的部门，专门负责此类案件——同时也被用于针对恐怖组织和其他犯罪组织的归化成员。
自特朗普去年就职以来，司法部曾表示将优先处理部分剥夺公民身份的程序，此类程序以针对公民提起联邦诉讼的方式进行。
根据交易记录查询清算所（TRAC）的数据，2008年至2026年6月12日期间，共有166起剥夺公民身份的诉讼提起，年均不足10起，与每年数十万新归化公民的数量相比，占比微乎其微。
但特朗普第二届政府已寻求增加此类案件数量，作为其遏制并废除几乎所有形式的美国移民——包括合法与非法移民——努力的一部分。本月早些时候，政府宣布将通过8月21日以来提起的诉讼，剥夺40名归化公民的国籍。
在往届政府执政期间，民事剥夺公民身份案件相对罕见。根据TRAC的数据，2008年至2024年间，共提起116起民事剥夺公民身份诉讼，年均不足7起。
但TRAC的分析显示，特朗普第二届政府已大幅增加了此类案件数量，仅截至9月28日，今年就已提起超过160起民事剥夺公民身份诉讼，作为其遏制移民努力的一部分。
“这是一次显著的增长，”总部位于德克萨斯州的律师丹·吉维登说道，他曾在奥巴马政府期间担任移民与海关执法局律师，目前正为约10名面临剥夺公民身份指控的客户辩护。
“在过去，无论政府提起刑事还是民事剥夺公民身份诉讼，当事人都必须值得这样的关注，”吉维登说道。
政府可以通过民事诉讼程序，或通过获得归化欺诈的刑事定罪，来试图剥夺某人的公民身份。
民事剥夺公民身份程序没有诉讼时效限制。
但刑事犯罪通常受限于10年的追诉期限，即公民获得身份后的10年内可提起诉讼，因此这一规定可能不适用于奥马尔案——她已获得公民身份二十多年。
https://www.cnn.com/
“与我无关”：特朗普否认借执法搜查针对民主党国会议员
近年来，奥马尔一直处于刑事调查中，包括特朗普去年就职前就已开始的调查。
当前的联邦调查正在审视奥马尔是否犯下移民欺诈罪，以及近年来在填写护照等政府文件时是否反复作出虚假陈述，这可能被视为任何疑似欺诈行为的延续。
检方目前掌握的有关奥马尔移民和政府记录的更多细节已被保密提交给法庭，尚未向公众公开。不过，十多家媒体机构和右翼透明度倡导组织司法观察本周已向法院提出请求，要求公开更多支持此次搜查的调查人员记录。
虽然法官将于下周听取司法部就这些透明度请求的陈述，但刑事调查仍在继续。
联邦调查人员获取奥马尔华盛顿住所中发现的文件可能进展缓慢，因为调查人员可能需要花费数周或数月时间来获取这位国会议员的部分文件。
如果奥马尔因涉嫌移民欺诈而被指控犯罪，司法部必须证明其在移民文件中的任何误导性陈述均为故意作出。
即便发现移民欺诈犯罪的证据，针对奥马尔可能的驱逐或剥夺公民身份问题，也可能在遥远的未来才会浮出水面。
奥兰多的移民律师彼得·洛布拉克表示，有争议的剥夺公民身份案件在地区法院的审理通常需要1至3年时间，不包括上诉环节。
即便某人的公民身份被剥夺，驱逐也并非必然结果。
被剥夺公民身份的人将恢复其最近的身份——通常为合法永久居民或绿卡持有者，随后政府必须通过完全不同的程序寻求将其驱逐出境。
这也意味着，被剥夺公民身份的人理论上可以在日后通过不同的政府当局重新获得公民身份。
CNN记者普里西拉·阿尔瓦雷斯和凯瑟琳·舒切特对本文亦有贡献。
It wouldn’t be easy to strip Rep. Ilhan Omar of her citizenship, legal experts say
2026-10-17T10:30:46.010Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/17/politics/explainer-wouldnt-be-easy-to-strip-rep-ilhan-omar-citizenship
The search of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, DC, home by federal law enforcement earlier this week was an extraordinary legal step taken against a sitting congresswoman who is facing reelection.
The Justice Department pushed for an unusually aggressive search of Omar’s home while the congresswoman has said she believes the administration is ultimately seeking to intimidate her.
The government has not yet indicated it will take steps to attempt to strip Omar of her citizenship. But the president himself has said he’d like to see Omar sent to Somalia.
“Fake “Congresswoman” Illhan Omar, a constant complainer who hates the USA, knows everything there is to know. She should be in jail, or even a worse punishment, sent back to Somalia, considered one of the absolutely worst countries in the World,” President Donald Trump posted on Truth social earlier this year. “She could help to MAKE SOMALIA GREAT AGAIN!”
Omar has not been charged with a crime, and the Justice Department has not revealed any evidence against her.
But the path for the federal government to attempt denaturalization wouldn’t be an easy one, legal experts told CNN.
Citizenship has long been considered “a kind of a safe harbor,” said Daniel Kanstroom, a Boston College professor who teaches immigration law. “It’s hard to get, but once you get it, the standard for the government to take it away is really, really high.”
Sources told CNN the search was related to an immigration-fraud probe investigating whether Omar’s father lied about her age when she obtained her citizenship in 2000.
Omar maintains she was born in Somalia in 1982 and spent the first years of her life in that country as it was embroiled in a deadly civil war. She has said she came to the US around age 12, and about five years later, she became a US citizen.
The federal investigators are looking at whether Omar lied about her age of 17 when she was applying for citizenship, and potentially whether that may have been a false statement repeated in recent years that could be prosecuted now.
Denaturalization, the process of stripping a naturalized citizen of their citizenship, is an arduous and, until recently, relatively rare process typically reserved for extraordinary lies or omissions made during the naturalization process.
It was used frequently to strip the US citizenships of former Nazis who lied about their wartime activities — the Department of Justice had a unit called the Office of Special Investigations that was formed specifically for this purpose — and has also been used against naturalized members of terrorist and other criminal organizations.
Since Trump took office last year, the Justice Department has said it would prioritize some denaturalization proceedings, which take place as lawsuits filed against citizens in federal court.
Between 2008 and June 12, 2026, 166 denaturalization complaints were filed, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an annual average of less than 10, and a miniscule fraction compared to the hundreds of thousands of people who became newly naturalized every year.
But the second Trump administration has sought to ramp up those numbers as part of its efforts to curb and repeal nearly all forms of immigration — legal and illegal — into the United States. Earlier this month, the government announced it was moving to strip citizenship from 40 naturalized citizens through cases filed since August 21.
Under recent previous administrations, civil denaturalization cases were relatively rare. Between 2008 and 2024, 116 civil denaturalization lawsuits were filed, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an average of less than seven cases a year.
But the second Trump administration has significantly ramped up those numbers as part of its efforts to curb immigration, filing more than 160 civil denaturalization cases this year alone as of September 28, according to TRAC’s analysis.
“It’s a significant increase,” said Texas-based attorney Dan Gividen, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney during the Obama administration who is currently defending about 10 clients from denaturalization.
“For the government to go forward on either a criminal or civil denaturalization back then, the person had to warrant that kind of attention,” Gividen said.
The government could seek to denaturalize someone either through civil proceedings, or by obtaining a criminal conviction for naturalization fraud.
There is no statute of limitations for civil denaturalization proceedings.
The criminal offense, however, is generally subject to a 10-year window where it can be brought after a person becomes a citizen,so it would likely not be applicable in a case against Omar, who obtained her citizenship more than two decades ago.
https://www.cnn.com/
‘Nothing to do with me’: Trump denies targeting Democratic congresswoman with law enforcement search
Omar has been under criminal investigations in recent years, including before Trump took office last year.
The current federal investigation is looking at whether Omar could have committed immigration fraud, and repeated false statements when filling out government documents, such as a passport, in recent years, and that could be considered a continuation of any suspected fraud.
Further detail of what prosecutors have gathered about Omar’s immigration and government records so far have been presented to a court confidentially and aren’t yet available to the public. However, more than a dozen media organizations and the right-leaning transparency advocacy group Judicial Watch asked a court this week to release more of investigators’ records that supported the search.
While the judge will hear from the Justice Department next week about those transparency requests, the criminal investigation continues.
Federal investigators gaining access to records found in Omar’s DC home is likely to progress slowly, as federal investigators could spend weeks or months trying to obtain some of the congresswoman’s documents.
If Omar were ever to be charged with a crime related to alleged immigration fraud, the Justice Department would have to prove that any misleading statements in immigration documents were made intentionally.
The question of a possible deportation or denaturalization for Omar would also likely loom far in the future, even if there was evidence found of an immigration fraud crime.
Contested denaturalizations typically take between one to three years to process in district court, not including appeals, said Peter Loblack, an Orlando-based immigration attorney.
Even if a person has their citizenship stripped, deportation is not an immediate given.
A denaturalized citizen would revert to their most recent status — typically, a lawful permanent resident or green card holder — and then the government would have to seek to have them deported through an entirely different proceeding.
That also means that someone who is denaturalized could, theoretically, be renaturalized at a later date and under a different administration.
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez and Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.
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