Obama Defends Ilhan Omar: Slams Trump Targeting
The obama defends ilhan omar moment came Sunday when former President Barack Obama posted a lengthy statement on X accusing the Trump administration of weaponizing the federal government against Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat now under investigation over her citizenship.
“A Law-Abiding Elected Official”
“It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say,” Obama wrote. “But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.”
Obama argued the administration is trying to strip Omar of her U.S. citizenship and deport her because she has been one of the president’s fiercest critics. “The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president,” he wrote, warning the effort could set a dangerous precedent.
The Citizenship Dispute
The statement follows the search of Omar’s Washington, D.C., home by federal agents as part of a criminal investigation into her immigration status. Sources have told Fox News Digital that investigators are examining whether Omar or her father committed fraud on immigration paperwork when she became a U.S. citizen decades ago.
Obama laid out her path to citizenship: she arrived in the United States with her father at age 12 and automatically became a citizen at 17 when he was naturalized. Investigators, he said, are pursuing an “unsubstantiated theory” that she was actually 18 at the time — which would have meant applying for citizenship separately.
A Rare Intervention
The defense carries a notable irony: Trump once spent years publicly questioning Obama’s own citizenship, and now the former president is defending a sitting congresswoman facing a citizenship challenge from Trump’s administration. Obama, who has served in Congress since 2019 as one of the president’s most vocal critics, remains a rare voice from a former president stepping directly into a live federal investigation involving a political ally.
Fox News Digital said it has reached out to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for comment. The story is developing.
Source: Fox News