“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. ”
Former President Barack Obama on Sunday spoke out against the Trump administration’s plot to strip Rep. Ilhan Omar of her US citizenship and remove her from the country. In a lengthy social media post, Obama said the administration’s attack on Omar (D-Minn. ) violates “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’s post came nearly one week after agents at the US Department of Homeland Security conducted a raid of Omar’s home. Days after the raid, the Wall Street Journal reported that the raid on Omar was part of an effort to build “a case to strip her of her US citizenship and ultimately deport her. ”
“To understand why this is so appalling, it’s important to know the facts,” Obama wrote. “Congresswoman Omar came to this country with her father when she was 12 years old. Five years later, her father became a naturalized citizen. If Ilhan had been 18 at the time, she would have had to apply for citizenship separately. But because she was 17, she became a naturalized citizen automatically. ”
Obama noted that President Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted Omar “as someone who he believes does not belong in this country,” and accused the president of seizing upon an “unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized” to carry out his deportation plot. “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,” Obama wrote. “And it’s not the first time this has happened.