Republican Rep. Nancy Mace is once again calling for Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar to be deported, declaring on social media: **“Today would be a good day to deport Ilhan Omar.”**
This isn’t Mace’s first attack on Omar’s citizenship or immigration history. She has repeatedly demanded that Omar be stripped of her citizenship and congressional seat, even pushing for her immigration records to be subpoenaed over long-standing allegations of marriage fraud. That request was rejected by the House Oversight Committee.
Here’s the inconvenient fact Mace’s rhetoric keeps running into: **Ilhan Omar is a U.S. citizen.** She arrived in America as a child in 1995 after fleeing Somalia’s civil war and became a citizen in 2000. Deporting a U.S. citizen isn’t something a politician can simply demand on social media. Citizenship would first have to be revoked through a federal denaturalization proceeding.
The allegations surrounding Omar have been circulating for years, but they have never been substantiated in a way that established grounds for denaturalization.
Omar has dismissed the deportation demands as political theater, arguing that they have nothing to do with her ability to serve in Congress.
Mace can keep demanding it. **The law, however, doesn’t change just because she posts about it.**