Removing Ilhan Omar From Congress May Be Harder Than Trump Expects, Constitutional Hurdles Mount

Federal agents recently searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's home in Washington and carried out 17 items: phones, notebooks, a camera, and a Somali phrase book belonging to her children. The search is part of a Justice Department investigation into potential immigration fraud, and it has given President Trump a new reason to demand that the Minnesota Democrat leave Congress.

Trump has said she is not who she claims to be. "She used a fake name to be sworn in," he said, calling her "a little troublemaker." He has suggested her real name is something quite different, rendering it as "Ihan Nur Sayeed Elmi" and adding, "It's close." A federal filing in the inquiry lists her as "Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar." On that basis, the president says she must resign immediately and will not be legally allowed to sit in the House.

A Fox Digital reporter, Rashid Umar Abbasi, put the question to Omar directly, asking whether her name was Ilhan Sayed, Ilhan Nur Sayed Alami, or Ilhan Abdullahi Omar. She answered, "Ilhan Abdullahi Omar. You know it." When he asked again for clarification, she repeated it: "It's Ilhan Abdullahi Omar."

The House's own records list her only as "Ilhan Omar." The Clerk of the House shows that name on 15 financial disclosure reports going back to 2018, before she reached Congress. The same is true of her time in the Minnesota state legislature. Two years ago she carried her district with nearly three-quarters of the vote, and she is expected to win again in the solidly Democratic seat next week.

Whether Trump can force the issue is another matter. It is not his decision. Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution gives each chamber final authority over who sits in it. Rep. Morgan Griffith, a Virginia Republican, acknowledged that power while counseling restraint: the House can seat or refuse to seat members and can throw them out, he said, but there should be good, sound reasons. Griffith has some history here, having watched the Virginia House of Delegates wrestle with a similar seating question in 1988. In Congress, he said, such a step would be extraordinary and should be reserved for extraordinary circumstances. Asked what would qualify, he borrowed Justice Potter Stewart's line on obscenity from a 1964 case: he would know it when he saw it.

The constitutional qualifications are slim: a member must be 25, a citizen, and a resident of the state represented. A criminal conviction is not a bar, and nothing else is spelled out. That leaves two routes for a determined House majority. The first is expulsion, which takes a two-thirds vote. The House has expelled only six members in its history, most recently George Santos of New York in 2023. Omar has not been convicted of anything, and even if charged, much could happen before a trial. Prosecutors would also face the Speech or Debate Clause of Article I, Section 6, which shields lawmakers' official work. House counsel would likely contest any effort to obtain her official devices and documents, which makes talk of deportation, which some have floated, a far cry from reality for a sitting member.

The second route is a challenge at the opening of the new Congress in January. Such a motion would come after the Speaker is chosen but before the other members are sworn in. The House could swear in everyone except the member or members in question, then vote to act on a motion, table it, or send it to a committee for investigation. In 1968, the House refused to seat Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, who faced a criminal investigation, and the Supreme Court ruled in Powell v. McCormack that the House cannot exclude someone who meets the basic qualifications. Griffith's colleagues could still delay, as in 1985, when the House withheld the oath from Rep. Frank McCloskey of Indiana for several months while it examined his election. The House could also seat Omar and later try to expel her, which would not conflict with Powell, though the record of six expulsions makes that unlikely.

The likeliest outcome, by this reading, is delay at most. Watch the January swearing-in for any motion aimed at Omar or other progressive members-elect.