Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's home on Monday, October 12. Nobody has charged her with anything. Within five days, the third-ranking Republican in the U.S. House already had her sentence picked out.
Tom Emmer, the House Majority Whip, told Fox News Digital that "there have been rumors for years" about Omar. Then he said what should happen to her:
"I would say, first, she should probably serve time in the gray bar motel and then get the hell out of here. She should go back to where she came from."
"Gray bar motel" is slang for prison. Emmer added a condition — "if the allegations are proven to be true," as Fox put it — and then went on anyway:
"If it's determined that she lied to gain citizenship, then, absolutely, she should go back to the front of the line."
Omar is a Democrat who represents Minneapolis. Emmer represents Minnesota's 6th District. Both are on the ballot on November 3.
What the investigation is about
According to Fox, investigators are looking at whether Omar or her father lied about her birth year on immigration papers when the family fled Somalia in the late 1990s. Her father became a U.S. citizen in 2000. Omar was thought to be 17 then, which meant she became a citizen along with him as a minor. The new claim is that she was actually 18 and would have had to apply on her own.
So the whole case turns on paperwork from more than 25 years ago, filed by a relative when she was a teenager. Agents from Homeland Security Investigations searched her Washington-area home under a judge-approved warrant, Mother Jones reported. No charges have been announced.
The search came 22 days before the election. Mother Jones noted that the Justice Department has long avoided taking steps against candidates in the 60 days before a vote. It is a custom, not a binding rule, but it exists so the government doesn't look like it is tipping an election.
Omar called the search what it looks like. "Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement," she said.
Emmer's answer was that a judge signed the warrant, so there must be something there. "That judge had to determine that there was probable cause that a federal crime has been committed," he said. A warrant lets agents search. It is not a finding of guilt. That is what a trial is for — the trial Emmer skipped straight past on his way to prison and deportation.
He's said this before
"Go back to where she came from" is not a new line for Tom Emmer.
In June, at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event, he said Somalis who don't assimilate "should go the hell back to where they came from," and told the room he was "done being careful." We covered that speech, and the false crime statistic underneath it. About 95% of Somalis living in Minnesota are U.S. citizens, according to FactCheck.org.
Omar answered him then, as CBS Minnesota reported: "I assimilated all the way to Congress and this idiot still tells me to go back where I came from."
Now he has said it to her again, by name, with prison added.
He's not the only one
Emmer isn't the first Republican on this site to say Omar should be sent away. Hours after agents left her home, Rep. Randy Fine posted that Trump was "working hard to reunite Omar with her countrymen in Somalia," and has said that she and others like her "should all go home." A month earlier, Senator Tommy Tuberville had said of Omar, "Send her back where she came from."
The difference is rank. Emmer is the House Majority Whip — the man whose job is to count Republican votes and keep the party in line. When one of the top three Republicans in the House says a sitting member of Congress who hasn't been charged with a crime belongs in prison and then out of the country, that is the party's leadership talking, not a back-bencher.
What we know
Tom Emmer, the No. 3 Republican in the House, told Fox News that Rep. Ilhan Omar — a U.S. citizen since 2000 who has not been charged with any crime — should "serve time in the gray bar motel and then get the hell out of here" and "go back to where she came from" if allegations about her family's immigration papers from the 1990s are proven. He said it within five days of federal agents searching her home, 22 days before an election in which both of them are on the ballot, and four months after he said Somalis who don't assimilate should "go the hell back."
