r/politics • u/projecto15 United Kingdom • 20h ago
Trump’s Attempt to Deport Ilhan Omar Is Another Leap Toward the Abyss
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/opinion/ilhan-omar-deportation-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.JFE.wCPx.WKffsTSe_pzN&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare219
u/Tango_D 19h ago
Deporting political opponents is a Pandora's box that once opened you cannot close and it is the end of the US as a Republic.
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u/Floreat_democratia 18h ago
The US ended as a Republic the day after Gore had the presidency stolen.
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u/PJballa34 17h ago
Along with Citizens United decision. It essentially set off the chain of events that created the current timeline. Fuck the GOP.
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u/torino_nera New Jersey 16h ago
Technically it goes back to the 70s where the Heritage Foundation helped get Reagan elected in 1980, who then immediately went on to basically be their mouthpiece, passing all sorts of legislation and policies and appointing people they approved to courts and committees everywhere. But yes, fuck the GOP
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u/Spimflagon 13h ago
Don't do that.
I get that you're highlighting that this is a road that America has been on for a long time, but by suggesting that this is life as normal you're undermining the idea that it should be resisted - or is something to be concerned about. You're painting it as "business as usual", which, while not good, is something that people will live with.
This is not something that can be lived with for much longer.
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u/Key-Street-340 14h ago edited 14h ago
Four stolen elections in the 21st century. SC stole presidency from Gore and gave it to Bush in 2000. Ohio rigged in 2004 and stole presidency from Kerry and gave it to Bush. Swing states rigged in 2016 and stole presidency from Clinton and gave it to Trump. Swing states rigged in 2024 and stole presidency from Harris and gave it to Trump.
And, in a first, they’re now planning to try and rig the midterms too which will be more difficult because of multiple races needing rigging, but it seems they think they have the means now.
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u/PJballa34 14h ago
It’s their only otion at this point and they know it. Cheat or lose.
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u/StopThePresses Colorado 14h ago
We are already living in the hell unleashed by Pandora's Box years ago. This is just another monster slithering out from it.
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u/disdiq7 Texas 19h ago
America is a police state. Only the very wealthy or politically connected have "rights". The rest of us are subjects.
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u/deschain_19195 19h ago
We're all slaves to the Epstein class it's just no one is paying attention.
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u/Bunerd 18h ago
No, I've been saying it for years but everyone keeps telling me we'll vote our way out of slavery.
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u/TimSylvester_ 13h ago
Every inch of human progress has been made despite government, and despite the ultra-wealthy, not because of government or because of the ultra-wealthy.
The ultra wealthy employ governments to keep society as it is, and prevent it from changing. That's why it's called a "state". Look up what "state" means.
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u/Half-Wombat 16h ago
A police state is putting it very nicely. It's a corrupt oligarchy which weaponizes the state (including police) to its own advantage, headed by a fucking dumb narcissistic clown and his entourage of goons.
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u/bett_bratt 19h ago
Subjects still have some rights.. a more apt description would be the “masses” that better describes what we are to them in a nutshell
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u/Tricky-Engineering59 18h ago
Livestock. They see us as livestock.
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u/DeDeluded 17h ago
Livestock. They see us as livestock.
Expendable - they see you all as expendable.
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u/soapinthepeehole 16h ago
America is a police state. Only the very wealthy or politically connected have "rights". The rest of us are subjects.
Ilhan Omar is politically connected and you can see how that is working out.
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u/ConjurersOfThunder 14h ago
I think she's more politically elected than politically connected. Think there's a difference there that you can see from the treatment of various Congress critters!
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u/Traditional-Fox-1597 15h ago
It's called capital punishment, because those without the capital get the punishment.
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u/Highthere_90 19h ago
Didn't she actually become a legal citizen wtf is this madness its so messed up
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u/airfryerfuntime Washington 15h ago
She's a naturalized US citizen. It's possible for naturalized citizens to lose their citizenship status, but it is exceedingly rare. She's also been naturalized since she was a child.
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u/river-wind 14h ago
It historically is very rare, party because the US Govt has moved away from taking anyone's citizenship away, because it's a freaking legal mess (generally ~10 cases per year for serious fraud, like former Nazi guards hiding their past). But the DOJ said they are planning to remove the citizenship of ~2,000 people per year now.
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u/redditallreddy Ohio 15h ago
They're "investigating" whether she violated laws in attempting to become a citizen, and therefore they "can" pull her citizenship if she did.
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u/Double_Cow_8238 14h ago
While ignoring she essentially did none of the actions to become a citizen herself as she was in goddamn elementary school and couldn’t possibly be expected to know what paperwork was done
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u/Nickel5 13h ago
The conspiracy theory from the administration is that when she became a citizen at 17 she was actually 18 therefore she wasn't a minor and didn't do the right paperwork. The public evidence for this is trump really really really wants it to be true. It's absolutely insane regardless though, even if everything the government alleges is true (and we have no evidence it is) they are talking about taking away citizenship decades after the fact over a paperwork error.
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u/OldBlueKat 12h ago
she arrived in the country at 12, but her father actually got his naturalized citizenship when she was 17, making his minor children citizens as well
The case that DOJ is trying to prove is that her birth records were false and she was already 18. If true, she should have processed as an adult herself, thus making her naturalization invalid (and her seat in Congress,too.)
is it true? Probably not, but they can stir a lot of shit while trying to prove it.
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u/danceswsheep 12h ago
It seems like it’s another “birther” scandal like Trump pushed against Obama. They are claiming that when Omar’s father applied for citizenship, he lied and said she was 17 years old when she was really 18 years old. They are claiming that if it’s true she was actually 18 years old, she needed to go through the path to citizenship on her own and not under her father. They arrived in the US as refugees when she was 12. It takes years to go through the citizenship process - 10 years for one of my friends who came here from Romania.
So at worst, they are trying to deport her over a 30 year old bureaucratic technicality. But they haven’t shared any evidence yet showing that her father gave the wrong information on his citizenship application.
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u/ScrotumScrapings 17h ago
Legal? You guys have been in a state of anomie for a while now. There are no laws, norms or rules.
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u/reddittorbrigade 20h ago
Donald Trump is the rebirth of Adolf Hitler.
MAGA are the new Nazis. Dumber version though.
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u/barryvm Europe 19h ago edited 19h ago
Dumber version though.
The original version was just as idiotic, corrupt, chaotic, ... They managed to do the things they did because of the mostly competent people who cooperated with them for various reasons (the army wanted money, the broader right wanted to get rid of the left, the oligarchs wanted fat government contracts even if the economy underpinning it was fake, ...). Before they got money or political support, they weren't actually any good at anything (and that includes propaganda), which is why the other right wing parties saw them as useful idiots. When they got money and power, they managed to use it to insulate themselves from their incompetence, for a while.
Most of the people and institutions who supported them, despite their competence in their field, were eventually destroyed by the malice and stupidity of the hard core fascists and their leadership though. It tends to rub off.
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u/NH4NO3 15h ago
Republicans are way more corrupt/chaotic/idiotic. I don't think it is particularly close. High ranking Nazis such as Hitler and Himmler evidently tried hard to project images of austere idealism throughout their long times in office. Several other high ranking nazis were accomplished administrators and bureaucrats who pulled off many difficult rearmament objectives the wider world did not think was possible and are unprecedented to this day. It's hard to find even a single individual amongst high ranking Republicans who even sounds like that. Nearly all high ranking Republicans barely disguise their attempts at grifting. Nazis managed to get many if not most sectors of society more or less on board with them, even particularly stubborn ones to authoritarianism such as the knowledge/education sector and the equivalent accomplishment is a distantly impossible idea for Republicans.
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u/bro_please Canada 18h ago
The Nazis were idiots. All of them buffoons.
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u/reddittorbrigade 18h ago
Have you Imagined who are the dumber version of idiots?
They are MAGA people.
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u/fge116 16h ago
Well I mean the problem is that when people think of nazi's they tend to think of the SS the elite ones. But they started as the SA the brown shirts which were basically the street thugs that main think was to threaten, intimidate and cause disruptions which the nazi's used as an excuse to gain more power over the state to "lower crime and bring stability".
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u/OlinoTrump 17h ago
Hitler without the decision to attack Russia he would have won the war, trump is destroying the world while being controlled by oligarchs and techbros
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u/bro_please Canada 16h ago
Which proves my point, Nazis were stupid enough to attack Russia. They needed war like Trump needs it.
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u/HDRsoul Washington 18h ago
It is happening here. The stories my grandmother told me about what happened in Germany between 1933 and 1938, when they got out, are literally happening again. Here. Now.
If only we had some way to know where this leads.
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u/Professional-Can1385 17h ago
Which countries are taking people who are fleeing America outside of the normal immigration process? Having no where to go was a problem for folks trying to flee Germany too. Thats before the government started stealing their assets.
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u/Englishgrinn 16h ago
I am disappointed to say that in the surging nationalism here in Canada, Carney's government had drastically reduced the number of immigrants we're accepting - with special note that Americans should be limited in particular.
One thing that's not getting a lot of press given Carney's massive popularity is a small change to refugee rules that specifically makes it so being threatened for being Trans is not an acceptable claim for asylum, which I think is both cowardly on our part and clearly a sign we know what's coming in the States.
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u/airfryerfuntime Washington 15h ago
No one is, and most western countries are actually making immigration harder for other westerners. Italy, for example, closed the 'minor issue' loophole specifically to keep Americans from gaining citizenship.
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u/ah_notgoodatthis 12h ago
That’s when they realized deporting them was more time consuming and costly then rounding them slaughtering them. That’s what we have to look forward to for all those people in the “deportation centers”
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u/Basicyeti837 17h ago
The Justice Department is literally looking for typos or other technical paperwork errors to try and find an excuse to invalidate the legal process in which Omar’s family became US citizens.
Look at Melania’s paperwork, and how she became a citizen on a genius visa after falsifying educational credentials.
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u/datingoverthirty 15h ago
I'd love to see an article where the NY TIMES admits they had a huge part in creating this reality with their over the top criticism of Democrats and lack of accountability when it comes to Republicans
...it's just an absolute joke at this point
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u/DumpedChick22 15h ago
This may actually be the worst thing Trump and MAGA have ever done. Can’t believe the country is just sitting back and watching.
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u/MrPookPook 14h ago
Maybe it’s just me but I think that raping children is the worst thing Trump has done.
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u/YoungHeartOldSoul 12h ago
I didn't think they'd pull it off, but it does seem liel they managed to make people forget.
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u/DumpedChick22 11h ago
I’m talking about “Trump as president”, which is why I referred to the administration. Also the raping children is not confirmed otherwise he won’t be president now.
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u/poplop69 10h ago
Yes he would. He could rape a baby on fifth Ave and then shoot it and would still win.
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u/tmountain 14h ago
I don’t know. Bombing a bunch of young girls in Iran was pretty terrible.
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u/No-Barnacle6022 14h ago
yeah that and rape are....like this dude seriously is the worst person ever. everything else just continues to add to his awful legacy.
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u/FredFuzzypants 13h ago
An Iranian family, Eissa Hashemi (a business psychology professor at The Chicago School), Maryam Tahmasebi (a psychology and statistics professor at Los Angeles Pierce College), and their teenage son have been held in ICE detention in Texas since April 2026, after the U.S. State Department revoked their lawful permanent resident (green card) status.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the revocation of their green cards and initiation of deportation proceedings based on Hashemi's familial relationship to Masoumeh Ebtekar, a former spokesperson during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Lawyers and family members state the action is an unprecedented form of "bloodline punishment" as no personal criminal activity or direct national security threats have been presented by the government.
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u/somethingofwhim 15h ago
Sitting back and watching is the the least surprising thing this country is doing.
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u/Odd_Elderberry4316 12h ago
Nobody is coming to save us and the vast majority won't do a thing to jeopardize their quality of life.
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u/johnn48 13h ago
The worst thing Trump ever did is subvert our Constitution and remove the guard rails that protected our country from despots like him. He’s compromised the Republican Party, the Senate and House, the Supreme Court, and ultimately the American people. Not one of them is actively providing accountability, oversight, checks and balance, and ultimately the threat of impeachment.
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u/ArgyleGhoul 14h ago
What do you honestly expect me to do, show up in person and become a statistic?
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u/AccurateAd5298 9h ago
This is how I see American reactions these days:
Does it affect gas prices?
Yes? Potential issue.
No? shrug
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u/StreetofChimes Louisiana 17h ago
To me, this is terrifying. And I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to stop this.
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u/ReleaseFromDeception 17h ago
Take care of your mental health. Preserve yourself and your sanity.
I would give this exact same suggestion to anyone That is following politics closely right now.
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u/Capable_Kiwi2514 15h ago
Study your country's history of mass protests. Watch other counries' current mass protests. Read about Maidan.
Then spend your energy trying to do that.
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u/pimparo0 Florida 16h ago
Vote, get others to vote, but aside from that, take care of yourself, do something you enjoy, don't dwell on things. Focus on what you can directly control, everything else will happen or it won't just like it always has.
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u/Massive-Rate-2011 13h ago
The issue is... if they can just remove the people we vote in....
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u/Hoblitygoodness 15h ago
Yep, it'll just be happening in the fascist country you live in.
I'm sure if you look outside, the sun will be shining and the kids will still be playing.
Tampa's nice though, miss it even.
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u/ididntwantausername 17h ago
It's terrifying to me as a non-US citizen. It's a whole new level of abuse of power and I hope they're just blustering; otherwise you guys are in deep shit. Beyond the pale.
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u/upnorthguy218 15h ago
Reach out to your representatives and make sure they know you think this is a brazen and disgusting attempt to punish a political rival. Check if there are any protests in your area. Go meet your neighbors and start building a community so that you have a network to rely on when they pull this shit in your neck of the woods.
Donate to local Dem candidates. The only way we get out of this is by kicking republicans out of office at the federal, state, and local levels. I get that this isn't going to happen in every race, but the more we win the better.
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u/_karamazov_ 16h ago
This is not terrifying. When time comes there will be enough paper trail and procedures to use the same principles against Musk and others.
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u/judgeraw00 19h ago
Deportation isn't the real end goal for this, let's be honest. The people kidnapped and trafficked by ICE goons aren't just being deported, they're being disappeared to concentration camps. This would only be the tip of the iceberg.
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u/Sparathon989 13h ago
An elected member of congress. What are we doing? This is the saddest indictment of Americans and the sorry sacks of government that haven’t removed this cretin from office. They do nothing for us, and everything to us.
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u/HerRoyalRedness 11h ago
I think it’s very alarming that Trump is doing this to her and the mainstream media and her coworkers are silent.
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u/old-legs-623 13h ago
I seem to remember the NYT refusing to support Harris? That was, if I may say so, "a leap into the abyss."
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u/MetalPurse-swinger 16h ago
What’s really worrying to me is that, even after Trump is out of office. Every future politician and CEO knows exactly how far the American people will let them push the line. They all now know they can pretty much do anything and we will let them…
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u/ReklisAbandon 16h ago
Or it's the last, desperate death throes of a weak, pathetic man as he sees his power slipping away from him.
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u/Awkward_Signal_7062 15h ago
Wishful thinking. MAGA isn’t going to let go of power.
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u/FaithlessnessThin359 15h ago
Think of all the people with fifty year old paper work from war torn countries. How is easy will it be to just claim that the documents are wrong and the naturalized citizen has to resubmit … from a hospital that may no longer exist.
And if your parents are no longer naturalized, then you were never a citizen as soon as trump finally gets rid of birthright citizenship.
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u/Competitive-Ad-9404 18h ago
If the GOP retains power it's only going to get worse with few if any guardrails.
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u/eeyore134 12h ago
We've already plummeted into the abyss. The high road the Democrats decided to take flung us off the edge of it the moment Trump "won" a second time. Right now we're deciding how deep it is and how hard we'll hit the bottom, if we ever do.
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u/killersea44 20h ago
Republicans once again proving how racist they are. Some of them look like they literally foam at the mouth when they see headlines like this
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u/NamasteMotherfucker 17h ago
. . . that the NYT helped slow-walk us toward.
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u/MercantileReptile Europe 16h ago
It was the duty of the New York Times to inform every living soul that Biden is indeed old. And ..."here is why that is bad for Democrats" headlines are journalistic excellence./s
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u/redneckrockuhtree 16h ago
Combination of racism and punishing her for speaking out against him.
Much like he's trying to do with the press, he wants to silence any voice of disagreement. There's a reason he says he likes authoritarians.
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u/Philliam88 14h ago
If they were to deport her, would the democratic party just replace her with an un-elected Omar family member? That’s the precedent they set with Linday Graham’s passing away.
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u/MrRourkeYourHost 13h ago
I hope no one is under the impression that this thing is going to give up the White House in 2028.
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u/CandidBoysenberry299 13h ago
Isn’t this what republicans said was going to happen if the dems won huh 🤔 weird eh it’s almost like everything they say are to keep you angry at the other side hmmmm
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u/Itisnumbernotamount 15h ago
Y'all are already deep, deep in the abyss. It started, in earnest and with proper weapons, in the 1960s with the founding of the Chicago school of economic thought stealing the knowledge of the social sciences and humanities and using this information to abuse all of us non-richies.
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u/FU_red-dit_bots 10h ago
If they can remove her citizenship they can do the same to you.
No matter your party this should be very concerning.
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u/wassup6969 16h ago
Americans will likely choose a lovely weekend to protest, and then get back to their cushy lives once Monday hits
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u/Cosmic_Seth 15h ago
Only the liberals.
If this was a Democrat president MAGA would have marched on Washington again and red states would've called up their National Guard.
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u/munchyslacks 14h ago
January 6th was on a Wednesday by the way. Say what you will about MAGA, but they are willing to risk it all for their movement. The left doesn’t seem to have the same conviction.
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u/afroafroguy 16h ago
It all points to his increasing anxiety about what’s coming. The USA is a shell of its former self and it’s all on him.
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u/aquestionofbalance 15h ago
It’s on the whole Republican Party, they are the ones in power and they are the ones letting him get away with it. Hopefully it will change in November.
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u/Cosmic_Seth 15h ago
Americans wanted this.
Its not just the Republican Party but the 1/3rd of Americans that just don't care anymore.
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u/Floordove 13h ago
How your president talks about Somalian people is wild.
It's weird that there is no bigger outrage.
How he talks about Somalian and Haithen (I think I remembered this wrong, the eating cats an dogs) is pure nazi shit.
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u/Any_Will_86 16h ago
Its also a giant distraction. If they had any goods on her they would have used that in 2019 or 2020 when they squad replaced Pelosi as the main D bogeymen. Or 18 months ago when they started dismantling everything.
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u/Stranger-Sun 16h ago
Imagine how many people they would kill if reasonable people nationalized Musk's businesses and kicked him out of the US. Or found a reason to deport Melania and Baron.
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u/Old-Way-5529 16h ago
whats scary is how easy it is to find admin issues with immigration paperwork, especially if you go back decades and decades. if they can do this to a congresswoman and succeed, its game over for a ton of us.
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u/No-Supermarket-6065 New York 6h ago
This is because Trump is afraid of her. He knows she's popular and young and has repeatedly stymied his efforts at fascism through things like the War Powers resolution blocking him from bombing the Carribbean. He has to hope this will happen before midterms, but it won't.
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u/GreenGlassDrgn 17h ago
at what point would you actually consider yourself to be in the abyss, and not just leaping towards it?
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u/mymar101 15h ago
We're talking about deporting an American citizen for no other reason than Trump doesn't like her. That is a dangerous precedence to set.
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u/ThrownAwayGuineaPig 17h ago
Another leap?! The USA ain't long jumping no more, this is a sprint to the end
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u/Blopslopper 16h ago
I wish these journalists would stop their endless fucking bullshit and admit we live in a fascist dictatorship.
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u/ElSlabraton 15h ago
If Barry Goldwater was alive, he would be denouncing what the DoJ is doing. It's revealing that not a single Republican will stand up for the rule of law. Instead, they justify ignoring the law and precedent.
Is there any reason why the DoJ couldn't have waited until after the election before proceeding with this case?
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u/humanity_go_boom 15h ago
I'm uessing this is a 2 part plan. Denaturalize and deport her, then go after her kids' citizenship.
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u/Spimflagon 13h ago
It's the bum's rush towards the abyss. He's (probably) not managed to degrade the country to the state in which he can assume dictatorship, whilst eroding his own reputation (don't laugh, people voted for him) beyond the point at which he can plausibly be elected, and openly committed crimes in service of achieving it. He's way past the point of no return, and starting to recognize that the ride may be coming to an end.
It's probably going to get uglier.
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u/TheWeaverofDreams 11h ago
I wonder if they will look into Elon Musk and Melania with the same fervour...
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u/Pretty-Curve5448 9h ago
Trump is overstepping but why tf are we voting in religious freaks to congress?
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u/Sublimotion 7h ago
Likely a trial run to see if they can start doing this to non-Trump an MAGA loyal and aligning politicians and candidates running for office.
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u/WaterIsWet-849 16h ago
My brother and his wife moved overseas last year to escape the regime. I'm just too settled in to uproot my life like that. However, I did get a passport recently.
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u/debbie666 14h ago
America is on the precipice of the abyss. If she is detained, then America has leaped into it.
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u/das_masterful 15h ago
General strike now. It's really that simple.
But we just get told that superheroes are the best - people who are alone and get stuff done. But that's all a lie. The real superhero is society standing up as one and demanding change.
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u/velvet_whisper1360 20h ago
Testing the legal boundaries of citizenship and targeted deportation against elected officials is a massive escalation. It completely changes the playbook of what can be normalized in national politics.