GOP Rep open to deporting Melania and Musk in call to review naturalized citizens

Florida Republican Rep. Randy Fine has said he would be open to potentially deporting first lady Melania Trump and Elon Musk if they were ever found to have lied on their U.S. immigration paperwork.While there is no suggestion either one has done so, Fine discussed the possibility after the raid on Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home in Washington, D.C., by Homeland Security Investigations on October 12. Fine, who prides himself on speaking his mind and is nicknamed “The Hebrew Hammer,” appeared on NewsNation Monday to talk about the raid and its wider implications. Introducing a theoretical scenario, anchor Nichole Berlie asked him: “Do you think this type of scrutiny should be placed on others who are high-profile with connections to the administration like first lady Melania Trump [or] Elon Musk, who was the head of DOGE?” Florida Republican Rep. Randy Fine called for everyone who has been naturalized as a U.S. citizen since 1990 to be-re-evaluated (NewsNation)The congressman answered: “I believe that we should go back to 1990 and we should re-evaluate everyone who has become a naturalized citizen because what I am understanding is – the kind of fraud we’re hearing about from Ilhan Omar is endemic in Minnesota with many, many, many people having gotten citizenship without giving appropriate paperwork.“So yeah, I think Ilhan Omar needs to be the first. She certainly should not be the last.”Berlie pressed Fine on whether he believed the same standard should apply to others, not just the Democrat, who is a well-known critic of the president.He answered: “I think anyone who was not honest in their immigration paperwork – I don’t know anything about the circumstances of the first lady or Elon Musk, I don’t know that there’s ever been an allegation – but there are allegations about Ilhan Omar’s citizenship going back 10 years that people have refused to look at, in fact coming from the Somali community.“I believe anyone who lied on their paperwork to become a citizen should be denaturalized and should be deported. Anyone.”Neither Melania nor Musk have faced serious questions about their immigration statuses, the former having been born and raised in Slovenia and naturalized in 2006 and the latter hailing from South Africa but receiving U.S. citizenship in 2002.Elon Musk received his U.S. citizenship in 2002, and Melania Trump was naturalized four years later (Getty)Omar, 44, arrived in the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia as a teenager and became a naturalized citizen in 2000 but has been the subject of smears she married her brother and may be in the country illegally, an allegation President Donald Trump has enthusiastically taken up.The Department of Justice has said the decision to search Omar’s house earlier this month is part of an “ongoing federal criminal investigation” without going into specifics.However, The Washington Post has since reported insiders as saying it concerns whether or not her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, “intentionally misstated her birth date on immigration paperwork” when the family first arrived in the U.S..Investigators have issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas related to the matter, including to the congresswoman’s relatives. Omar has not been charged in connection with the probe to date.Speaking to Chris Hayes on MS NOW recently, Omar denied any wrongdoing and said she fears returning to the property in the wake of the raid, claiming to have received death threats.