How Would You Feel About Ilhan Omar Being Deported? 21
Rep. Randy Fine is renewing calls for possible action against Rep. Ilhan Omar while promoting legislation that would seek to bar people holding foreign citizenship from serving in Congress, combining two politically explosive issues that involve very different legal standards.
The Florida Republican has said he could seek an expulsion vote if evidence emerges proving a longstanding allegation about Omar’s past marriage.
“We’re waiting to get the data on the brother marriage thing, which I think is coming,” Fine said during an interview. “If it turns out that that is actually the reality, will there be a vote on the floor to expel this woman from Congress? Absolutely.”
The allegation that Omar married a biological brother as part of an immigration scheme has circulated for years and has repeatedly been amplified by political opponents.
Omar has denied the allegation.
Public reporting has identified inconsistencies and unanswered questions in parts of Omar’s marital history, but no publicly available evidence has definitively established that she married a biological sibling.
That distinction is central to any discussion of expulsion. A political allegation, even one that has generated years of scrutiny, is not the same as a criminal conviction or a congressional finding of misconduct.
No formal House expulsion proceeding tied to the marriage allegation has been scheduled.
Even if Fine introduces such a resolution, removing a member from the House requires a two-thirds vote — a threshold deliberately set far above the simple majority needed for ordinary legislation.
The Constitution gives each chamber authority to punish its members and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member. Historically, the House has used that power only in a small number of extraordinary cases.
Fine’s second effort involves a separate proposal he calls the “Disqualifying Dual Loyalty Act.”
The measure is not a new bill introduced this week. Fine introduced H.R. 5817 in October 2025.
The proposal would prohibit a person who holds foreign citizenship from being elected to Congress unless that person renounces the foreign citizenship.
Fine has framed the measure as a question of undivided allegiance.
“The bottom line is that you can’t serve two masters,” Fine said. “If you’re going to serve in the United States Congress, you should serve America ONLY.”
Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, has supported the broader argument, saying the concern is not limited to how a lawmaker votes.
“It’s not just about the vote,” Harris said. “It’s about access to our national security secrets. They get to learn things that people from their home countries would never get to know.”
Supporters of the legislation argue that dual citizenship could create an appearance of divided loyalty or a conflict of interest for lawmakers who receive classified briefings and participate in sensitive national-security decisions.
But the legislation faces a substantial constitutional obstacle.
The Constitution already establishes the qualifications for members of the House and Senate. For the House, a member must be at least 25 years old, have been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years and be an inhabitant of the state from which the member is elected. The Senate has parallel requirements involving age, citizenship duration and state residency.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that those constitutional qualifications generally cannot be supplemented through ordinary legislation.
In Powell v. McCormack in 1969, the Court held that the House could not exclude a duly elected member who met the Constitution’s qualifications.
In U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton in 1995, the Court reinforced the principle that neither Congress nor the states may simply add new qualifications for federal legislators beyond those contained in the Constitution.
That does not prevent lawmakers from proposing a constitutional amendment establishing a new eligibility requirement. Fine’s current legislation, however, is an ordinary bill rather than a constitutional amendment.
If enacted and used to prevent an otherwise constitutionally qualified member-elect from taking a seat solely because of dual citizenship, the law would therefore be expected to face an immediate legal challenge.
The Omar controversy also should not be conflated with the dual-citizenship proposal.
Omar was born in Somalia, came to the United States as a refugee and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000.
Her birthplace and naturalization history do not by themselves prove that she currently possesses dual U.S.-Somali citizenship, and Fine’s bill does not establish that fact.
The political argument behind the legislation is nevertheless likely to remain potent.
Fine and Harris have argued that members of Congress should maintain allegiance only to the United States, while critics are likely to contend that citizenship status alone does not establish divided loyalty and that the Constitution already sets the controlling eligibility rules.
Fine has acknowledged that the proposal faces steep political obstacles as well.
“The Senate will never, ever pass it,” Harris said while discussing the measure’s prospects. “But we want to get it done […] it’s about Americans first.”
That leaves Fine pursuing two very different paths.
One is an expulsion threat that would depend on evidence and would require a two-thirds House vote.
The other is an effort to impose a new citizenship-related qualification for congressional service that would face not only political resistance but serious constitutional scrutiny.
For now, neither has taken effect. No Omar expulsion vote is scheduled, the marriage allegation remains unproven in the public record, and the dual-citizenship proposal has not become law.
Stanton Defeats Democratic Socialist Challenger in Arizona Primary as Israel Debate Tests Party’s Left Wing
Rep. Greg Stanton decisively defeated democratic socialist challenger Kai Newkirk in Arizona’s 4th Congressional District Democratic primary, handing the party’s progressive wing a clear setback in a race that became a test of Democratic divisions over Israel, political spending and the direction of the party.
With nearly all votes counted, Stanton held roughly 68.1 percent of the vote compared with Newkirk’s 31.9 percent, giving the incumbent a victory of more than two to one.
The result sends Stanton toward the November general election after a primary campaign that attracted national attention despite the lopsided final margin.
Stanton, a former Phoenix mayor who was first elected to Congress in 2018, entered the race with the advantages of incumbency, a substantial political network and support from more traditional Democratic constituencies.
Newkirk sought to turn the race into a referendum on that establishment.
He ran as a democratic socialist and argued that Democrats needed a more confrontational approach toward President Donald Trump, corporate political influence and U.S. support for Israel.
Israel became the sharpest dividing line between the two candidates.
Newkirk called for ending U.S. military aid to Israel and imposing an arms embargo, while repeatedly attacking Stanton over support from pro-Israel donors and organizations.
He also criticized Stanton after the congressman voted against an amendment offered by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie that would have reduced military assistance to Israel.
Newkirk wrote during the campaign that Stanton had received substantial support from AIPAC-linked political interests and argued that those ties influenced the congressman’s position.
Stanton defended continued security assistance to Israel, saying the aid is tied to U.S. strategic interests and efforts to deter threats from Iran.
At the same time, Stanton has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has argued that the U.S.-Israel relationship cannot be treated as a blank check.
That combination placed Stanton in a position shared by many establishment and center-left Democrats: support for Israel’s security alongside criticism of some policies pursued by its government.
Newkirk represented a more sweeping break with that approach.
He argued that military assistance itself should be terminated and that Democrats should reject political support from pro-Israel groups.
The contest therefore offered voters a clear ideological choice rather than a narrow personality dispute.
Newkirk received support from several progressive organizations and activists, including groups seeking to challenge incumbents over Israel and corporate political spending.
His campaign portrayed the race as part of a broader national effort to move the Democratic Party toward democratic socialism and a more aggressive anti-establishment posture.
But that message did not translate into a competitive result in Arizona’s 4th District.
After the election, Stanton framed his victory as a decision by Democratic voters about the kind of leadership they wanted.
“This campaign presented voters with a real choice about how Democrats should lead,” Stanton said in a statement.
“Tonight, the voters chose proven leadership that fights back, delivers real results, and brings our party together.”
The margin matters because democratic socialist and progressive candidates have scored several major victories elsewhere in the 2026 primary cycle, particularly in deeply Democratic urban districts.
Stanton’s result demonstrates that the same political formula does not work uniformly across the Democratic electorate.
Arizona’s 4th District includes Tempe and parts of the Phoenix metropolitan area, and its primary voters proved far less receptive to a campaign centered on democratic socialism and an arms embargo on Israel than voters in some progressive strongholds elsewhere.
Newkirk’s campaign also encountered difficulties in the closing stages.
Reporting during the summer described organizational concerns and questions surrounding campaign operations and financial filings.
One claim circulating after the election said the Young Democrats of Arizona had withdrawn an endorsement because of “concerning patterns of behavior.” That point should be treated cautiously because the organization’s rules generally discourage formal endorsements in contested Democratic primaries and the public documentation surrounding the alleged withdrawal is less clear than the election result itself.
The election result, by contrast, is straightforward.
Stanton won decisively.
He now advances to the general election, where Republican physician and activist Zuhdi Jasser filed to compete for the seat.
The November campaign will take place in a very different electorate, with turnout far higher than in a party primary and national issues likely to shape the race.
But Stanton enters it having survived what was billed as one of the more ideologically significant Democratic challenges in the state.
For supporters of Newkirk, the defeat is a reminder that progressive energy and national attention do not automatically overcome the advantages of a well-established incumbent.
For Stanton and allied Democrats, the victory offers a counterargument to claims that anti-establishment socialist candidates are steadily taking control of the party.
The race also underscores how Israel continues to divide Democrats.
Candidates on the party’s left increasingly argue that military assistance and support from groups such as AIPAC should be disqualifying issues in Democratic primaries.
More traditional Democrats continue to defend the U.S.-Israel security relationship while trying to create political distance from Netanyahu and controversial Israeli policies.
Arizona voters were offered that choice directly.
They chose Stanton by an overwhelming margin.
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The broader Democratic debate over Israel and socialism is far from over, but in Arizona’s 4th District, the progressive challenge ended in a decisive defeat.
