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Paul Mauro: Let’s get into this discussion with Jonathan Fahey. Jonathan, are you with us, buddy?
Jonathan Fahey: I’m here.
Paul Mauro: All right, man. I’m sure you appreciate my precursor statements here. As an attorney, as you are, I don’t want to go there. I want your ICE hat on. I was just talking about the possibility that she may have entered the country under false pretenses and continued to misrepresent facts on paperwork she’s filed over the years, including her financial disclosure forms.
You were the acting director of ICE, and you know these issues better than almost anybody. Let’s go back to the beginning, when her father came in. Explain to the audience how she could have obtained citizenship, even if she was 18–or if she was 17 at the time.
Jonathan Fahey: The reason she was able to obtain citizenship was through derivative citizenship from her father. Once her father was granted citizenship under the law, any minor children he had could also obtain citizenship. That’s the core issue here.
If she was 17 at the time, it was appropriate for her to become a citizen through that process. If she was 18, she wouldn’t have qualified for derivative citizenship through her father and would have had to apply on her own. That’s the central question: Was she 17 or 18? That’s how this whole issue breaks down.
The problem for her is that if the information was false and she continued to perpetuate that falsehood, that could create legal problems.
One of the most critical pieces of evidence, I think, is her passport. A passport is tied to your citizenship, and if the information was false when she became a citizen, it could also have affected her passport application.
The issue is that every time someone uses a passport–not just when filling out the application, but also when traveling in and out of the country–there could potentially be legal consequences if fraud is involved. Depending on the circumstances, that could constitute a federal felony carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years for each offense. And those cases could arise in different jurisdictions, whether in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Miami, or another international airport.
So I think she could be in a difficult situation. Based on the reporting, the central issue is whether the date of birth was accurate at the time. If there was a deliberate misrepresentation, that could constitute naturalization fraud, which is one of the things investigators are reportedly examining.
Unfortunately, there’s a 10-year statute of limitations for certain criminal charges related to naturalization fraud. She was naturalized in 2000, so that period would have expired around 2010 or 2011, depending on the circumstances. That could make a criminal prosecution difficult now, although other potential offenses could still be relevant if investigators establish the alleged age discrepancy.
Paul Mauro: All right, so what you’re trying to do is get around the statute of limitations. But as I made the point earlier, the sanction here doesn’t necessarily have to be a criminal charge. It could be denaturalization.
She’s going to take it to the courts, of course. But if you can demonstrate that she lied back then and is still here under false pretenses, couldn’t you obtain a denaturalization order and then remove her from the country?
Jonathan Fahey: Yes. There are two ways someone can be denaturalized.
If you can prove naturalization fraud in a criminal proceeding, and the statute of limitations weren’t an issue, one potential consequence would be automatic denaturalization.
The second way is through civil court. The U.S. attorney would file a case seeking to denaturalize the individual, and it would go before a federal judge. The government would need to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the person obtained citizenship through fraud or another qualifying ground.
As you know, that’s a lower standard than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is required in a criminal case. It’s always difficult to articulate precisely what these legal standards mean, but clear and convincing evidence is not the highest standard.
So, if you could establish passport fraud based on an earlier act of naturalization fraud in a criminal proceeding, you could potentially use the same underlying evidence in a civil case to establish grounds for denaturalization.
Paul Mauro: All right, so that would take the statute of limitations issue off the table. It would mean you’ve given up on locking her up.
Good. I don’t want to deal with a trial involving her, interminable appeals, and everything else–which you’d probably face through the civil route anyway. But it’s potentially a cleaner and simpler approach: We can demonstrate that you lied, here’s the paperwork, and we’ve met the clear-and-convincing-evidence standard. Now you have to go.
And if America is such a horrible place, why stay here? You could go to Mogadishu instead. Now, you’ve got something to add.
Jonathan Fahey: No, that’s a good point. She doesn’t even seem to like it here, based on her statements. It could be a win-win.
Can you imagine going to someone’s house for dinner and spending the entire meal complaining about the food? That’s basically what she’s doing here, and I think a lot of people are offended by that.
Paul Mauro: I’m offended to my bones. She’s not just complaining about the food. She’s complaining about the host, the house, their history, their kids, their cousins. She criticizes the whole thing. I don’t get it.
And what are Democrats doing? Even if you’re a fairly left-wing Democrat, this has to be a concern. From where I sit, the Democratic Party needs to distance itself from the Squad.
I don’t even think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez belongs in the same category as Omar, as radical as some people consider her to be. She’s out there campaigning with El-Sayed in Michigan, and she’s suggested that if he wins, she’ll run for president.
She’s not necessarily there just to help him win. She may be positioning herself for a presidential run. And I think she could have a real shot.
But I don’t think she belongs in the same category as Omar. Omar was here during 9/11, and I think even AOC, at her core, isn’t as far to the radical end of the spectrum as Omar is. Go ahead.
Jonathan Fahey: I think that’s exactly right. It’s interesting that Democrats haven’t come to her defense particularly aggressively. They’re defending her, but you’ve probably seen the clip with Jake Tapper on CNN.
There’s also the fact that the Biden administration was investigating her previously, so some of the evidence being discussed now may have come from that investigation. We don’t know for sure.
But it is interesting that Democrats don’t seem to have a great deal of enthusiasm for her. She can do significant damage to their brand, and I don’t think all Democrats want their party to be perceived as far-left and anti-American.
Paul Mauro: And that’s what the party risks becoming in the public’s perception. Look at the histories of people like El-Sayed and Mamdani. They want to remain here and will fight to do so, but they also criticize the country. It’s counterintuitive, and that’s how the Democratic Party is increasingly being perceived.
If gas weren’t averaging around $4.40 a gallon, I don’t think the midterms would be competitive. I think Donald Trump might even defy historical trends.
I want to ask you something while I have you. Explain how limited the resources and time are for officials who handle immigration. Start with the consular officer overseas who has a line out the door and must decide whether to issue employment or visitor visas. Then there are immigration judges, whom I used to appear before. Sometimes the proceedings seemed so informal that I couldn’t believe I was in a courtroom.
Explain how easily the system can be overwhelmed, potentially allowing people to enter without adequate vetting, including individuals such as Omar and her father.
Jonathan Fahey: That’s a great point. When you look back at what the Biden administration did at the border, one argument is that the system became so overwhelmed that officials could no longer effectively manage it. The result was pressure to allow more people to remain in the country legally. I think that was part of the strategy.
Immigration judges are overwhelmed by the number of cases and claims. People can delay proceedings, and in many cases, individuals can file asylum claims without facing immediate consequences, even when those claims may lack merit.
The backlog has been enormous. The last figure I heard was several million cases, although I don’t know what the current number is. We’ve heard stories of people crossing the border during the Biden administration and receiving court dates as far out as 2034.
It’s astonishing. The system was so overwhelmed that people were being told to come back years later.
I believe the Biden administration’s policies contributed to that situation, and the resulting chaos benefited its political objectives. Republicans also sometimes become weak on this issue and argue that everyone should be allowed to stay. But that approach isn’t going to work in the long run.
I think President Trump has been strong on this issue by refusing to back down. It’s easy to give in to media pressure and calls for compromise, but the compromise often ends up giving Democrats what they want. You still have to maintain an effective immigration system.
Paul Mauro: I’m old enough to remember the last time we tried amnesty, under Ronald Reagan. He was the first president I remember thinking I wanted to vote for. It may even have been the first time I was old enough to vote.
But Reagan gave us amnesty, and that’s not necessarily the answer today.
I do support something I’m going to borrow from Bruce Blakeman: a path to citizenship for people who qualify, work, and pay a fine. That was part of George W. Bush’s proposal, which I thought was well considered and reasonable.
Democrats wouldn’t accept that. Their position, as I see it, has been that we should have open borders without sufficient vetting or standards. No nation can sustain that indefinitely, especially with extensive government benefits available from cradle to grave.
Now, I’m going to play a clip that has only recently surfaced. We played it earlier, but many people haven’t seen it. I’ve received all kinds of emails about it. I also posted it on my website, OpsDesk.org, where you can find the video.
As someone who has worked directly on these issues, I want your reaction. Can we roll that clip again?
Elie Hong: The thing that was interesting in the class was that every time the professor said “Al-Qaeda,” his shoulders would go up. “Al-Qaeda,” you know? He’s an expert. And, as we’re not saying his name, you probably get to see him on CNN.
Yeah, of course. I love those guys.
But you don’t say “America” with that intensity. You don’t say “England” with that intensity. You don’t say “the army” with that intensity.
But you say these names because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to leave something.
Paul Mauro: Jonathan, as someone who was charged with the top job of protecting this country against people coming from overseas who wanted to do us harm, what’s your reaction to that?
Jonathan Fahey: It’s grotesque that someone who is an American citizen and an American congresswoman would appear to mock the suffering Americans endured on 9/11 and during other terrorist attacks.
To me, it shows where she’s coming from and suggests that she doesn’t have love or respect for our country.
When you look at this in the broader context of immigration, I think you have to give President Trump credit for emphasizing national security. When we bring people into this country, the first question should be: Are these people going to harm us? The second question should be: Are they going to help us?
If we get satisfactory answers to those questions, then perhaps we should take a closer look.
But simply bringing people into the country without adequate vetting creates serious risks. After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, for example, hundreds of thousands of people were brought into the country under the Biden administration. Concerns were raised about whether the vetting process was sufficient, and we could face serious consequences if people were admitted without appropriate screening.
That happened because, in my view, the administration put its political agenda ahead of national security.
You also see this in some schools. Where I live in Fairfax County, some 9/11 lessons have focused heavily on the anti-Muslim backlash that followed the attacks, presenting that as the central story.
But the nearly 3,000 people who were killed on 9/11 deserve to remain at the center of the story. The backlash against Muslims was not the defining experience for most Americans. In fact, one of the most remarkable things about our country was how little widespread retaliation there was after the attacks.
There may have been isolated incidents, such as someone shouting something offensive from a car window, but those incidents pale in comparison to the scale of the tragedy itself.
Paul Mauro: That’s right. It never happened on the scale people sometimes suggest, folks.
