Inside ICE, Officials Question String of Trump Admin “Midterm Panic Moves”
The Intercept · L · trust 39/100
One ICE official said the timing of the raid on Ilhan Omar’s home was “politically motivated.”
Share Copy link Share on Facebook Share on Bluesky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Share on WhatsApp Agents with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit search the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on Oct. 12, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Andrew Leyden/Getty Images After agents with Homeland Security Investigations, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, raided the Washington, D.C., home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on Monday morning, officials who spoke to The Intercept raised questions about whether the raid was political in nature.
Though the investigation into Omar has reportedly been ongoing for years, an ICE official working in immigration enforcement suggested the timing of the raid raised questions.
“She’s always been a thorn in the side of the Trump administration,” said the ICE official, who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity to protect their livelihood. “This has to be politically motivated.”
The raid is the latest of what several officials inside ICE told The Intercept were a series of moves — policy changes, sweeping initiatives, and, in Omar’s case, a specific operation — that reflect a scramble to help lift Republicans’ dimming prospects in November’s midterm elections.
In the last month, ICE has undertaken steps like requiring vehicle stop training, announcing surges into sanctuary cities, and freezing then quickly unfreezing non-criminal deportations — what one official called a “midterm panic move.”
According to analysts, these politically charged moves are rapidly degrading the reputation of law enforcement agencies among many Americans.
“Throughout the Trump administration, we have seen them use law enforcement for overtly political purposes, often directly targeting blue states or blue politicians for their actions” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy analyst and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. “This is something that has really been a significant challenge for the reputation of law enforcement, because we have seen so many issues along these lines where there are allegations of these overtly political actions.”
Reporting had linked the raid on Omar’s home immigration paperwork — she arrived in the U.S. as a refugee in 1995 and naturalized five years later — but a second ICE official familiar with the matter questioned that explanation.
“There is something more than that, there have to be other charges for the substantiation of the warrant because a judge wouldn’t sign something beyond statute of limitations,” said the official, who is with Homeland Security Investigations, the arm of ICE that carried out the raid, who also spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity.
An article in the New York Post suggested the investigation might be related to an effort by Omar in 2019, just after she arrived in Congress, to correct her birth year in a Minnesota state legislature library.
The statute of limitations for crimes related to citizenship, according to a Justice Department website, is 10 years. Civil denaturalization proceedings do not have a statute of limitations, but must meet certain conditions, according to Reichlin-Melnick.
“In order to subject someone to civil denaturalization,” Reichlin-Melnick said, “the government has must prove either that the person committed fraud or that they were ineligible for naturalization in the first place.”
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According to accounts from inside ICE, the moves, allegedly motivated by the midterms, are creating chaos and confusion inside the agency — and fostering resentment among employees.
“We are highly trained agents who should be working child exploitation and trafficking cases, instead we are being used as pawns in our administration’s games,” said the Homeland Security Investigations official, touching on a shift away from the ICE branch’s traditional areas of focus. “I think everything happening with the agency right now is related to the midterms and to stoke divisive fires.”
“We are highly trained agents who should be working child exploitation and trafficking cases, instead we are being used as pawns.”
Politically motivated operations started ramping up inside Homeland Security Investigations after federal agents were ordered to pursue a criminal voter fraud probe across nine states in early September, according to the first ICE official.
“The voter fraud initiative was just inefficient and ridiculous,” the official said. “Knocking on doors to question people about voting before you even have evidence to present to them is a non-starter.”
The official added, “Directing your entire workforce to do that for weeks instead of real criminal investigations is a waste of time.”
With the midterms themselves approaching, fresh controversies engulfed ICE, prompting the administration to react with a string of messy policy changes and public announcements.
As the voter fraud investigations were underway, public backlash erupted after immigration officers from ICE’s other division, Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO, shot and wounded a 28-year-old Venezuelan man during a traffic stop in Austin, Texas, on September 20.
Days later, on the weekend of September 25, ICE leadership quietly issued internal orders for a major change that would overhaul nationwide immigration enforcement. The orders directed all deportation officers to stop arresting undocumented immigrants without criminal histories. After news of the orders broke in the right-wing Daily Wire , the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, denied the story.
Despite the denial,…
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