The controversy became even more complicated in June 2026, when House Republican Majority Whip Tom Emmer made remarks about Somali immigrants at a Faith & Freedom Coalition event.
Emmer said that immigrants who come to the United States should become Americans and argued that those who do not assimilate should “go the hell back to where they came from.”
Omar responded directly on social media.
“I assimilated all the way to Congress and this idiot still tells me to go back where I came from,” she wrote.
That quote has since become one of the most widely circulated lines in the controversy.
It is important, however, to distinguish this incident from Mace's separate deportation campaign.
The two episodes are related politically because both involve arguments over immigration and belonging, but Omar's “I assimilated all the way to Congress” statement was specifically directed at Emmer.
Mace's campaign against Omar has centered more directly on Omar's immigration records, allegations of marriage fraud and the question of whether she should be removed from the United States.
That distinction matters when recounting the story accurately.
What Does the Constitution Actually Require?
One of the most important facts in the debate is that the U.S. Constitution does not require members of the House of Representatives to be natural-born citizens.
Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution requires a representative to be at least 25 years old, to have been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years and to live in the state represented at the time of election.
In other words, a naturalized citizen can legally serve in the House of Representatives if the constitutional qualifications are satisfied.
The Constitution imposes a different citizenship requirement on the presidency. Article II requires the president to be a “natural born Citizen,” subject to the constitutional exception concerning citizens at the time the Constitution was adopted.
That distinction is crucial.
Omar's status as a naturalized citizen does not, by itself, prevent her from serving in Congress.
She has already met the citizenship requirement for House membership, and she has been a U.S. citizen since 2000.
Mace’s Push to Restrict Naturalized Citizens
The debate over Omar also expanded beyond her personal immigration history.
In May 2026, Mace proposed a constitutional amendment that would restrict certain federal offices—including membership in Congress—to natural-born citizens.
The proposal specifically invoked foreign-born lawmakers, including Omar, as examples of the issue Mace wanted to address. According to reporting summarized by Snopes, the proposal had not advanced out of a House committee at the time it was reviewed.
Such a constitutional amendment would represent a major change from the current system.
Under the Constitution as it exists today, naturalized citizens can serve in the House and Senate, provided they meet the applicable citizenship-duration and other requirements. The Senate requires nine years of U.S. citizenship, while House members require seven.
Changing those qualifications would require more than a normal piece of legislation.
A constitutional amendment requires approval by two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.
That makes such a change extraordinarily difficult.
The proposal has nevertheless intensified a national conversation about whether naturalized citizens should have the same political rights as Americans born in the United States.
Deportation Is Not the Same as Political Removal
Another major source of confusion is the assumption that calling for deportation automatically means that deportation is legally possible.
It does not.
A naturalized U.S. citizen generally cannot simply be placed into deportation proceedings because another politician says the person should be deported.
For a naturalized citizen to become removable on the basis of citizenship fraud, the government would generally first need to establish grounds for denaturalization.