GOP Rep. Randy Fine Open To Deporting Melania Trump and Elon Musk if They Lied on Immigration Forms

Republican congressman Randy Fine declined to rule out deporting first lady Melania Trump and Elon Musk, saying anyone who lied on their paperwork to become a citizen should be stripped of citizenship and removed.

The Florida lawmaker made the remarks on NewsNation while calling for a review of everyone naturalised since 1990, starting with Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar. Asked about the first lady and Musk, Fine said he was unaware of any allegations against them.

Both have previously faced reporting about their early work authorisation in the US, though neither report alleged fraud in a citizenship application.

Fine Calls for Sweeping Citizenship Review

Fine was speaking on NewsNation on Monday 26 October 2026, Raw Story reported. Fine, who represents Florida's 6th congressional district, used the interview to push for a broad re-examination of naturalised Americans.

'I believe that we should go back to 1990, and we should reevaluate everyone who has become a naturalised citizen,' he said, according to the Mirror.

He singled out Omar, the Somali-born Minnesota Democrat who is under federal investigation over her citizenship. 'Ilhan Omar needs to be the first; she certainly should not be the last,' Fine said.

He claimed that citizenship fraud was widespread in Minnesota, but offered no evidence for the claim, the Mirror reported.

Pressed on First Lady and Musk

When the conversation turned to Melania Trump and Musk, Fine did not carve out an exception for either. 'I don't know anything about the circumstances of the first lady or Elon Musk,' he said. 'I don't know that there's ever been an allegation.'

'I believe that anyone who lied on their paperwork to become a citizen should be denaturalised and should be deported,' he added.

Political journalist Aaron Rupar shared a clip of the exchange on X, summarising it as Fine saying he had been open to deporting the pair if it turned out they lied on their paperwork. The post had been viewed more than 120,000 times at the time of writing.

Both have nonetheless faced past reporting about their early years in the US. In 2016, the Associated Press reported that Melania Trump was paid for 10 modelling jobs in the US in 1996, worth about £15,000 ($20,056), in the weeks before she obtained a work visa, according to ledgers and contracts it reviewed. She had entered on a visitor visa, which generally did not permit paid work.

Michael Wildes, an immigration lawyer who reviewed some of the documents for her, said at the time that they 'have not been verified' and did not match her records. She obtained an H-1B work visa in October 1996, received a green card in March 2001 and became a US citizen in 2006.

In October 2024, The Washington Post reported that Musk had briefly worked in the US without proper authorisation in the mid-1990s, after moving to Palo Alto to study at Stanford, where he never enrolled, and instead built the software company Zip2, according to a summary of the report.

Two immigration law experts told the paper that he would have needed to be a full-time student to keep his work authorisation valid, while former colleagues recalled him obtaining it around 1997. Zip2 sold in 1999 for about £225 million ($300 million).

Omar Investigation Intensifies

The Trump administration is investigating Omar with a view to revoking her citizenship and eventually deporting her, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The inquiry reportedly centres partly on the paperwork her late father completed when she was a child, including questions about whether her age was altered when he applied for citizenship. Omar has not been charged.

Investigators have issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas in Minnesota, including to relatives, the Journal reported. Revoking citizenship would require court proceedings, and the reporting reviewed by IBTimes UK did not identify any filed case against Omar.

Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Omar's Washington home on 12 October under what the Justice Department called a 'judicially authorised search warrant', FOX 9 reported.

Omar called it 'an attempt to target political enemies and weaponise federal law enforcement'. 'I will not be silenced,' she wrote. Her office called the search an 'unprecedented escalation', and she has previously denied committing immigration fraud.

Democratic Senator Tina Smith said she was 'outraged by this attack on Representative Omar', while Minnesota Governor Tim Walz accused Trump of 'abusing his power to go after political opponents weeks before an election'. Republican Representative Tom Emmer backed the warrant, writing: 'Nobody is above the law.'

Trump said he had 'nothing to do' with the search and that it was 'really up to the DOJ', according to Al Jazeera.