ICE Officials Question Donald Trump's 'Midterm Panic Moves' as They Place Doubt on Validity of Ilhan Omar's Home Raid: Report

Even ICE officials are allegedly uncomfortable with the lengths Donald Trump is willing to go to weaponize immigration enforcement.

In a new report, anonymous ICE officials complained that the stunning search of Rep. Ilhan Omar's home, which was reportedly done with the goal of building an immigration fraud case so that the Trump administration could deport the progressive Democrat, "had to be politically motivated."

The raid was reportedly targeting an allegation that Rep. Omar's father committed immigration fraud when she was a teenager by falsely claiming she was 17 when she first came to the United States. The allegation has long been one of several conspiracy theories Republicans have levied at Omar, though evidence has yet to substantiate any claims.

However, ICE agents told The Intercept that they felt that there was a more insidious purpose to the raid than the Trump administration let on.

“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 an official with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), an ICE branch that carried out the raid on Omar's home.

Anonymous officials inside ICE spoke about the controversial raid and increased ICE activity, questioning whether the administration's revamped immigration push is a distraction intended to boost Republicans' flagging hopes for the 2026 midterms.

Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has conducted the Omar raid, ordered ICE surges in sanctuary cities, tweaked their non-criminal deportation policy and introduced vehicle stop training for ICE agents.

The stunts are wearing on immigration enforcement officers.

“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,” an HSI official told the publication. “I think everything happening with the agency right now is related to the midterms and to stoke divisive fires.”

The officials slammed the Trump administration's order to investigate so-called criminal voter fraud in early September.

“The voter fraud initiative was just inefficient and ridiculous,” one official said. “Knocking on doors to question people about voting before you even have evidence to present to them is a non-starter. Directing your entire workforce to do that for weeks instead of real criminal investigations is a waste of time.”

“There’s clearly a disconnect between leadership on the ground level and what’s coming out of Washington,” an official added. “It’s a total s--- show.”

One official called flurry of activity a "midterm panic move" — but analysts said the chaos is only serving to degrade Americans' faith in law enforcement.

“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," American Immigration Council policy analyst Aaron Reichlin-Melnick told the publication. “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.”