The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is going to snatch the citizenship of a Pakistani-origin doctor who is jailed on charges of sexually assaulting a young girl.A case of illegality was registered against Hasan Sherjil Khan on Thursday. According to the New York Post report, he is a former doctor who has been in jail since 2016. “Naturalization and U.S. citizenship will not shield sexual predators from the consequences of their horrific acts,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said in a statement.He added: “If you fail to disclose serious crimes when seeking naturalization, the government will detect your lies and revoke your ill-gotten US citizenship.”Khan is now 38 and applied for US citizenship in August 2012. Court records show that just a few months earlier he had traveled from New York to London, where he engaged in sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl whom he had allegedly been grooming since she was 11 years old. Prosecutors said he knew the victim was a minor and repeatedly forced her to send him explicit photos and participate in sexual acts on live video.He was arrested in September 2015, two years after becoming a US citizen, and later convicted of coercion and solicitation of a minor. In 2016, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.During the sentencing hearing, the victim spoke about the long-term damage caused by the abuse, saying it left her struggling with depression, hallucinations and anorexia. She also said she self-harmed, fell behind in school and became “a shadow of the person I could have been.”The DOJ claims that Khan should never have been granted citizenship because he “knowingly misrepresented and concealed criminal conduct” he engaged in during the naturalization process. Prosecutors also say he failed to meet the “good moral character” requirement.The case comes as the Trump administration steps up denaturalization efforts. A memorandum issued last June said authorities would “give priority and pursue denaturalization proceedings to the maximum extent” against individuals convicted of serious crimes, including sexual crimes.According to officials, about 384 such cases have been recorded in recent years, a sharp increase compared to previous decades. Only 305 cases occurred between 1990 and 2018.“The Justice Department is focused on rooting out criminal aliens who commit fraud in the naturalization process,” said DOJ spokesman Matthew Tragesser.
