The Donald Trump administration is serious about denaturalizing people who obtained US citizenship through fraudulent means and has already identified 384 foreign-born Americans who will lose their citizenship. new York Times Informed. This would be part of an effort to increase the pace of denaturalization that they plan to expand by assigning cases to prosecutors in U.S. Attorney’s offices.The NYT reports that senior Justice Department officials in Washington told colleagues during a meeting last week that civil litigators in 39 field offices will soon be tasked with filing denaturalization cases against individuals. Two people familiar with the plans confirmed a broader effort to increase denaturalization. But it is still not official and it is not known who these 384 persons are and how they were arrested.Justice Department spokesman Matthew Tragesser told the NYT that officials were “pursuing the highest volume of denaturalization referrals in history” from the Department of Homeland Security. “The Department of Justice is focused on rooting out criminal aliens who commit fraud in the naturalization process,” he said.
what is denaturalization ?
Denaturalization is the legal process of taking away someone’s citizenship after becoming a citizen through naturalization. Foreign-born people become naturalized citizens after meeting specific requirements. People who are U.S. citizens by birth do not undergo naturalization or denaturalization.Under federal law, the government can ask a court to strip citizenship of people who obtained it by fraud, by entering into a sham marriage or by hiding information about their past that would have made them ineligible. Some people who commit crimes can also be denaturalized. The government must present evidence to a federal judge through a civil or criminal proceeding, making the process challenging and time-consuming and thus rare.In 2025, it was reported that the administration asked USCIS to refer 100 to 200 denaturalization cases per month to the Justice Department in fiscal year 2026.In 2025, the Justice Department pursued 13 denaturalization cases and won eight. During Trump’s first term, the government recorded nearly 100 cases in four years, while only 24 such cases were recorded under the Biden administration. But now he has new goals that exceed all previous examples.
