The Trump administration is dramatically increasing efforts to strip naturalized Americans of citizenship, with an initial 384 individuals being identified for denaturalization as part of the “first wave” of cases.
To handle this surge, the Justice Department is assigning civil prosecutors to 39 regional offices to file these cases, shifting resources away from other areas such as health care fraud.
The main revelation is that this is an unusual push for several reasons. Denaturalization is rare and is generally reserved for cases where a person has committed fraud during the immigration process or specific qualifying crimes.
Furthermore, these cases are now being handled by civil litigators in regional offices rather than attorneys specializing specifically in immigration.
“The Department of Justice is focused on rooting out criminal aliens who commit fraud in the naturalization process. Under the leadership of President Trump and Acting Attorney Todd Blanch, the Department is pursuing the highest volume of denaturalization referrals in history thanks to a close partnership.”
“We are moving at a fast pace to ensure that fraudsters are held accountable and fully prosecuted. Our filed referrals in one year exceed the total during the entire four years of the Biden administration, with more to come.”
According to research, this shows a substantial increase in such cases; For context, the government brought only 305 denaturalization cases between 1990 and 2017.
Most immigrants must go through a rigorous process to obtain citizenship, which includes the need to pass a naturalization test.
However, in recent months, the Trump administration has filed cases against several individuals, including a Marine accused of a sex-crime.
The cases include an Argentinian man accused of falsely claiming a different nationality and a Nigerian man convicted of tax fraud, The Times reports.
While the US has a long history of denaturalization—targeting activists and labor leaders—in the 20th century, the practice has shifted to focus primarily on war criminals, such as Nazis who hid their past in order to gain citizenship.
In December, the Trump administration directed USCIS to refer 100 to 200 cases for possible denaturalization per month.
These efforts originally grew under the Obama administration, but the first Trump administration expanded them significantly by beginning the review of 700,000 files.
