The Trump administration is dramatically expanding a little-used legal process that allows the federal government to revoke citizenship from naturalized Americans, a move that immigration advocates and legal scholars warn could create lasting uncertainty for millions of foreign-born citizens across the United States.
On Monday, the Department of Justice announced that it is seeking to strip citizenship from 17 naturalized Americans, marking what observers describe as the largest denaturalization effort in decades. The administration says the individuals committed serious crimes or fraud and failed to disclose relevant information during the naturalization process. Federal officials have pointed to allegations that include fraud and sexual abuse of a minor.
The latest action follows a similar announcement just weeks earlier, when the administration moved to denaturalize 12 individuals. Together, the cases signal a sharp acceleration of a policy that was once used only sparingly and under narrow circumstances.
Denaturalization is the legal process through which the federal government revokes citizenship from a person who was not born a U.S. citizen but later became one through naturalization. Unlike deportation proceedings involving noncitizens, denaturalization cases must be pursued in federal court and generally require the government to prove that citizenship was obtained unlawfully or through material misrepresentations.
Historically, the process has been rare. According to figures cited in the source material, between 1990 and 2017 the federal government filed an average of just 11 denaturalization cases annually. Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department filed 24 denaturalization cases. The Trump administration has already surpassed that pace.
The administration’s broader objectives have become increasingly visible over the past year. In April, officials identified 384 naturalized Americans whose citizenship they hoped to revoke. In December, the administration directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to provide the Department of Justice with between 100 and 200 denaturalization cases each month. The administration also announced plans to use federal prosecutors in regional offices rather than relying exclusively on specialists within the Department of Justice’s Office of Immigration Litigation, a change intended to increase the speed and volume of cases.
Administration officials have framed the initiative as a necessary effort to protect the integrity of the citizenship process.
“Gaining U.S. citizenship is a privilege and under the steadfast leadership of President Trump, this Department of Justice maintains a zero-tolerance policy for the abuse of this process,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin similarly pledged continued enforcement, saying the administration “will continue to use every lawful avenue to denaturalize and remove aliens.”
The government’s emphasis on criminal misconduct has become a central part of its public defense of the policy. Yet legal experts and civil liberties advocates argue that the long-term significance of the campaign extends beyond the individual cases currently being pursued.
The 17 individuals targeted in the latest action come from a wide range of countries. According to the administration, 11 are from Latin America and the Caribbean, three are from Asia, two are from Africa, and one is from Europe. While the government maintains that the cases involve serious misconduct, critics argue that the campaign is creating a broader message that naturalized citizenship is fundamentally less secure than citizenship acquired at birth.
Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, warned that expanded denaturalization efforts send the message “that naturalized citizens don’t have the same rights and stability as native-born citizens.”
She further cautioned that “The government has used this power in the past to target people it views as political opponents.”
Those concerns draw on a complicated history.
Throughout the twentieth century, the federal government used denaturalization for reasons that extended beyond criminal fraud. Authorities revoked citizenship over inaccurate statements regarding age, marital status, or arrival dates. During World War II, the government reviewed naturalization cases involving individuals accused of sympathizing with Nazi Germany. During the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s, thousands of foreign-born Americans accused of communist affiliations lost their citizenship.
A landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1967 sharply limited the government’s ability to strip Americans of citizenship and contributed to the dramatic decline in denaturalization cases that followed. Since then, the process has generally been restricted to situations where the government argues that citizenship was improperly obtained because important facts were concealed during the naturalization process.
Even within those limits, denaturalization cases can involve significant disputes over evidence and interpretation.
One case highlighted in the source material involved a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Mexico whose citizenship was revoked after the Justice Department concluded he began selling drugs before becoming a citizen. The outcome reportedly hinged on determining whether the conduct occurred before or after naturalization. The individual’s attorney disputed the government’s conclusion and maintained that the allegation was false.
Another example cited from Trump’s first term involved a New Jersey man born in India. The Justice Department argued that he had entered the United States without travel documents or proof of identity and had used a different name. The government ultimately succeeded in stripping him of citizenship.
Questions about the scope of denaturalization have also emerged in politically charged cases. The source material points to the case of Palestinian community activist Rasmea Odeh, who was deported in 2017 following years of litigation. Federal authorities alleged that she unlawfully procured citizenship by failing to disclose a conviction and imprisonment by Israel. Supporters argued that the case involved broader political considerations, particularly because Odeh had stated that she was tortured and sexually assaulted while imprisoned.
For some legal scholars, the current expansion of denaturalization raises concerns not only about immigration policy but also about democratic participation.
Cassandra Robertson, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, told NPR that the denaturalization efforts “are an attempt to suppress the political speech of naturalized citizens.”
She added that “Although the cases that have been brought first are maybe people who’ve committed some pretty bad crimes, the government’s rhetoric is certainly not limited to that.”
Robertson also warned of the broader implications of normalizing citizenship revocation.
“Once it becomes easy to take somebody’s citizenship away,” she said, “it becomes easy to take anybody’s citizenship away.”
The debate surrounding the administration’s campaign centers on a fundamental question: whether denaturalization should remain an extraordinary legal remedy used only in rare circumstances or become a routine component of federal immigration enforcement. As the Justice Department expands the number of cases and seeks to accelerate the process, that question is likely to shape legal and political battles far beyond the 17 Americans currently facing the loss of their citizenship.
“Once it becomes easy to take somebody’s citizenship away,” she said, “it becomes easy to take anybody’s citizenship away.”
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