The Department of Justice and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services filed a record 25 denaturalization actions in federal courts against individuals convicted of serious offenses including attempted first-degree murder and sexual assault of a child, the agencies announced Aug. 13.
The administration characterized the simultaneous filing as a record number of denaturalization actions. Denaturalization proceedings require judicial review and a court finding that citizenship was obtained through fraud, concealment or other unlawful means.
The cases involve individuals across multiple states who were naturalized before their criminal convictions came to light or before fraud in their applications was detected, according to DOJ. A separate USCIS action targeted an Indian-born individual who allegedly used a false identity throughout the naturalization process.
Denaturalization has historically been a rarely used legal tool. The federal government filed fewer than a handful of such cases annually in most years before the Trump administration began expanding the practice during its first term.
If successful, denaturalization strips an individual of U.S. citizenship and renders them deportable. The process requires the government to prove its case in federal court by clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence, a high evidentiary standard.
The record filing signals the administration is aggressively expanding the scope and pace of denaturalization enforcement. Civil liberties organizations have raised concerns that broadening denaturalization could create uncertainty for naturalized citizens more generally, though the government has emphasized that current cases target individuals with serious criminal convictions or documented fraud.
Approximately 23 million naturalized citizens live in the United States, according to Census Bureau data.