Donald Trump’s Justice Department has begun taking steps to strip naturalized Americans of their U.S. citizenship, and officials are making it clear they’re just getting started.
Over the past month, the DOJ has filed denaturalization cases against 10 naturalized citizens, accusing them of obtaining U.S. citizenship by concealing serious criminal histories during the immigration process.
But what has civil liberties advocates on edge isn’t just the 10 cases. It’s what the Justice Department said comes next.
“We’ve only scratched the surface,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate declared. “Many more complaints are coming.”
That warning signals the Trump administration may be preparing a much broader campaign to revisit old immigration files and challenge citizenship that many people believed was permanent.
The government says the 10 men targeted in the current cases lied on their immigration applications by hiding crimes that, if disclosed, would have disqualified them from becoming U.S. citizens.
According to the DOJ, the allegations include child sexual abuse, Medicare fraud, wire fraud, immigration fraud, and drug trafficking.
The cases rely on a long-standing provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows the government to revoke citizenship if it was obtained through fraud or the concealment of material facts.
The administration insists these cases are about protecting the integrity of the naturalization process, not expanding executive power.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the defendants of “lying their way into U.S. citizenship” and said the department will continue to aggressively pursue denaturalization under Trump’s leadership.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin struck a similarly aggressive tone, saying people who commit fraud during the naturalization process “forfeit the right” to keep their citizenship.
But critics warn the administration’s rhetoric suggests something much larger than a handful of isolated fraud cases.
Denaturalization has historically been used sparingly, typically against Nazi war criminals, terrorists, or people involved in exceptionally serious fraud.
The Trump administration, however, has openly embraced using it more aggressively as part of its broader immigration crackdown.
That crackdown has already expanded beyond undocumented immigrants to include green card holders and legal residents. Now, the administration is signaling that even Americans who completed the naturalization process years, or decades, ago could find themselves back in court defending their citizenship.
Civil liberties advocates argue that dramatically expanding denaturalization could create a chilling precedent by making citizenship feel less permanent for millions of naturalized Americans.
Whether the administration ultimately targets dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of naturalized Americans remains to be seen.
One thing, however, is no longer in doubt: Trump’s DOJ is actively reviving one of the federal government’s most rarely used legal tools—and officials say “many more” cases are on the way.
