WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has identified 384 foreign-born Americans whose citizenship it wants to revoke, marking a sharp escalation in denaturalization enforcement. The move, tied to denaturalization, would spread cases across dozens of U. S. attorney’s offices nationwide. Senior colleagues last week that civil litigators in 39 regional offices would soon be assigned to file the cases.
What the Justice Department is doing
The new push is designed to speed up denaturalization by moving more cases beyond the department’s traditional immigration litigation specialists. Two people familiar with the plans confirmed the broader effort to ramp up denaturalization, though it was not clear what led officials to target the 384 people. A Justice Department spokesperson, Matthew Tragesser, said officials were “pursuing the highest volume of denaturalization referrals in history” from the Department of Homeland Security.
Under federal law, the government can ask a court to strip citizenship from people who obtained it fraudulently, including through a sham marriage or by hiding information that would have made them ineligible. Some people who commit crimes may also face denaturalization. The government must present evidence to a federal judge in a civil or criminal proceeding, and that makes the process difficult and slow. The shift to regular prosecutors could increase the pace of denaturalization cases that have been rare in recent decades.
Immediate reaction from officials and experts
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “Citizenship fraud is a serious crime; anyone who has broken the law and obtained citizenship through fraud and deceit will be held accountable. ” Tragesser said, “The Department of Justice is laser focused on rooting out criminal aliens defrauding the naturalization process. ”
Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said, “The message it sends is that naturalized citizens don’t have the same rights and stability as native-born citizens. ” She added that the government has used this power in the past to target people it views as political opponents.
Why this matters now
The latest step comes months after Trump administration officials ordered Department of Homeland Security staffers to refer upward of 200 denaturalization cases a month to the Justice Department. Between 2017 and late last year, the government sought to strip just over 120 naturalized Americans of their citizenship. Between 1990 and 2017, the government filed 305 denaturalization cases, an average of 11 per year.
People who become U. S. citizens are extensively vetted, with applicants required to provide biometric data and answer questions about travel history, run-ins with the law and ties to the Communist Party. Some qualify through marriage to U. S. citizens after three years, while others become eligible after having h
What happens next
The Justice Department has not said when the 384 denaturalization cases will be filed or which courts may hear them. For now, the clearest sign is the administrative shift itself: prosecutors in 39 offices are being pulled into a process that has historically been slow, rare and tightly controlled. The scope of denaturalization now appears set to expand further as the department moves ahead.
