The Donald Trump administration is taking seriously the denaturalization of people who fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship and has identified 384 foreign-born Americans who will lose their citizenship. new york times reported. This will be part of an accelerated pace of denaturalization that they plan to expand by assigning cases to prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.The New York Times reported that senior Justice Department officials in Washington told colleagues at a meeting last week that civil litigators in 39 regional offices would soon be assigned to bring denaturalization cases against the individuals. Two people familiar with the program confirmed the broader effort to ramp up efforts to identify non-citizens. But it’s not official yet, and it’s unclear who these 384 people are and how to narrow it down.Justice Department spokesman Matthew Traagesser told The New York Times that officials are “seeking the highest number of denaturalization transfers in history” from the Department of Homeland Security. “The Department of Justice is focused on rooting out criminal aliens who defraud the naturalization process,” he added.
What is denaturalization?
Denaturalization is the legal process of depriving someone of their citizenship after they become a citizen through naturalization. Foreign-born people can become naturalized citizens after meeting certain requirements. A person who is a U.S. citizen at birth is not naturalized or denaturalized.Under federal law, the government can ask courts to strip citizenship from people who obtained it fraudulently, through sham marriages or withholding information about their past to make them ineligible. Some offenders may also be stripped of their nationality. The government must present evidence to a federal judge through a civil or criminal lawsuit, making the process challenging, time-consuming and therefore rare.The 2025 administration reportedly asked the USCIS to turn over 100 to 200 cases of citizenship deprivation per month to the Department of Justice in fiscal year 2026.In 2025, the Ministry of Justice pursued 13 citizenship deprivation cases and won eight. During Trump’s first term, the administration filed about 100 cases over four years, while the Biden administration has filed just 24 such cases. But now they have a new goal that goes beyond any previous precedent.