The Department of Justice has directed its attorneys to prioritize stripping U.S. citizenship for naturalized Americans who commit certain crimes, according to a June 11 memo.
The memo from Brett A. Shumate, assistant attorney general for the Civil Division, directs prosecutors in the agency to revoke citizenship from naturalized individuals for certain infractions, ranging from fraud to war crimes.
The list also includes “individuals who engaged in the commission extrajudicial killings, or other serious human rights abuses,” if they pose a threat to natural security, are gang members or committed human trafficking, sex offenses or other violent crimes.
Individuals who engage in financial fraud against the U.S. — including the Paycheck Protection Program and Medicaid or Medicare — as well as fraud against individuals or corporations are also subject to denaturalization. The memo also gives DOJ attorneys wider discretion on when to pursue cases against individuals “that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue” and those who lied or made misrepresentations on their naturalization application.
Joyce Vance, the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, sounded the alarm over the memo’s broad language.
“The provision is so vague that it would permit the Division to denaturalize for just about anything,” Vance argued in a blog post. “It could be something prior to or following naturalization. Given the other priorities discussed in the memo, it could be exercising First Amendment rights or encouraging diversity in hiring, now recast as fraud against the United States. Troublesome journalists who are naturalized citizens? Students? University professors? Infectious disease doctors who try to reveal the truth about epidemics? Lawyers? All are now vulnerable to the vagaries of an administration that has shown a preference for deporting people without due process and dealing with questions that come up after the fact and with a dismissive tone.”
The memo notes that an individual can be referred for “denaturalization” if they have “pending criminal charges” and haven’t been convicted.
Christopher Wellborn, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, notes the memo raises the prospect “that any offense, at any time, may be used to justify denaturalization.”
“It is not difficult to imagine a scenario where the government invokes unsubstantiated claims of gang affiliation or uses an individual’s criminal record to claim that citizenship was illegally procured,” Wellborn said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department defended the memo in an emailed statement to NBC, saying it is “committed to maintaining the integrity of the naturalization program.”
“As stated in the memo, denaturalization proceedings will only be pursued as permitted by law and supported by evidence against individuals who illegally procured or misrepresented facts in the naturalization process. This Department of Justice is committed to maintaining the integrity of the naturalization program. Those who gain citizenship through unlawful means and endanger our national security will not maintain the benefits of being an American citizen.”
The move comes as the Trump administration has been cracking down on illegal immigration and taking steps to reduce legal immigration to the U.S., including limiting birthright citizenship and scaling back refugee programs.
Over the last decade, more than 7.9 million people became naturalized U.S. citizens, with 818,500 new citizens added last year alone, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Immigrants who become U.S. citizens can vote, serve on juries and obtain security clearance.
Denaturalization — the process of stripping a naturalized citizen of their citizenship — is very rare. For years, the government’s denaturalization efforts focused largely on suspected war criminals who lied on their immigration paperwork, most notably former Nazis.
Between 1990 and 2017, the Justice Department filed just over 300 total denaturalization cases, averaging 11 cases per year. But in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first term, that number went up to 25. In 2018, USCIS announced it would refer approximately 1,600 cases to the Justice Department for prosecution.
Critics of Trump’s immigration policies are concerned the administration is using immigration enforcement to go after people because of their speech. Last week, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi calling for the Justice Department to initiate denaturalization proceedings against Zohran Mamdani, the New York City Democratic mayoral candidate. Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian parents and became an American citizen in 2018
At a press conference Tuesday in Florida, Trump called the 33-year-old “a communist” and claimed “people are saying he’s here illegally,” without providing any specifics. Trump said his administration is “going to look at everything,” and arrest him if Mamdani followed through on a campaign promises to “stop masked ICE agents from deporting our neighbors.”
Mamdani condemned the president’s comments in a statement, saying it was “intimidation.”
“His statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you,” he said.
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