Department of Justice plans hundreds of actions to revoke citizenship obtained through naturalization. The cases brought so far by the Trump administration include people accused of fraud, sexual abuse of minors or having expressed support for terrorism before or during the naturalization process.
The Trump administration plans to file at least 250 denaturalization cases by October, significantly intensifying its efforts to strip citizenship from people naturalized in the United States, according to a senior Justice Department official.
In less than two months this year, the Justice Department has filed 29 denaturalization cases against foreign-born U.S. citizens it accuses of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship.
The department’s civil lawyers are actively considering more cases to present, at a time when the pace has already surpassed that recorded in previous years. Between 2008 and June 12, 2026, 166 denaturalization actions were filed, an annual average of less than ten, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
This effort is part of President Donald Trump’s broader and more aggressive immigration agenda — which goes far beyond combating illegal immigration — and reveals the way in which federal agencies have redirected resources to prioritize this strategy.
Behind the scenes, the Department of Justice removed civil lawyers from several divisions — including teams dedicated to investigating fraud, an area that the administration also presents as a priority — to work on denaturalization processes, according to the official interviewed by CNN. Cases are also being referred to federal prosecutors’ offices at a time when many are already facing intense pressure.
“This is a legal tool that Congress has kept in legislation for decades,” the official told CNN, adding that these processes must be a priority “to protect the integrity of American citizenship and ensure that people present in this country and who benefit from citizenship do so legally, and that the right people obtain that citizenship.”
The cases brought so far by the Trump administration include people accused of fraud, sexual abuse of minors or having expressed support for terrorism before or during the naturalization process.
Federal law allows the government to move forward with revoking citizenship when a person makes false statements relevant to the naturalization process or when citizenship was obtained illegally, that is, when the individual did not meet the necessary requirements. Denaturalization cases generally fall into one of these categories and then follow the civil or criminal route, depending on the circumstances.
Denaturalization processes do not apply to people born in the United States who acquired citizenship by birth. (Separately, Trump attempted to end automatic birthright citizenship through an executive order. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the legality of that move.)
Over the past decade, nearly eight million people have become U.S. citizens through naturalization, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Department of Justice redirects resources
The administration had previously signaled its intention to prioritize denaturalization proceedings through a June 2025 memorandum signed by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate.
In the document, Shumate identifies ten priority categories of cases, including individuals considered a threat to national security, involved in war crimes, fraud or convicted of serious crimes that were not revealed during the naturalization process, among others.
“These categories are intended to guide the Civil Division in defining the priorities of cases to be initiated; however, they do not limit the Civil Division in presenting any specific case, nor are they organized in order of importance”, states the memo.
A large image of US President Donald Trump is displayed at the Department of Justice building in Washington on April 3. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The unit dedicated to denaturalization is made up of 12 lawyers who are working on a number of pending cases and continue to receive referrals from the Department of Homeland Security. These cases include situations of identity fraud, previous criminal convictions, war crimes and terrorism, explained the head of the Department of Justice.
Given the volume of work, the Department of Justice is also turning to lawyers from other areas of the civil division, including civil fraud experts and political appointees from the governing structure, to increase response capacity.
At the same time, federal prosecutors’ offices are receiving cases and distributing them to different regions of the country, depending on where each action will be filed. According to the official, these offices will be able to move forward with “several hundred additional processes”.
The processes are complex and time-consuming, which helps explain why previous administrations focused their efforts primarily on individuals involved in war crimes or terrorism.
The Biden administration, for example, filed just 24 denaturalization cases over four years, according to data from the Department of Justice.
“They may be able to speed up the process of bringing these cases, but regardless of the steps taken before filing the lawsuits, the court process itself will continue to be a huge obstacle to the goal of stripping citizenship from large numbers of people,” says Stacey Young, who has worked at the Department of Justice under several administrations and is the founder and executive director of the organization Justice Connection.
“Find people who have committed serious fraud”
Denaturalization is rare and can only occur through a federal court decision.
Historically, the United States has revoked citizenship for different reasons, from lying about the date of entry into the country, age or marital status, to political reasons. During World War II, for example, authorities analyzed naturalization processes for North American citizens of German origin who supported the Nazi regime.
Sources familiar with these processes told CNN that Justice Department lawyers have traditionally focused their efforts on individuals convicted of particularly serious crimes, making the cases clearer and easier to sustain in court.
Currently, however, some legal experts feel increasing pressure to move forward with any case that may fall under the law, including alleged fraud related to filling out forms, according to the same sources.
Justice Department officials reject this reading and insist that the focus is on people who lied about criminal records or crimes they were committing when they applied for US citizenship.
“Whoever received a parking ticket is not someone on whom we will focus our resources and may not even meet the legal requirements for a denaturalization process”, says the person in charge. “The goal is to find people who have committed serious fraud against the United States, identify them and move forward as quickly as possible.”
“Obtaining U.S. citizenship is a privilege, and under President Trump’s steadfast leadership, this Department of Justice maintains a zero-tolerance policy for abuses of this process,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement released in June.
If the administration wins a denaturalization process, the person returns to the immigration status they had before obtaining US citizenship. In most cases, you become a permanent resident again, although, depending on the reasons that led to your citizenship being revoked, you may also face deportation proceedings.
“The reason there are such robust protections and the requirement for clear and convincing evidence stems from Supreme Court decisions,” explains Daniel Kanstroom, professor of law at Boston College Law School.
Kanstroom adds that the administration’s emphasis on denaturalization processes is “potentially worrying”, but considers that, for now, there is no cause for alarm, since the cases presented so far correspond, in general, to the type of processes that were also carried out by previous administrations.
*Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this article
