Justice Department Targets 12 Naturalized Citizens in Denaturalization Push

The Justice Department escalated its denaturalization campaign by moving to strip citizenship from 12 naturalized Americans in federal courts nationwide, a push lawyers say could let the government revisit old applications and unwind citizenship years later.

On May 8, the department said the actions involved allegations of material support for a terrorist group, war crimes, fraud and sexual abuse of a minor. The targeted citizens were born in Bolivia, China, Colombia, Gambia, India, Iraq, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Somalia and Uzbekistan, and the roster included an ex-Catholic priest. Filed in districts across the country, the cases show a sharper enforcement posture than the country's recent history of denaturalization, which saw just over 300 cases from 1990 to 2017, or about 11 a year.

The government's legal theory rests on the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows denaturalization if citizenship was illegally procured or obtained through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation. That framework matters because the Supreme Court's 1967 decision in Afroyim v. Rusk set a major constitutional limit on involuntary citizenship loss, while the 2017 decision in Maslenjak v. United States said false statements must be material to the citizenship decision. The legal fight is not just over whether an application contained errors. It is over how far the state can go in reaching back into a person's past to undo a citizenship grant long after the oath was taken.

The May 8 cases fit into a broader push that has accelerated through 2026. By April, the department was already targeting at least 300 foreign-born Americans for possible revocation of citizenship, and internal guidance reportedly urged U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field offices to generate 100 to 200 denaturalization cases a month. That pace would far outstrip the historical average and gives the campaign a precedent-setting reach, especially for naturalized citizens who may now face scrutiny years after they became Americans. Immigration lawyers warn the effort could chill citizenship and deepen due-process concerns by expanding the government's power to challenge naturalization long after it has been granted.