Trump administration plans to seek citizenship revocations for over 250 people

The Trump administration is preparing to seek revocation of U.S. citizenship for more than 250 foreign-born Americans by October, a scale that would turn denaturalization into a far broader enforcement tool than it has been in modern times. The Justice Department had already filed 29 denaturalization cases in the first two months of 2026, and on June 8 it moved against 17 naturalized citizens accused of offenses including sexual abuse of a minor, wire and bank fraud, and wholesale drug distribution without a license.

The department says citizenship can be revoked if naturalization was illegally procured or obtained through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation. That standard matters because it reaches back to the moment of naturalization, allowing the government to challenge a person’s citizenship years later if prosecutors argue the original application was tainted by fraud or omission.

Civil-liberties advocates say the campaign is redrawing the meaning of citizenship itself. An American Civil Liberties Union filing said denaturalization averaged 11 cases a year from 1990 to 2017, while a separate summary cited 305 documented denaturalizations over that period, even as roughly 644,000 immigrants naturalized each year. During Donald Trump’s first term, the administration formally filed 102 denaturalization cases, according to the Justice Department, and the ACLU said the Department of Homeland Security had already referred 95 cases for denaturalization to the Justice Department since January 2017.

The current pace suggests a sharper escalation. In April, one report said the Justice Department was targeting at least 300 foreign-born Americans for possible citizenship revocation, a figure that now appears to be moving into formal action. For critics, the concern is not only the case count but the precedent, because a larger denaturalization system could make naturalized citizens feel that their status is conditional rather than secure.

If the government succeeds, people stripped of citizenship typically revert to their prior immigration status, often as green-card holders, and may then face deportation to their countries of birth. That consequence gives the campaign its social force: it is not just a courtroom dispute over paperwork, but a policy that can unsettle families, workplaces, and communities by reopening the question of who can belong permanently in the United States.