Trump: More People to Lose Their Citizenship

According to reports, the American president and his administration are planning to increase efforts to strip certain naturalized Americans of their citizenship. Their focus will be on those who have illegally obtained U.S. citizenship.

According to internal guidelines issued to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field offices, they are instructed to “provide the Office of Immigration Litigation with 100-200 denaturalization cases per month” during the 2026 fiscal year. This would be a significant increase—by comparison, just over 120 such cases have been filed between 2017 and now.

According to federal law, individuals can only lose their citizenship if they committed fraud during their application or under a few other narrow circumstances. However, the Trump administration is using every available tool, which has prompted activists to warn that such a campaign could impact people who made honest mistakes in their citizenship applications and provoke fear among law-abiding Americans.

Among the first things Trump did upon returning to the White House was to secure the borders and dramatically reduce inflow. Subsequently, he has also banned entry from several third-world countries and escalated enforcement against illegal immigrants already in the country.

“It’s no secret that US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ fight against fraud includes prioritizing those who have illegally obtained U.S. citizenship—especially under the previous administration,” said Matthew J. Tragesser, spokesperson for USCIS, to The New York Times.

“We will pursue denaturalization proceedings against individuals who lie or provide false information about themselves during the naturalization process. We look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Justice to restore integrity to America’s immigration system.”

Unnecessary Fear

In interviews, several former agency officials expressed concern over the scale of the denaturalization targets pushed by USCIS leadership.

“Imposing arbitrary numerical targets for denaturalization cases risks politicizing the revocation of citizenship,” said Sarah Pierce, a former USCIS official.

“And requiring monthly quotas that are ten times the total annual number of denaturalizations in recent years turns a serious and rare tool into a blunt instrument—and creates unnecessary fear and insecurity for millions of naturalized Americans.”

According to the Census Bureau, there are about 26 million naturalized Americans in the country. More than 800,000 new citizens were sworn in last year, most of whom are originally from Mexico, India, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, or Vietnam. Most people who are stripped of their citizenship revert to being lawful permanent residents.

New citizens being sworn in. Photo: U.S. National Archives

Extensive Process

The Department of Justice has previously said it will prioritize denaturalization this year. In a memo distributed this summer, officials outlined their strategy and said they would also target individuals in a range of categories beyond committing fraud to obtain citizenship. These include gang members, those who committed financial fraud, individuals linked to drug cartels, and violent criminals.

In the denaturalization process, USCIS plays a key role and refers cases to the Department of Justice, which must proceed through a federal court to revoke someone’s citizenship. The process can take place via either a civil or a criminal case. In a civil case, government lawyers must have “unequivocal evidence” that someone obtained citizenship illegally or concealed a material fact during the process.

According to Amanda Baran, a former senior USCIS official in the Biden administration, the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that citizenship and naturalization are too valuable and fundamental to American democracy for the government to revoke them on a whim.