Justice Department Seeks to Denaturalize 40 US Citizens Over Crimes

The US Justice Department has filed court actions seeking to strip citizenship from 40 naturalized Americans accused of crimes, in what officials call the largest such effort over a single stretch of the Trump administration, The Guardian reported.

What are the 40 people accused of doing?

The department said the cases involve allegations including "acting as an agent for a foreign government, committing voluntary manslaughter, and aggravated sodomy against a special-needs man," according to the Justice Department statement cited by the Guardian. The filings cover more than three dozen individuals.

When were the denaturalization cases filed?

The requests were submitted in multiple federal courts between August 21 and October 2, the Justice Department said. The department announced the filings publicly on Monday.

How does denaturalization work under US law?

The federal Immigration and Nationality Act permits a federal court to revoke naturalized citizenship if the government proves it was obtained illegally, through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation during the naturalization process. The Guardian reported that such cases often involve people who lied to immigration authorities or who obtained citizenship through sham marriages. In some cases, people who committed crimes before naturalizing but did not disclose them to the government are also targeted.

What has the Justice Department said about the filings?

Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement cited by the Guardian that those named in Monday's announcement "concealed critical facts from the US government and represent serious criminal offenders."

"Concealed critical facts from the US government and represent serious criminal offenders." — Attorney General Todd Blanche, per the Justice Department statement

How does this connect to Trump's broader denaturalization push?

Trump had pushed the Justice Department in previous months to pursue denaturalization cases en masse, according to the Guardian's report. The New York Times reported in April that the department had identified at least 384 foreign-born US citizens whose naturalization it wanted to revoke, the Guardian noted. Monday's 40 filings represent a portion of that broader list and mark what officials describe as the largest batch of such actions filed over a single period during the administration.

The Guardian's report also noted a related Justice Department action: an indictment of 10 individuals in Minnesota on charges tied to noncitizen voting, part of a wider pattern of immigration-enforcement filings by the department this year.

Denaturalization proceedings differ from criminal prosecutions. They are typically filed as civil actions in federal district court, where the government bears the burden of proving that citizenship was obtained unlawfully. A successful denaturalization action strips the person of US citizenship and can expose them to deportation proceedings, though the Guardian's report did not detail the specific procedural posture of each of the 40 cases or name the individuals involved.

The Justice Department did not, according to the material reviewed, specify how many of the 40 cases have resulted in final rulings or how courts have responded to the filings so far. The cases remain pending in the federal courts where they were filed between late August and early October.

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