By Cassandra Burke Robertson and Irina D. Manta
The Trump administration wants to take away citizenship from naturalized Americans on a massive scale.
While a recent Justice Department memo prioritizes national security cases, it directs the department to “maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence” across 10 broad priority categories.
Denaturalization is different from deportation, which removes noncitizens from the country. With civil denaturalization, the government files a lawsuit to strip people’s U.S. citizenship after they have become citizens, turning them back into noncitizens who can then be deported.
The government can only do this in specific situations. It must prove someone “illegally procured” citizenship by not meeting the requirements, or that they lied or hid important facts during the citizenship process.
The Trump administration’s “maximal enforcement” approach means pursuing any case where evidence might support taking away citizenship, regardless of priority level or strength of evidence. As our earlier research documented, this has already led to cases like that of Baljinder Singh, whose citizenship was revoked based on a name discrepancy that could easily have resulted from a translator’s error rather than intentional fraud.
A brief history
For most of American history, taking away citizenship has been rare. But it increased dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s during the Red Scare period characterized by intense suspicion of communism. The United States government targeted people it thought were communists or Nazi supporters. Between 1907 and 1967, over 22,000 Americans lost their citizenship this way.
Everything changed in 1967 when the Supreme Court decided Afroyim v. Rusk. The court said the government usually cannot take away citizenship without the person’s consent. It left open only cases involving fraud during the citizenship process.
After this decision, denaturalization became extremely rare. From 1968 to 2013, fewer than 150 people lost their citizenship, mostly war criminals who had hidden their past.
AP Photo/Herbert K. White
How the process works
In criminal lawsuits, defendants get free lawyers if they can’t afford one. They get jury trials. The government must prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” – the highest standard of proof.
But in most denaturalization cases, the government files a civil suit, where none of these protections exist.
People facing denaturalization get no free lawyer, meaning poor defendants often face the government alone. There’s no jury trial – just a judge deciding whether someone deserves to remain American. The burden of proof is lower – “clear and convincing evidence” instead of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Most important, there’s no time limit, so the government can go back decades to build cases.
As law professors who study citizenship, we believe this system violates basic constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court has called citizenship a fundamental right. Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1958 described it as the “right to have rights.”
In our reading of the law, taking away such a fundamental right through civil procedures that lack basic constitutional protection – no right to counsel for those who can’t afford it, no jury trial, and a lower burden of proof – seems to violate the due process of law required by the Constitution when the government seeks to deprive someone of their rights.
The bigger problem is what citizenship-stripping policy does to democracy.
When the government can strip citizenship from naturalized Americans for decades-old conduct through civil procedures with minimal due process protection – pursuing cases based on evidence that might not meet criminal standards – it undermines the security and permanence that citizenship is supposed to provide. This creates a system where naturalized citizens face ongoing vulnerability that can last their entire lives, potentially chilling their full participation in American democracy.
The Justice Department memo establishes 10 priority categories for denaturalization cases. They range from national security threats and war crimes to various forms of fraud, financial crimes and, most importantly, any other cases it deems “sufficiently important to pursue.” This “maximal enforcement” approach means pursuing not just clear cases of fraud, but also any case where evidence might support taking away citizenship, no matter how weak or old the evidence is.
This creates fear throughout immigrant communities.
About 20 million naturalized Americans now must worry that any mistake in their decades-old immigration paperwork could cost them their citizenship.
A two-tier system
This policy effectively creates two different types of American citizens. Native-born Americans never have to worry about losing their citizenship, no matter what they do. But naturalized Americans face ongoing vulnerability that can last their entire lives.
This has already happened. A woman who became a naturalized citizen in 2007 helped her boss with paperwork that was later used in fraud. She cooperated with the FBI investigation, was characterized by prosecutors as only a “minimal participant,” completed her sentence, and still faced losing her citizenship decades later because she didn’t report the crime on her citizenship application – even though she hadn’t been charged at the time.
AP Photo/Julio Cortez
The Justice Department’s directive to “maximally pursue” cases across 10 broad categories – combined with the first Trump administration’s efforts to review over 700,000 naturalization files – represents an unprecedented expansion of denaturalization efforts.
The policy will almost certainly face legal challenges on constitutional grounds, but the damage may already be done. When naturalized citizens fear their status could be revoked, it undermines the security and permanence that citizenship is supposed to provide.
The Supreme Court, in Afroyim v. Rusk, was focused on protecting existing citizens from losing their citizenship. The constitutional principle behind that decision – that citizenship is a fundamental right which can’t be arbitrarily taken away by whoever happens to be in power – applies equally to how the government handles denaturalization cases today.
The Trump administration’s directive, combined with court procedures that lack basic constitutional protections, risks creating a system that the Afroyim v. Rusk decision sought to prevent – one where, as the Supreme Court said, “A group of citizens temporarily in office can deprive another group of citizens of their citizenship.”
Cassandra Burke Robertson is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics at Case Western Reserve University. Irina D. Manta is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law at Hofstra University.
Kat says
Will Melania and family be first? Will she be separated from her American born child? Well her family members who benefited from chain migration be sent to south Sudan or El Salvador? Does he already have his eye on wife#4?
Palm Coast Citizen says
My concern is that we’re framing undocumented citizens as “criminals” based on that specific undocumented states so that the percpeption is that we are talking about murderers and rapists while revoking status–claiming the same–in an effort to deport and truck back under visas to work perpetually without a citizenship path or even decent pay.
We pay visa holders less. This practice is happening now in the ag industry–where we have U.S. Citizens being let go, unable to apply in favor of these visa holders, who, keep coming back with the promise of citizenship.
Both parties are doing this to our workforce, but in different ways. There aren’t political heroes or villains, just strategists.
Joe D says
Just when you think the current Trump Administration (in my opinion) can’t sink any LOWER….they surprise you yet again.
I’m over 70 years old, and I had never HEARD of “Denaturalization.” Just UNBELIEVABLE!!!
But then again, I find myself ALMOST DAILY, thinking “UNBELIEVABLE” in my mind, since the January 20, 2025 INAUGURATION!
Tony says
Looks like Melania can get deported for aiding a criminal.
Skibum says
They can start the process to take U.S. citizenship away from naturalized citizens by telling Melania Knauss Trump that she has been determined to no longer be an American citizen and will be deported back to Slovenia. This is ostensibly due to the fact that as a naturalized citizen, she too is somehow a danger to America. Consequently, Baron Trump, born to a person who now has her citizenship revoked and is deported, he too should no longer be considered an American citizen even though he was born in the U.S., and he should be sent to Slovenia, a country he has never lived in and is most likely unknown to him, like so many other immigrants who have been disappeared to countries not of their origin.
Then don’t stop there, how about Trump’s older children who’s mother was Ivana? Both Donald Jr. and Eric Trump were born to a naturalized citizen, so they too should be yanked up, told their citizenship is illegitimate, and deported to, say, one of those “shithole countries” in Africa that Trump has derided and castigated so publicly.
Only after Trump’s own children and current wife are dealt with in the SAME WAY he and his nazified government plans on handling migrants who have come to the U.S. should he be allowed to use the same unhinged, unconstitutional and unnecessary process for all other naturalized U.S. citizens and immigrants who have come to our country, because as president, HE HAS THE RESPONSIBILITY AND OBLIGATION TO SET THE EXAMPLE for all the rest of the country to follow!
So let it be written, let it be done.
A Concerned Observer says
I was lucky enough to witness a colleague; his wife and daughter, go through the culmination of them becoming Citizens of this great country. They were from South Africa and came to the US to work for Siemens. The man and his wife obtained green cards and worked through the seemingly slow, often arduous procedure to become United States Citizens. That day, the entire group of immigrants raised their right hand and swore an oath to pledge their allegiance to the UNITED States and forsake their previous home country. Many cheered, some cried. My friend, his family and I all beamed with pride as we all walked out of the auditorium. You could not slap the smiles off our faces.
My smile quickly diminished as we walked alongside a 20-something female loudly proclaiming to anyone within earshot that the oath to which she just swore meant nothing to her at all and that Puerto Rico was still, and forever will be, her home country. This is NOT an Op-Ed for a blog. I was there. I lived it.
As a side note, in the 20-years I spent in the USAF, and 18-years I worked for a multinational company, I had the opportunity to meet, get to know, and live alongside many people from several countries. To varying degrees, I learned their language, their customs and what it meant to them to live here. My wife and I shared meals from their homeland in their homes and they in ours. My wife and I learned that what we are fed in newspapers and news stories we watch on the TV was not always the unvarnished truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I came to personally know people from South Africa, Germany, India, China, Viet Nam, Thailand and many other countries. Not just meeting them casually in the street somewhere for a few minutes, but working closely with them day after day and becoming close friends with them and their families. They were required to study and pass a written test that I am sure most of our high school graduates could not pass today. We spent years together socially and professionally and learned first-hand what life was actually like in their country and why they sincerely wanted to become Americans. The difference was that they came here legally, put forth the time and effort and met all the requirements to become US citizens. The entire process began soon after they arrived, but took years to complete. They all worked hard, played by the rules and earned the right for what so many others expect to be handed to them. I wish many other natural Americans could see how much time and effort to took for them to obtain what so many Americans take for granted.
Laurel says
So, maga, where do you now stand? Any relatives, neighbors or friends in this category of Naturalized Citizens? Is it getting closer to home? It will soon enough. I know honest, hard working, warm-hearted people who have actually bought homes abroad, because of this *leader*. No other reason. I know of others, who have lived here for decades, who were proud to become U.S. citizens, who now may have to live in fear. People who have worked, bought homes and contributed to society. But, selfishness is now in charge. The United States of America has become unstable, and the world knows it. It weakens us, and the rest of the world is aware. Trump is having fun playing God with our country, with his scared minions all sucking up. Egocentric power!
Dreamers are out. Those who were brought here decades ago as babies and children who know no other country. Trump will need more concentration camps. You know, for “processing.”
Maybe we can start with Melania. Was her paperwork proper, or did it get pushed through? Is it more “who you know?” I think it is. What about her chain migration parents? Where would Baron then stand? What about Usha Vance? All “i’s” dotted and “t’s” crossed? If not, will they be given special privileges, like the South African white people Trump gave a free, fast ride for? Jet provided? How about Musk? The guy who pulled all your private data? He has three citizenships. Which is he loyal to? Or is it all about who Trump likes and who he doesn’t?
He is not your retribution, you are his.
You did this. You can stop it by not supporting this craziness.
Psychopath:
noun
A person who engages repeatedly in criminal and antisocial behavior without remorse or empathy for those victimized. A person with a personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, cunning, manipulating, glibness, exploiting, heedlessness, arrogance, delusions of grandeur, sexual promiscuity, low self-control, disregard for morality, lack of acceptance of responsibility, callousness, and lack of empathy and remorse. Such an individual may be especially prone to violent and criminal offenses.
– The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
Ray W, says
This morning the Albany Times Union published an article about local labor needs in the farming community.
I had not considered one of the issues raised.
H-2A visas under a federal program that allows seasonal workers to pick crops are not available to dairy farmers, who need year-round labor to milk their cows. Decades of lobbying various presidential administrations, as well as state regulators, in hopes of addressing this flaw in securing lawful immigrant labor have yet to bear fruit.
Said Amanda Powers, director of communications at the New York Farm Bureau, as written by the reporter:
“[T]he farm bureau has been pushing for a year-round guest worker program, noting that the current program hasn’t been updated in 30 years.”
She added:
“Sometimes the same workers come to the farm for 20 years. … The fact that the H-2A visa program right now is only for seasonal workers does not make any sense.”
The reporter interviewed a Finger Lakes dairy farmer who, from fear of “retribution”, asked to be identified as Kim. Of his 36 full-time workers who twice daily milk the farm’s 2,200 cows, two-thirds of his employees are immigrants. Some have been with him for up to 13 years. He told the reporter that finding workers is hard. “If there was a full sweep, the dairy industry could go down in just a matter of days or weeks, just because you got to get the cows milked.”
According to Cornell University’s Farmworker Program, more than 50% of New York’s agricultural workers are undocumented.
From the apple orchard perspective, Laura Ten Eyck, a descendant of the founder’s Indian Ladder Farm’s 58 acres of orchard comprising 30,000 trees, told the reporter that the 109-year-old farm has been relying on the same H-2A workers for decades. “We have fathers and sons. We have cousins, brothers”, she told the reporter. She added that when a worker retires, he tends to refer a friend or family member to replace him.
Her farm has 4 H-2A workers from March to December and another 10 from September to October.
After years of few problems with the visa program, however, Ms. Ten Eyck fears for the future. She knows that by law only so many seasonal workers can enter the country each year, and that number might not be enough if enough other farmers also apply for H-2A visas. If she were to lose her workers, “it would be a catastrophic situation.”
Thus far in 2025, 249 employers have applied for H-2A visas, seeking an average of seven visas.
An immigration lawyer tells of recently hosting a webinar for concerned farmers, educating them on how to spot the difference between a judicial warrant and an administrative warrant. Administrative warrants do not permit entry into private spaces. The attorney told the reporter that ICE and Customs employees are trying to intimidate people into giving up their rights, thereby gaining entry: “They’re going to do whatever they have to do, whether it’s lawful or not.”
Both Ms. Ten Eyck and Ms. Powers asserted that it was not true that immigrants steal jobs from American workers. Said Ms. Powers:
“It’s not like domestic workers in America are lining up for these jobs — they’re not. In some areas, they’re having aggressive hiring campaigns, and they’re still not getting enough workers.”
A 67-year-old Jamaican H-2A seasonal worker who has been working farms since 1987 told the reporter that he appreciated the work and that it was important to him to make money to send home, but he added that his employers only wanted to get work out of him, that he knew he was not appreciated. He talked of co-workers becoming covered with welts after being pressured to go into the fields a day after they had been sprayed with pesticides. He, himself, suffered a foot injury with torn flesh and he went without pay until he recovered.
According to a study prepared by the Office of the New York State Comptroller, between 2012 and 2022, nearly 14% of New York farms closed operations.
Economically, the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve Bank released a study in which it was anticipated that deporting foreign-born workers as planned could drop the nation’s GDP growth by as much as 0.8% this year.
According to Ms. Powers: “[F]ewer employers making fewer products on fewer farms, you’re going to see higher grocery prices. That’s unavoidable.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
In a fever-dream induced state of fantasy, Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins recently claimed that any shortage in farm workers, among others, caused by removal of immigrants could be covered by those 34 million among us who currently meet the medical qualifications to receive Medicaid benefits. Those 34 million people include the children who have lost a parent, children who are autistic, children and adults who are intellectually disabled, the elderly among us who qualify for benefits, those who have been severely injured in car accidents and falls, those who have lost limbs, Just add work requirements for those older children, and the disabled, and the youngest of the elderly who currently receive benefits, and the shortage farmworker problem would be solved, even though the majority of those on Medicaid already work; they just don’t do farm work.
Here’s the truth. You can threaten disabled people with loss of benefits, and they are still not going to suddenly be physically able to do the hard work necessary to pick crops, gather apples, or milk thousands of cows twice a day. This type of work is exceptionally hard work and not everyone can do it when even in the best of health.
If this won’t prove to the gullible among us that we have a professional lying class at the top of one of our two political parties, what will? They just say things and expect people do believe their deceptions.
As a second point, it has been 30 years since Congress significantly rewrote the immigration statutes. A lot has changed in 30 years. Yes, the BBB provided more funding to ICE and Customs, but it did not remake the old immigration laws. If only a certain number of immigrants can be accepted to enter the country each year under the terms of the outdated statutes, and if businesses need millions more workers each year than the law permits, either we stifle our economy or we let in more workers. Simple as that.
Laurel says
Here you are, maga:
“”Donald Trump posted on Saturday that he is giving “serious consideration” to revoking Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship.
The president posted on Truth Social, “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!””
– Yahoo News
Rosie O’Donnell was born in New York. If Trump personally doesn’t like you, the hell with the Constitution.
This is want you want? Is this Making America Great Again? Tell me about how America was like this before, and why you support this tyranny?
Explain it to me Dennis.
Explain it to me Ed P.
Explain it to me JimboXYZ.
Explain it to me Jake from state farm.
Explain it to me Republicans.
Explain it to me, maga.
Go ahead, make an excuse for this. Just more “bluster”? Let’s see how this flies.
My God, what in the hell are y’all thinking?
Doug says
Why hasn’t the us Marshalls service arrested the Orange treason yet? Have all the agencies been totally corrupted by fascist? Peoples rights are being been taken without warning? Concentration camps are open for business! How many people that have been stolen are missing or haven’t been heard from? Where are all the so called Christians that helped elect the orange treason? Awful silent as they strip away food assistance to further enrich the wealthiest people on the planet.
The dude says
Why was a 20 year old from Puerto Rico taking this oath when she was already a US citizen?
Did your story happen before 1917 or something?
Skibum says
To A Concerned Observer… the 20 year old from Puerto Rico, her home country as she indicated, must have ALREADY been a U.S. Citizen if she was Puerto Rican, so she would never have gone through a naturalization process to become a citizen of the U.S.as you described that occurrence. I think you must be mistaken about your memory of what actually happened!