Trump Administration citizenship crackdown explained: Who is at risk for denaturalization?

The Trump Administration has initiated an aggressive new push to denaturalize U.S. citizenship for hundreds of foreign-born Americans.

The move can place millions of naturalized citizens in a state of permanent vulnerability.

As per the Justice Department, around 384 individuals have been identified at risk of denaturalization in the first wave.

These cases will be pursued by 39 U.S. attorneys’ offices, making history. Between 1990 and 2017, only 11 cases per year on average were pursued by the prosecutors.

The citizenship crackdown is supported by the federal law, which states that the U.S. government can seek denaturalization if citizenship was obtained fraudulently.

The government need to prove to the federal judge that an individual either illegally procured citizenship via failing to adhere to basic legal requirement or concealed facts while naturalization process.

Who is at risk?

As per the June 2025 Justice Department memorandum, prosecutors are instructed to “maximally pursue” denaturalization cases across ten priority categories, including:

• Individuals who pose national security threats (involved in terrorism, espionage, or hostile foreign governments)
• War crimes and human rights violators (involved in genocide, torture, or extrajudicial killings before acquiring U.S. citizenship)
• Immigration fraud (involved in fake marriages, fraudulent documents, or lying about identity)
• Criminal convictions (involved in aggravated felonies, sex crimes, or violent offenses)
• Procurement fraud (involved in fraud related to military service or employment-based green cards)
• Financial fraud (involving tax fraud, money laundering, or bank fraud schemes)
• Name and identity fraud (multiple names or aliases that can prove intentional concealment, even due to translation errors)
• Deportation history (previously deported from another country under a different identity)
• Associated with banned organizations (past members of communist parties, Nazi organizations, or identified terrorist groups)
• Any other cases deemed “sufficiently important” (any case that has alarmed legal experts)

The last category gives prosecutors limitless discretion to identify any case as “sufficiently important.”