The United States Department of Justice has issued a memo directing its civil division lawyers to prioritise efforts to strip citizenship from naturalised Americans involved in criminal or fraudulent activity. This process, known as denaturalisation, applies to individuals who gained US citizenship through naturalisation rather than birth.
The directive, published on June 11 on the DOJ’s website, states that attorneys should focus on cases where citizenship was obtained by hiding important facts or through deliberate lies during the naturalisation process.
The memo lists several categories of people likely to be targeted. These include individuals linked to terrorism, espionage, or the illegal export of sensitive US technology, as well as those involved in war crimes, torture, or serious human rights violations. Other high-priority targets are naturalised citizens who failed to disclose past felonies, supported gangs or drug cartels, or were connected to human trafficking, sexual offences, or violent crimes.
The department also flagged financial crimes, including COVID-era PPP loan fraud, Medicare and Medicaid scams, and fraud against private companies. Anyone found to have obtained citizenship through corruption or under investigation for related crimes may also face legal action.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, as of 2023, over 25 million people have become US citizens through naturalisation. The DOJ’s move could place many of them at risk if they fall into any of the flagged categories.
This policy shift follows a Supreme Court decision that sided with the former administration of President Donald Trump. The ruling stated that federal judges had exceeded their authority by blocking an executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship — the rule granting automatic citizenship to anyone born in the US. Although the constitutionality of the order wasn’t decided, the ruling has given the administration room to revisit and possibly enforce the controversial policy.
