It is recognised in US law that the government may not take away a naturalized person’s citizenship except in cases of fraud or error on a naturalization application. The Supreme Court has clearly established that unless citizenship was unlawfully procured, denaturalization is unconstitutional. However, a memo issued by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in June attempts to broaden the grounds for denaturalization, potentially putting over 24.5 million naturalized US citizens at risk.

The memo states that the current US administration has directed the DoJ’s Civil Division to “advance the administration’s policy objectives”, among which is “prioritizing denaturalization”. Under this directive, the division is to investigate individuals who either “illegally procured” or “conceal[ed] a material fact” in their naturalization applications. The text outlines 10 “categories” of priority cases, which include individuals who “pose a potential danger to national security”; who “engaged in various forms of financial fraud”, including fraud associated with the Medicaid and Medicare healthcare programmes; and “any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue”.

The memo could broaden the scope of grounds previously used for denaturalization and will likely face legal challenge. Since September, the DoJ has filed denaturalization complaints against individuals for reasons such as providing false testimony and concealing identity, and for other crimes. In November, following a DoJ complaint filed in August, a US judge revoked the citizenship of a naturalized individual who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud. President Donald Trump, in a recent post on Truth Social, reaffirmed his commitment to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquillity” and further stated, on November 30, in response to a shooting in Washington, DC, “if I have the power to do it… I would denaturalize, absolutely”.**

The DoJ memo represents a departure from 50 years of US policy between 1967 and mid-June 2017 – nearly five months into Donald Trump’s first term as president. During this period, the practice of citizenship stripping was rare and used primarily in extreme cases, such as for war criminals. In contrast, between 1906 and 1967, the US denaturalized more citizens than any other democracy. Several news and academic sources have highlighted what some see as similar motivations behind the current administration’s directive and past initiatives. It is also important to note that the DoJ memo will afford a discretion that could be much wider than in the past.

The original purpose of denaturalization in the US, put into force by the........

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