Denaturalization — The Citizenship Revocation Machine¶

Classification: PUBLIC
Date: 2026-02-13
Confidence: HIGH
Status: ACTIVE — Program expanding; quotas in effect
Author: oilcloth

Summary¶

The Trump administration is building a bureaucratic machine to strip U.S. citizenship from naturalized Americans at an unprecedented scale. Under new guidance issued in late 2025, each USCIS field office has been directed to produce 100 to 200 denaturalization case referrals per month — a volume that dwarfs the entire modern history of citizenship revocation.

Between 1990 and 2017, the United States averaged approximately 11 denaturalization cases per year. During Trump's first term (2017–2021), approximately 170 cases were sent to court over four years. The new program targets thousands per year.

This is not immigration enforcement. This is a program to create a permanent class of second-class Americans — citizens who can be investigated, denaturalized, and deported at any time, based on quotas rather than evidence.

How Denaturalization Works¶

The Legal Mechanism¶

Under U.S. law (8 U.S.C. § 1451), citizenship cannot be revoked by executive order or administrative action. Only a federal court can strip citizenship, and the government must meet the highest evidentiary standard in civil law — "clear, convincing, and unequivocal" evidence.

There are two paths to denaturalization:

Path	Standard	Filed By	Basis
Civil	Clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence	DOJ Civil Division	Citizenship obtained through fraud or material misrepresentation
Criminal	Beyond a reasonable doubt	DOJ Criminal Division	Citizenship obtained through knowing, willful fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1425)

What Counts as "Fraud"¶

The government must prove that citizenship was obtained through:

Illegal procurement — The applicant did not meet the statutory requirements for naturalization (e.g., residency requirements, "good moral character")
Concealment of a material fact — The applicant deliberately hid information that would have prevented naturalization (e.g., a serious criminal record)
Willful misrepresentation — The applicant lied on their naturalization application about a material fact

Critical distinction: Minor errors on applications — misspelling a former address, forgetting a brief trip abroad, misremembering a date — are not grounds for denaturalization. The misrepresentation must be "material," meaning it would have made a difference in the naturalization decision.

The Process¶

USCIS review — Field office identifies potential cases from naturalization files
USCIS referral — Case referred to the DOJ Office of Immigration Litigation
DOJ review — DOJ attorneys evaluate whether the case meets the legal standard
Federal court filing — DOJ files a civil complaint in federal district court
Trial — The government must prove its case; the citizen has full due process rights
Appeal — If denaturalized, the citizen can appeal through the federal court system
Consequences — If citizenship is revoked, the person reverts to lawful permanent resident status and may then face deportation proceedings

The Quota System¶

USCIS Field Office Targets¶

Under guidance issued in late 2025, USCIS field offices have been directed to:

Provide 100 to 200 denaturalization case referrals per month
USCIS has dispatched experts to field offices nationwide to review naturalization files
Staff have been reassigned from processing new applications to hunting for denaturalization targets

Scale of the Problem¶

Metric	Number
Total naturalized U.S. citizens	~26 million
New naturalizations per year (2024)	~800,000
Historical avg. denaturalization cases/year (1990–2017)	~11
Trump first term total (2017–2021)	~170
Biden administration (2021–2025)	~120
New monthly target per field office	100–200
USCIS field offices	88
Potential annual volume if fully implemented	105,600–211,200 referrals

Former DHS official Morgan Bailey has stated it would be "virtually impossible" for agencies to process the volume of cases demanded by the guidance.

The Quota Danger¶

Arbitrary numerical targets create perverse incentives:

Pressure to meet quotas rather than exercise careful judgment
Risk of targeting minor application errors that don't meet the legal standard
Disproportionate impact on communities where naturalization applications are most common
Resources diverted from processing new applications, creating backlogs

Historical Context¶

Supreme Court Precedent¶

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that citizenship is a fundamental right that cannot be taken lightly:

Schneiderman v. United States (1943) — Struck down denaturalization of a Russian-born man over Communist Party ties. Established that the government bears a "heavy burden" to revoke citizenship. Justice Murphy wrote that denaturalization must not become "a ready weapon for use by one political faction against another."
Baumgartner v. United States (1944) — Court warned against using denaturalization as "a ready instrument for political persecutions."
Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) — Established that citizenship cannot be involuntarily revoked without the citizen's consent, except through the legal denaturalization process.

Operation Janus¶

In 2016, a DHS Inspector General report revealed that approximately 315,000 people had been naturalized despite unresolved fingerprint issues in their immigration files. The Obama administration launched Operation Janus to review these cases.

Trump's first-term denaturalization efforts grew out of Operation Janus, but expanded the scope far beyond the original fingerprint discrepancies.

Who Is Targeted¶

Top Countries of Origin for Naturalized Citizens¶

Country	Naturalized Citizens
Mexico	Largest group
India	—
Philippines	—
Dominican Republic	—
Vietnam	—

Disproportionate Impact¶

The denaturalization program disproportionately affects:

Latino communities — Largest naturalized population, already targeted by ICE enforcement
Muslim-majority countries — Historical targeting since the first Trump administration
Communities with language barriers — More likely to have made errors on applications
Elderly citizens — Naturalized decades ago when documentation standards differed

The Chilling Effect¶

The program sends a message to all 26 million naturalized Americans: your citizenship is conditional. Effects include:

Naturalization applications declining as legal residents fear future targeting
Naturalized citizens afraid to travel, vote, or engage with government agencies
Community organizations reporting increased anxiety and withdrawal
Lawyers advising clients to review decades-old applications for any discrepancies

Connection to Broader Citizenship Attacks¶

Birthright Citizenship¶

Denaturalization is one prong of a broader effort to redefine who counts as American:

Denaturalization — Stripping citizenship from naturalized Americans (this program)
Birthright citizenship executive order — Attempting to end automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents (challenged; before SCOTUS)
Passport revocation — Using passport denial as a de facto citizenship challenge
SAVE Act — Requiring citizenship documentation to register to vote, creating a verification infrastructure tied to DHS databases

Together, these programs create a system where citizenship is no longer a settled status but an ongoing condition subject to government review — particularly for people who are not white, not native-born, or not politically aligned with the administration.

The Bureaucratic Machinery¶

The Shumate Memo (June 11, 2025)¶

On June 11, 2025, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate issued an internal DOJ memorandum elevating denaturalization to one of the Civil Division's top five enforcement priorities for FY2026. The memo directs attorneys to "prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings."

The five enforcement priorities outlined:
1. Affirmative litigation against DEI mandates
2. Combating antisemitism
3. Investigating gender transition procedures on minors
4. Challenging sanctuary jurisdiction policies
5. Denaturalization

Key Agencies and Officials¶

Entity	Role
USCIS	Identifies and refers cases; dispatching reviewers to field offices
DOJ Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL)	Manages denaturalization lawsuits within the Civil Division
DOJ Denaturalization Section	Created February 2020, disbanded under Biden, effectively reconstituted
Brett Shumate	Assistant AG, signed the enforcement priority memo
Stephen Miller	Senior Advisor, policy architect
Kristi Noem	DHS Secretary, enforcement direction
Tom Homan	Border Czar, enforcement operations
Pam Bondi	Attorney General, DOJ direction

Project 2025 Blueprint¶

The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 specifically calls for denaturalization on pages 143–144, advocating for "re-implementation of the USCIS Denaturalization Unit" to identify and prosecute cases. The current program follows this blueprint directly.

Critical Legal Precedent: Maslenjak v. United States (2017)¶

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a naturalized citizen cannot lose citizenship for a lie or omission unless the government proves the falsehood was "material" — meaning it actually made a difference in the decision to grant citizenship. Minor mistakes, omissions, or irrelevant lies are not enough.

However, circuit courts have applied this unevenly — the Fourth Circuit has held that false statements "no matter how minor" can support denaturalization, while the Tenth Circuit has rejected immaterial misstatements as grounds.

No Statute of Limitations¶

Civil denaturalization cases have no statute of limitations. The government can investigate a naturalization that occurred 30, 40, or 50 years ago. Combined with quota pressure, this creates a system where decades-old files become targets.

No Right to Appointed Counsel¶

Unlike criminal proceedings, civil denaturalization defendants have no right to appointed counsel. Citizens facing the loss of their most fundamental right must hire their own lawyer or represent themselves.

Administration Statements¶

USCIS spokesperson: "We maintain a zero-tolerance policy towards fraud in the naturalization process and will pursue denaturalization proceedings for any individual who lied or misrepresented themselves."

Trump (Thanksgiving 2025 Truth Social post): He would "denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility."

Trump directive to DOJ (summer 2025): "Maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings."

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, American Immigration Council: "Setting a quota for denaturalization is vicious and cruel, and designed to send a message of fear."

Sarah Pierce, former USCIS official: "Requiring monthly quotas that are 10 times higher than the total annual number of denaturalizations in recent years turns a serious and rare tool into a blunt instrument."

LatinoJustice PRLDEF: The policy "will not only target Latinos and others in the US directly, but it will also dramatically increase fear in our communities and reinforce the xenophobic idea that non-white naturalized citizens should be targeted for unending surveillance and suspicion."

Asian Law Caucus: "Denaturalization has morphed into a dragnet system that is separating families and disproportionately targeting Black and Muslim citizens who are deeply rooted in their communities after decades living in the United States."

Legal Challenges¶

Constitutional Arguments¶

Due Process (5th Amendment) — Quota-driven denaturalization may violate due process by prioritizing volume over evidence
Equal Protection (14th Amendment) — Disproportionate targeting of specific national origins or ethnic groups
Establishment Clause (1st Amendment) — Targeting citizens from Muslim-majority countries

Organizations Opposing¶

ACLU — Published fact sheet on denaturalization risks; litigation likely
Brennan Center for Justice — Published analysis of "Trump's Push to Redefine Who Counts as American"
National Immigration Law Center
American Immigration Lawyers Association