The United States has concluded plans to strip citizenship from certain naturalised Americans under a new Justice Department directive prioritising civil denaturalisation cases.
A memo, dated 11 June and reported by The Guardian on Monday, instructs federal attorneys to target individuals who either “illegally procured” their naturalisation or did so through “concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.”
Unlike criminal trials, those facing civil denaturalisation are not entitled to an attorney, and the government faces a lower burden of proof.
The move could affect some of the estimated 25 million US citizens who immigrated after being born abroad. The memo outlines ten priority categories, including people involved “in the commission of war crimes, extrajudicial killings, or other serious human rights abuses … [and] naturalised criminals, gang members, or, indeed, any individuals convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the US.”
The Justice Department’s civil rights division is leading the charge, while also advancing other policy objectives like ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes within government and halting transgender treatments.
Meanwhile, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has recorded its 13th in-custody death for the fiscal year that began in October 2024 — surpassing the twelve deaths reported during the entire previous fiscal year.
Tensions within the civil rights division continue to grow. On Friday, Jim Ryan, president of the University of Virginia, resigned amid an investigation by the Justice Department into the university’s DEI programmes and its consideration of race and ethnicity in scholarships.
The Justice Department also recently sued fifteen US district attorneys in Maryland over an order blocking the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removal.
A report by National Public Radio revealed that around 250 attorneys — roughly 70% of the division’s lawyers — have left since January as its mission to combat racial discrimination shifts under the administration’s new priorities.
At least one person has already been denaturalised. On 13 June, a judge revoked the citizenship of Elliott Duke, a US military veteran originally from the UK, who was convicted of distributing child sexual abuse material and failed to disclose it during his naturalisation process.
“It is kind of, in a way, trying to create a second class of US citizens,” said Sameera Hafiz, policy director of the Immigration Legal Resource Center, to NPR, warning that civil denaturalisation removes key rights and makes the process easier for the government.
