Trump Vows To Revoke Citizenship Of Naturalized Immigrants Convicted Of Fraud
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration will move to revoke the citizenship of naturalized immigrants who are convicted of defrauding American citizens, signaling an expansion of federal denaturalization efforts.
“We’re also going to revoke the citizenship of any naturalized immigrant from Somalia or anywhere else who is convicted of defrauding our citizens,” Trump said during remarks at the Detroit Economic Club.
The statement comes as the Department of Justice announced the creation of a new section dedicated to investigating, prosecuting, and pursuing denaturalization cases. The move follows the formation of an earlier denaturalization task force in 2018 during Trump’s first term.
According to the DOJ, the new section will prioritize individuals who “illegally procured” citizenship or concealed “a material fact” during the naturalization process. Officials said the office would focus on serious violations of law, including cases involving terrorism, war crimes, sex offenses, and significant financial fraud.
Denaturalization — the legal process of revoking citizenship — is permitted under U.S. law if citizenship was unlawfully obtained through fraud or material misrepresentation.
The Supreme Court has held that citizenship cannot be stripped unless it was illegally procured, establishing a high evidentiary standard requiring “clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence.”
Historically, denaturalization has been rare.
For decades after a 1967 Supreme Court decision limited the practice to cases involving fraud or error in the naturalization process, the federal government typically filed only about a dozen denaturalization cases per year.
That pace began to shift in the late 2000s.
In 2008, the Obama administration launched “Operation Janus,” a program that used digitized fingerprint records to identify individuals who had been ordered deported under one identity but later naturalized under another.
The Trump administration expanded those efforts, reviewing more than 700,000 naturalization files and increasing the number of cases filed in federal court.
In 2017, the Justice Department filed 25 denaturalization cases, followed by another 20 during the first half of 2018 — a marked increase from prior decades.
In January 2018, DOJ officials said they expected to pursue roughly 1,600 denaturalization cases and planned to hire additional attorneys and immigration officers to support the initiative.
The newly announced section formalizes and potentially expands that approach. A recent DOJ memo instructs the Civil Division to “advance the administration’s policy objectives,” including “prioritizing denaturalization.”
The memo outlines 10 categories of priority cases, including individuals who pose “a potential danger to national security,” engaged in “various forms of financial fraud,” or whose cases are otherwise deemed “sufficiently important to pursue.”
Legal scholars note that the definition of fraud in the naturalization context has traditionally focused on whether an applicant willfully misrepresented or concealed facts that would have affected the outcome of the citizenship application.
Questions have arisen about how broadly newer interpretations might extend, particularly if post-naturalization criminal conduct unrelated to immigration history becomes a basis for review.
The administration has also emphasized financial fraud as a priority area. The DOJ memo specifically references Medicaid and Medicare fraud, as well as loan fraud. While serious financial crimes can result in criminal prosecution, legal experts debate whether such offenses — if not tied to misrepresentations made during the naturalization process — meet the constitutional standard required to revoke citizenship.
Trump has publicly reinforced his support for aggressive enforcement. In a recent Truth Social post, he pledged to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility.”
The broader historical context adds weight to the debate. In the early 20th century, denaturalization was sometimes used against political dissidents under provisions requiring “good moral character” and attachment to constitutional principles.
That era ended after Supreme Court rulings in the 1940s and 1960s curtailed the practice, establishing strict constitutional protections for naturalized citizens.
The Justice Department’s new office is expected to begin reviewing cases immediately. Any denaturalization action must proceed through federal court, where judges will evaluate whether the government has met the constitutional standard.
Top DHS Special Agent And His Wife Found Dead
A Department of Homeland Security special agent and his wife were found dead in their New Jersey home in what appears to be a murder-suicide, prosecutors said.
Police in Sayreville responded to the couple’s home on Glynn Court around 8 p.m. July 3 and found Kelly Latauro, 46, dead inside the residence, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Her husband, 52-year-old Christopher Latauro, was discovered dead in the backyard.
Both appear to have been shot.
Authorities said Christopher is believed to be the shooter and the case is being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Police told residents to keep away from Glynn Court, from Deerfield Road to Scarlet Drive, briefly because of police activity.
The area was reopened about 40 minutes later, but police remained on scene.
According to NJ101.5, citing DHS records from 2019 and 2020, Christopher was a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security.
Authorities have not said what may have sparked the violence.
Kelly’s sister-in-law Robyn Perlman-Spencer confirmed her death in a Facebook post on July 7, remembering her in a heartbreaking tribute.
“As many of you may now know, my beautiful sister in law Kelly Iatauro was senselessly and suddenly taken from us on Friday. Kelly was a bright light- kind, thoughtful, hysterical, inappropriate, and just one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. She left a lasting impression on anyone that was lucky enough to know her,” Robyn wrote in part.
Sayreville police confirmed officers responded to the Glynn Court residence on July 3 and found both people dead of gunshot wounds.
The incident is being treated as a murder-suicide, and Christopher is suspected to be the shooter, the spokesperson said.
The Department of Homeland Security and Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment on the case.
What began as a heavy police response to a deadly scene left two people dead and the quiet Middlesex County neighborhood stunned.
Investigators are still trying to piece together what happened inside the home leading up to the gunfire.
Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made headlines last week with an election-related announcement.
Mullin on Friday said officials who don’t cooperate with the administration’s election security efforts may be slapped with fines — and potentially prison time.
“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections — and they chose not to — then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said during a press conference at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Mullin also promised DHS would work to “speed up our security enhancements” for states.
He vowed to hold up federal election security grants until state officials took steps the administration demanded, including running their voter registration lists through a system that checks for non-citizen voters on the rolls.
Mullin made his comments after President Donald Trump’s primetime address on election security Thursday night, when he repeated already known concerns about the security of voting systems, alleged Chinese efforts to get into voter rolls, and aired old gripes about the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In his remarks on Friday, the DHS secretary focused on DHS’s work with states to secure election systems and scrub voter registration rolls for fraud and concerns about noncitizen voting.
The Justice Department also sent letters this month threatening prosecution to election officials across the country if they don’t remove noncitizens from their voter rolls.
On Friday, Mullin seemed to suggest that the agency was able to estimate the numbers using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and said 23 states are already working with DHS to analyze voter rolls.
And he criticized the legal challenges that are hindering the administration’s efforts: Last month, a judge blocked the Trump administration from creating a database of information about Americans, including Social Security numbers and citizenship status.
