“They will have to answer”: DOJ identified 384 naturalized individuals for citizenship revocation in 2026
Translated from Spanish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.
TLDR
- The U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing the revocation of citizenship for 384 individuals who obtained naturalization fraudulently.
- This initiative, identified under the Trump administration, aims to accelerate denaturalization processes.
- Legal experts express concerns that this could be used to persecute political opponents and that naturalized citizens may not have the same rights as native-born citizens.
The U.S. Department of Justice has initiated a significant move to revoke citizenship for 384 individuals, alleging fraudulent naturalization. This aggressive stance, reportedly a priority for the former Trump administration, signals a heightened effort to strip citizenship from those deemed to have circumvented the legal process. The sheer volume of cases being pursued, described as the "largest volume of denaturalization referrals in history," underscores the administration's commitment to this objective.
The Department of Justice is completely focused on eradicating criminal aliens who defraud the naturalization process.
While the DOJ frames this as a necessary measure against those who "defraud the naturalization process," concerns are being raised by legal experts. As reported by The New York Times, the official reasons for this specific measure remain undisclosed, fueling speculation. However, the broader implications are significant. The process of denaturalization, typically lengthy and requiring substantial evidence presented before a federal judge, is being streamlined.
Citizenship fraud is a serious crime; whoever has broken the law and obtained citizenship through fraud and deception will have to answer for it.
This accelerated approach has drawn criticism, with some, like University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost, warning that such powers have historically been used to target political opponents. The implication is that naturalized citizens might be subjected to a different standard, lacking the same rights and stability as those born in the U.S. This raises fundamental questions about the integrity of the citizenship process and the equal treatment of all citizens under the law, a perspective that resonates deeply within the discourse on immigration and civil rights in the United States.
The government has used this power in the past to persecute people they consider political opponents.
DistantNews Editorial
Originally published by La Nación in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.
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