The Trump administration has opened 34 denaturalization cases and revoked the citizenship of 11 naturalized Americans since January, part of an escalation that Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said is needed because current law makes it too difficult to strip citizenship from those who committed fraud during the naturalization process.
“When someone lies during that [naturalization] process, conceals material facts, hides criminal conduct, masks allegiance to a foreign enemy or swears loyalty with mental reservation, he commits fraud against the United States,” said Schmitt, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution.
Between 1990 and 2017 the government opened an average of 11 denaturalization cases per year, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is now reviewing 100 to 200 denaturalization cases per month.
A June 2025 memo from the Department of Justice instructed government attorneys to expand the campaign beyond past practice, which mainly targeted individuals with links to terrorist organizations or those found guilty of war crimes, to include cases involving fraud or sex crimes. The memo later added a broad instruction to pursue “any other cases … that the division deems to be sufficiently important.”
Democrats on the subcommittee opposed the expansion and said the effort targets immigrants more broadly than its stated focus on fraud.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a naturalized citizen, called the push unconstitutional. “It’s more than astounding, it should be unconstitutional,” Hirono said. “Let’s be clear. This has never been about law and order for the Republicans. This is all about getting immigrants. It’s about terrorizing immigrant communities.”
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the subcommittee, said he supports denaturalizing citizens who committed fraud during the naturalization process but opposes punishing naturalized citizens for conduct that occurs after they become citizens.
“I support that, but I don’t agree that naturalized citizens should be punished for something that happens after they become a citizen,” Welch said. “It’s the view of the Supreme Court. So, we do not have to reach too far back in our nation’s history to see that a familiar cycle is unfolding.”
Cassandra Robertson, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, said the administration is seeking to normalize the idea of denaturalization so it can later expand the campaign further.
“The idea is to try to normalize the idea of denaturalization so that they can focus efforts against people who are kind of universally condemned,” Robertson said. “Then it’ll be a smaller step to start using denaturalization against other people.”
Robertson said she has spoken to many naturalized citizens who now fear their citizenship may be revoked over actions such as criticizing the government. She cited growing attacks from lawmakers to denaturalize public figures including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
David Leopold, an immigration attorney in Cleveland and former president of the American Immigration Attorney’s Association, said he sees similar fears among his naturalized clients. He said some clients have been stopped at airports and asked about their immigration history despite holding U.S. citizenship.
“This administration has succeeded in doing what a lot of authoritarian governments do, and that is spreading fear,” Leopold said.
Welch said the denaturalization push advances the administration’s broader deportation goals.
“The administration has — it is absolutely clear — a very radical goal. And that is mass deportation of immigrants from our country,” Welch said. “It’s doing real damage to our country, and as part of that effort, we’ve seen the abusive lengths that this administration is willing to go to.”
In January, Schmitt, supported by Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., introduced the SCAM Act, which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify the denaturalization process. The bill would lengthen the statute of limitations from five to 10 years for revoking the citizenship status of naturalized Americans. The bill has not yet faced a vote.