DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship
2025/07/02 2 Comments
One thing if crimes etc before becoming a citizen, another if it is post-citizenship crime etc:
The Justice Department is aggressively prioritizing efforts to strip some Americans of their U.S. citizenship.
Department leadership is directing its attorneys to prioritize denaturalization in cases involving naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes — and giving district attorneys wider discretion on when to pursue this tactic, according to a June 11 memo published online. The move is aimed at U.S. citizens who were not born in the country; according to data from 2023, close to 25 million immigrants were naturalized citizens.
At least one person has already been denaturalized in recent weeks. On June 13, a judge ordered the revocation of the citizenship of Elliott Duke, who uses they/them pronouns. Duke is an American military veteran originally from the U.K. who was convicted for distributing child sexual abuse material — something they later admitted they were doing prior to becoming a U.S. citizen.
Denaturalization is a tactic that was heavily used during the McCarthy era of the late 1940’s and the early 1950’s and one that was expanded during the Obama administration and grew further during President Trump’s first term. It’s meant to strip citizenship from those who may have lied about their criminal convictions or membership in illegal groups like the Nazi party, or communists during McCarthyism, on their citizenship applications.
Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate wrote in the memo that pursuing denaturalization will be among the agency’s top five enforcement priorities for the civil rights division.
“The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence,” he said.
The focus on denaturalization is just the latest step by the Trump administration to reshape the nation’s immigration system across all levels of government, turning it into a major focus across multiple federal agencies. That has come with redefining who is let into the United States or has the right to be an American. Since his return to office, the president has sought to end birthright citizenship and scale back refugee programs.
But immigration law experts expressed serious concerns about the effort’s constitutionality, and how this could impact families of naturalized citizens.
Source: DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
I don’t think it is at odds with the principles of liberal democracy to seek to strip a person of their naturalized citizenship upon discovery that they have committed a crime. The only question is what should the legal standard. If they were charged with the crime, the standard would be proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But since the truth of their having committed the crime is being used as an auxiliary piece of evidence in a denaturalization hearing, the standard could be the civil standard, balance of probabilities. By natural law, a person is entitled to citizenship in the country of birth, but not to other citizenships in countries to which they migrate or seek refuge.
I think it is legitimate to distinguish between pre-citizenship and post-citizenship crime etc. The latter takes place after a government has granted citizenship and thus has punishment responsibility for any crimes committed. The classic example of “outsourcing” punishment is the case of “Jihadi” Jack Letts, who was brought up and raised in the UK but because his mother is Canadian, the UK revoked his UK citizenship and thus tried to make him Canada’s problem.