For most of the past three decades, the U.S. government stripped citizenship from roughly a dozen people a year. The Justice Department now says it wants 100 to 200 cases a month.
What Happened
In June 2025, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate issued a memo listing denaturalization among the Justice Department’s top five civil enforcement priorities. The department has since set an internal target of 100 to 200 denaturalization cases per month, according to reporting compiled by the Migration Policy Institute and NBC News.
The scale of the shift is easier to see in historical terms. Between 1990 and 2017, the government opened an average of 11 denaturalization cases a year, according to the Migration Policy Institute. During the first Trump administration that rose to roughly 25 a year. The current target is an order of magnitude beyond either figure.
The Legal Limits Have Not Changed
Denaturalization is difficult by design. Only a federal court can revoke citizenship, and the government carries a heavy burden of proof. Cases generally require showing that citizenship was obtained through fraud or by concealing a material fact.
The Supreme Court reinforced that limit in Maslenjak v. United States, ruling unanimously that the government cannot strip citizenship over a false statement unless the lie actually influenced the decision to grant it.
More Read
Immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta, quoted by Forbes on July 29, said the administration has not moved against perceived irregularities in the labor certification process because “the government has a heavy burden.”
Who Is Affected
Naturalized U.S. citizens, particularly those whose original applications touched on criminal history questions, prior removal orders, name or identity discrepancies, or asylum claims that were later contested.
The effect reaches further in practice. Forbes and NPR have reported that naturalization denial rates have risen and that processing has slowed as scrutiny increases, which means people still in the pipeline feel the shift too.
More Read
What This Means for You
Do not panic. A stated goal is not a filing rate, and federal courts, not agencies, decide these cases. The legal standard remains demanding, and it has been tested at the Supreme Court.
Locate your records now. Keep your naturalization certificate, your Form N-400, and copies of everything you submitted. If a case is ever opened, your own file is your first line of defense.
Answer future government questions carefully and consistently. Inconsistencies between old filings and new ones are exactly what these cases are built on.
If you receive any contact from the Justice Department or DHS about your naturalization, speak with an immigration attorney before responding. Do not try to explain your way out of it alone.
Be alert for citizenship review scams. Fraud schemes reliably follow headlines like these.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice.
More Read
What Comes Next
Watch the filing numbers rather than the rhetoric. The gap between a target of 100 to 200 cases a month and the number of cases actually filed in federal court is the clearest measure of whether this becomes a real shift or stays an announcement.
Follow @DailyImmigrant for accurate, timely immigration news and updates every day.
