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DOJ’s Denaturalization Push Will Overwhelm Its Already Understaffed Attorneys

Denaturalization won’t help secure the border or send criminals to prison. But it will divert DOJ lawyers from their mission-critical work and create a second-class category of citizenship.

Stacey Young May 18 ? Guest post

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On May 8, the Justice Department announced that it filed 12 civil denaturalization lawsuits and will soon file over 370 more. It will assign cases to lawyers in 39 U.S. Attorney’s Offices. The administration also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to start referring upward of 200 denaturalization cases a month to DOJ.

This is – in short – really dumb.

Civil denaturalization won’t help secure the border. It won’t send criminals to prison. It won’t even advance this administration’s goal of reducing the number of undocumented immigrants in the country. What it will do is further divert DOJ lawyers from their mission-critical work, driving even more of them to leave.

It will also stoke fear among millions of naturalized Americans and create a second-class category of citizenship – which may well be the point of this effort.

Background on Civil Denaturalization

The civil denaturalization statute – 8 U.S.C. § 1451 – is normally enforced by litigators in DOJ’s Civil Division, where I spent 13 years of my DOJ career. Historically, DOJ most often filed cases to address war criminals who failed to disclose their acts during the naturalization process.

That changed early during the Obama administration, when – for reasons I never quite understood – my former office decided to enforce the law more broadly. Enforcement under Obama expanded further with Operation Janus, an effort DHS initiated after identifying what it believed was widespread fraud. During President Trump’s first term, DOJ created a Denaturalization Section within the Civil Division that worked on these cases exclusively.

Broadening enforcement wasn’t hard to do because the law itself is broad. It permits denaturalization if individuals procured naturalization illegally, like if they weren’t lawfully admitted to the country or lacked the requisite good moral character at the time of naturalization. It also allows for stripping U.S. citizenship from people who obtained naturalization by concealing or willfully misrepresenting a material fact during the process.

That last category – concealing or willfully misrepresenting a material fact – leaves many naturalized citizens vulnerable, especially since it’s one of the only federal laws that lacks a statute of limitations.

For example, until 1990, queer immigrants (or, using the government’s loathsome language from the time, “aliens afflicted with sexual deviation”) were prohibited from naturalizing. So, a gay person who didn’t disclose their sexuality nearly 40 years ago could theoretically be subject to denaturalization today.

Someone could also be accused of concealment or misrepresentation based on this question on the application (N-400): “Have you EVER committed, agreed to commit, asked someone else to commit, helped commit, or tried to commit a crime or offense for which you were NOT arrested?” (emphasis in original). You can imagine someone failing to reveal that they once dabbled with marijuana or asked a friend to steal a candy bar – omissions that, if found to have the “natural tendency to affect” the naturalization decision, could lead to denaturalization.

But while it can be easy to find a legal basis for denaturalization, actually denaturalizing someone is hard. These aren’t routine administrative cases. They’re filed in Article III district courts and can take years to litigate. It can be tricky to serve defendants; there can be massive amounts of evidence and intensive discovery; and cases often go to trial, and up on appeal.

These cases are also tough to ultimately win. Instead of the normal “preponderance of the evidence” burden in civil cases, denaturalization cases are litigated under the “clear, unequivocal, and convincing” standard, which is similar to the criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The Supreme Court in Schneiderman v. United States required this because “the priceless benefits that derive” from citizenship “should not be taken away without the clearest sort of justification and proof.”

Even if DOJ does win, denaturalized individuals usually aren’t immediately eligible for removal; they revert to the immigration status they had before they naturalized, which in most cases is lawful permanent residence. If the government wants to initiate removal proceedings, that process can take years.

These hurdles may explain why there were reportedly an average of only 42 denaturalization cases filed per year during President Trump’s first term, and 16 filed per year under former President Biden. The only way to significantly increase these numbers is to rope in many more lawyers from already overburdened offices, which is exactly what DOJ is doing now.

Denaturalization Litigation is Discretionary

When the government is sued in immigration matters, DOJ must respond, usually by defending the government against the lawsuit. But denaturalization cases are different; they’re affirmative and discretionary.

The recent order to bring them in unprecedented numbers reportedly came from the White House – another example of this administration eroding DOJ’s traditional independence.

A White House spokesperson pushed back on this claim, asserting that this “isn’t a White House initiative – it’s federal law.”

That’s nonsense.

Sure, there is a federal denaturalization law; but there’s also a federal law that prohibits violence at reproductive health clinics (the FACE Act), which this administration has essentially decided to ignore – and even fired three prosecutors who were assigned to enforce it during the last administration.

Federal law also bans issuing a check for less than $1, but Justice Department lawyers aren’t rushing to court to recover pennies.

DOJ, and apparently the White House, are making the choice to prioritize denaturalization enforcement – and it’s a terrible choice.

Denaturalization Won’t Advance the President’s Immigration Agenda

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said on May 6 that denaturalization is “another way that we’re able to deal with border security.”

That’s more nonsense.

Naturalized citizens must live in the country for years before they can naturalize; they don’t pose a border security threat. If the administration wants to argue that denaturalization deters irregular border crossings, that would be absurd. People fleeing persecution and poverty won’t be deterred from trying to enter the United States by the remote possibility that they could one day become American citizens, but their naturalization could later be stripped from them.

Denaturalization also won’t help President Trump execute “the largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history. Putting aside the prudence or morality of this priority, Pew research found that there are more than 14 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., and Census data indicates that more than 25 million naturalized citizens live here. There’s no number of denaturalization cases DOJ could realistically win to meaningfully alter these numbers.

Ramping Up Denaturalization Will Make Us Less Safe

President Trump’s face is featured on two banners that hang on DOJ’s main building over the words, “Make America Safe Again.” This initiative won’t do that.

Civil denaturalization is an ineffective and inefficient way to address criminal conduct, especially because crimes committed after naturalization don’t subject offenders to denaturalization. If the administration wants to crack down on dangerous crimes, we have a criminal code for that and AUSAs who enforce it. But making AUSAs litigate denaturalization cases will divert them from that work.

DOJ’s attorney staffing shortage is reaching crisis levels. As explained in a recent Justice Connection Substack piece, a quarter of its attorneys left during this administration – more than 3,400, of whom roughly 1,350 were AUSAs.

Those who remain have not only had to plug holes, but also manage the foreseeable avalanche of habeas cases stemming from this administration’s immigration policies. AUSAs have also spent the last year and a half working under an administration that treats them with disdain – firing their colleagues without notice or cause, running roughshod over DOJ’s norms and principles, and abandoning the department’s independence and integrity.

As I told USA Today, AUSAs’ jobs have become “overwhelming” and “untenable for some.” Forcing them to bring denaturalization cases could be the straw that breaks the AUSA’s back.

Denaturalization Will Erode Naturalized Citizens’ Sense of Safety and Permanence

If denaturation won’t promote public safety, why is it being prioritized? Probably to let immigrants know that their ability to stay here isn’t guaranteed, even if they’re American citizens.

Aside from being able to serve as president, birthright citizenship doesn’t meaningfully differ from naturalized citizenship – except that naturalized citizens can be denaturalized. When DOJ only enforces the denaturalization statute in extreme circumstances – say, against war criminals or members of terrorist groups who concealed their past – most naturalized citizens can rest assured that their status as Americans won’t change. But arbitrary denaturalization quotas and the administration’s directive to “maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases” changes that sense of security. Being American starts to feel impermanent for those who weren’t born here.

That fear is felt most acutely by members of disfavored groups. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt already said that denaturalizing Somali Americans is something the administration is “looking at right now,” which President Trump reinforced during an interview.

The administration may also use denaturalization to target those who engage in speech it doesn’t like. The Trump administration has singled out campus activists for deportation because of their participation in pro-Palestinian protests, and DHS stated that immigration benefits “should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies.” Using denaturalization as a cudgel against those who speak out against this administration could be the next step.

Congress Should Try to Rein This In

Congress has become too polarized and scleratic to get much done. But just for the record: as it was able to pass the civil denaturalization statute, it has the ability to stop DOJ leadership from weaponizing it.

Congress could amend the statute to narrow its scope (e.g., allow enforcement only against war criminals or members of terrorist groups). It could add a statute of limitations, perhaps even a limited one, so that most naturalized citizens don’t have to live in indefinite fear.

Congress could even repeal the civil denaturalization statute entirely. Doing so would restrain a president hostile to immigrants from blithely trying to divest swaths of them of what the Supreme Court described as the “precious right of citizenship.” And the government would still be able to seek the criminal denaturalization of war criminals, terrorists, or others who present serious threats under 18 U.S.C. § 1425 – a law that has a statute of limitations, allows for fines and imprisonment, and provides more constitutional safeguards.

This administration has shown that it can’t be trusted to protect Americans’ rights, especially the rights of foreign-born Americans. The Artist Formerly Known as a Coequal Branch of Government should try everything it can to mitigate the damage.

Stacey Young was a Justice Department lawyer from 2006 until January 24, 2025, a week before she launched Justice Connection. She serves as its executive director.