Manny Ita –
The administration of Donald Trump has announced a major expansion of efforts to revoke the citizenship of some naturalized Americans accused of fraud, terrorism-related activities, or serious crimes.
According to the CBS News report�, the U.S. Justice Department filed denaturalization cases against about a dozen foreign-born U.S. citizens from countries including Nigeria, India, Somalia, Morocco, China and others.
Officials allege the targeted individuals either:
Obtained citizenship through fraud or false identities,
Hid criminal backgrounds during immigration processes,
Took part in sham marriages for immigration benefits,
Or had links to extremist or terrorist organizations.
Among those named were:
A Colombian-born Catholic priest convicted of sexually assaulting a minor,
A Moroccan-born man accused of ties to al Qaeda,
A Somali immigrant who admitted supporting al Shabaab,
And a former Gambian police officer accused of war crimes.
The Justice Department also separately moved to revoke the citizenship of Victor Manuel Rocha after he admitted acting as a spy for Cuba.
Denaturalization is a legal process where the government asks federal courts to strip someone of U.S. citizenship if it believes the person obtained it illegally or through deception. If successful, the individual loses the protections and rights of American citizenship and may face deportation.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the crackdown, saying only a “very small percentage” of naturalized citizens should be concerned and that law-abiding immigrants “have nothing to worry about.”
The move marks a sharp increase in the use of denaturalization. Reports say the U.S. government filed just over 300 such cases between 1990 and 2017, making the latest campaign one of the most aggressive in recent history.
