revoke citizenship

DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship

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.

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5445398/denaturalization-trump-immigration-enforcement