The Trump administration told Newsweek Thursday that it plans to drastically increase the number of denaturalizations, saying that those who had defrauded the process would be targeted.
The comments came in the wake of a New York Times report which said the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had identified 384 people whose citizenship could be revoked, in the latest effort to crack down on legal immigration by the White House.
It was not clear who the people on the list were, or how the figure had been reached, but the DOJ’s Deputy Director for Communications Matthew Tragesser told Newsweek that increasing denaturalizations was a goal.
“Under the leadership of President Trump and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Department is pursuing the highest volume of denaturalization referrals in history, thanks to close partnerships with DHS and USCIS,” Tragesser said. “We are moving at warp speed to ensure fraudsters are held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent. Our filed referrals in one year have exceeded the total during the entire four years of the Biden administration, with many more to come.”
Why It Matters
While President Donald Trump returned to the White House promising to crack down on illegal immigration, his second administration has also been focused on those who entered the U.S. legally, be it temporarily or with a long-term plan to be a lawful permanent resident and, eventually, a citizen.
Multiple reports have shown immigrants being detained at interviews for green cards and citizenship, drawing criticism from advocates who say those who have followed the rules have been unfairly targeted to meet deportation goals.
How Many People Have Lost US Citizenship?
A DOJ official said Thursday that 15 people had seen their U.S. citizenship stripped from them since January 20, 2025, out of 22 cases filed.
Yearly statistics on denaturalizations are difficult to come by, but we do know that between 1990 and 2017, the DOJ filed a total of 305 cases. That works out at roughly 11 per year.
The number rose during Trump’s first term, which saw 168 cases across the four years. During Biden’s term, there were around 64.
While around 2,500 potential cases were identified during the first 18 months of the first Trump administration by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), roughly 110 made it to the DOJ, per the National Immigration Forum.
What is the Trump Administration’s Plan?
According to The New York Times, the DOJ is planning to utilize regional office workers to file denaturalization cases against individuals already identified as eligible. This would mark a change from the traditional practice of using experts in the DOJ’s immigration litigation office to work on cases.
The plan also involves targets, with officials wanting upwards of 200 referrals per month. Targets have been known about for several months, with an internal memo in June 2025 setting out the expectations to “aggressively investigate” potential fraud cases.
Targeting the 384 individuals, as well as a potentially growing list, may only be a drop in the ocean when it comes to naturalized citizens, however. In 2024 alone, more than 818,000 people became Americans following vetting, interviews, and the Oath of Allegiance.
Unlike revoking visas, the government also needs to prove its case for each person. The DOJ will need to show evidence that citizenship was gained through fraudulent means—or without meeting the legal requirements.
“There’s going to be a lower threshold for what cases are sent for denaturalization from USCIS, but the burden and the standard required by the DOJ to bring these cases in federal court haven’t changed,” Ricky Murray, a former senior USCIS official, told Newsweek in March. “So, I don’t see how there’s going to be significantly more cases brought for denaturalization by DOJ to the federal courts.”
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