Can You Lose U.S. Citizenship? Denaturalization for Fraud and National Security

(UNITED STATES) — The U.S. Department of Justice has expanded its denaturalization push, directing prosecutors to pursue more cases involving fraud, national security violations and other serious offenses by naturalized Americans.

A June 30, 2025 memo widened the categories that can draw scrutiny and gave U.S. attorneys broad discretion over which cases to bring. The move has intensified debate over when the government can revoke citizenship and how much protection naturalized citizens have once a case begins.

Denaturalization applies to naturalized Americans, not people who were citizens at birth. Under the approach laid out by the department, the government is focusing on cases tied to illegal procurement of citizenship, immigration fraud and serious criminal conduct, including conduct that officials say should have barred naturalization in the first place.

A Wider Federal Push

The latest policy shift came after years of growing federal attention to revoking citizenship. In 2018, President Trump’s administration created a denaturalization task force aimed largely at immigration fraud and national security threats, with an emphasis on people who had lied or hidden information during the naturalization process.

Since then, the scope has widened. The 2025 memo identified national security violations, fraud against individuals or government programs, including Paycheck Protection Program loan fraud, Medicaid, or Medicare fraud, and other serious offenses as priorities for enforcement.

That has raised concern among lawyers and immigrant advocates because citizenship revocation is one of the most severe penalties the government can seek against a naturalized citizen. Once citizenship is stripped, a person can face removal from the United States.

The Justice Department also created a dedicated section focused on investigating, prosecuting and revoking the citizenship of naturalized Americans. It is prioritizing serious crimes such as sex offenses, war crimes, and terrorism, along with immigration fraud, including the use of multiple identities or hiding past deportation orders.

Civil Cases and Due Process Concerns

Civil denaturalization cases have become a particular flashpoint because they do not carry the same protections as criminal prosecutions. People facing the loss of citizenship in civil court do not have a guaranteed right to a government-appointed lawyer.

That distinction has fueled due process concerns. A naturalized citizen in a civil denaturalization case may have to hire private counsel or defend the case alone, even though the stakes include the loss of citizenship and possible deportation.

Sameera Hafiz, Policy Director at the Immigration Legal Resource Center, called the expansion “very shocking and very concerning.” She said the policy risks creating unequal protections between naturalized citizens and citizens by birth.

For naturalized Americans, the practical risk does not stem from ordinary status review or a routine government check. It arises when prosecutors believe citizenship was obtained through fraud or concealment, or when a person’s conduct fits the department’s list of serious offenses that can trigger a closer look at how naturalization was granted.

That distinction matters for the nearly 23 million naturalized Americans living in the United States 🇺🇸. The policy does not suggest that citizenship can be revoked at random, but it does signal a broader willingness by the government to revisit completed naturalizations in cases involving fraud or serious wrongdoing.

More Discretion for Prosecutors

The department’s memo also gives prosecutors more freedom to decide which cases merit action. It no longer sets strict limits on the types of crimes that can trigger denaturalization, allowing U.S. attorneys to pursue cases they consider important even if the conduct falls outside a narrower traditional category.

Critics say that wider discretion could produce uneven results. They argue that similarly situated people may face different outcomes depending on which office reviews their case and how aggressively prosecutors interpret the department’s priorities.

Those concerns have grown alongside broader moves by the Trump administration on citizenship policy. In January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order aimed at restricting birthright citizenship for children born in the United States 🇺🇸 to certain non-citizen parents.

That order took effect on February 19, 2025 and quickly drew legal challenges. More recently, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to limit nationwide injunctions that had blocked the order, narrowing the power of lower courts to stop federal policies across the country.

Legal experts say that ruling could affect how quickly the administration can put immigration and citizenship policies into effect. By limiting nationwide injunctions, the court made it harder for a single lower-court judge to freeze a policy everywhere while litigation continues.

Even so, denaturalization cases still move through the courts and require legal process. The government must bring a case and prove its allegations, whether it proceeds in civil court or through a criminal prosecution tied to fraud.

That process has not eased fears in immigrant communities. Advocacy groups say the combination of broader enforcement priorities, wider prosecutorial discretion and the absence of guaranteed counsel in civil cases leaves many naturalized citizens feeling less secure in a status they once thought was permanent.

Some legal scholars have warned that the policy could create what they describe as a “second class” of citizens. Their concern is that naturalized Americans, unlike citizens by birth, may feel their status can be reopened long after they take the oath.

The human stakes extend beyond the courtroom. Losing citizenship can cost a person a job, split families and expose someone to deportation to a country they may not have lived in for decades.

Employers, schools and legal aid groups may also feel the effect. Immigration lawyers and advocacy organizations are likely to see more requests for help, while families try to understand whether a past application issue, a criminal case or an allegation of fraud could place a relative at risk.

The answer, under the government’s current posture, depends heavily on what prosecutors believe happened at the time of naturalization and whether later-discovered conduct points to fraud, concealment or illegal procurement. Serious criminal conduct is central to the department’s priorities, but the policy debate has focused on whether that net now reaches too far.

The memo’s inclusion of fraud against government programs drew particular attention because it expanded the discussion beyond terrorism and war crimes, areas long associated with denaturalization in the public mind. By naming financial fraud, including Paycheck Protection Program loan fraud, Medicaid, or Medicare fraud, the department signaled a broader view of which offenses can justify revocation efforts.

That does not mean every criminal conviction leads to denaturalization. The department’s own emphasis remains on serious offenses, immigration fraud and conduct that bears on whether citizenship was lawfully obtained.

Still, the creation of a specialized DOJ section means more resources are now aimed at reviewing those cases. More investigators and lawyers devoted to the issue increase the chance that past naturalizations will be reexamined.

Advocacy groups say the fairness question is impossible to separate from access to counsel. In a criminal case, the Constitution provides a right to an attorney for defendants who cannot afford one. In a civil denaturalization case, that protection does not apply.

For people accused of lying on forms, concealing a prior deportation order or using multiple identities, the distinction can shape the entire case. Legal arguments over intent, material omissions and eligibility for naturalization are often technical, and the outcome can turn on records created years earlier.

That is why the policy has drawn criticism even from some DOJ attorneys, who have worried that the rules could be used too broadly. Concerns have centered on whether a framework designed for fraud and national security cases could sweep in less clear-cut matters.

As of 2026, the department’s enforcement posture is clear: denaturalization remains an active priority, and the government has built a structure to pursue it more aggressively. Naturalized citizens are most likely to face risk when their citizenship application involved alleged fraud or concealment, or when prosecutors tie serious criminal conduct to the original grant of citizenship.

For many naturalized Americans, that means the immediate danger is not universal, but neither is it remote for those with unresolved immigration history, alleged misstatements in past filings or exposure to the categories named in the memo. The policy has replaced a narrower sense of who may be targeted with a broader and less settled one.

How courts respond will shape the next phase of the fight. Legal challenges are expected to test due process protections, equal treatment and the breadth of the government’s power to revoke citizenship once it has been granted.

For now, the government’s message is that denaturalization is no longer confined in public discussion to a small set of terrorism or war-crimes cases. It now sits at the intersection of fraud enforcement, immigration law and national security, leaving many naturalized Americans to measure the stability of their citizenship against a legal standard that has become harder to predict.