Justice Dept Targets 384 in New Denaturalization Push for Naturalization Fraud

(UNITED STATES) — The Justice Dept and the Department of Homeland Security launched a new Denaturalization Effort that targets hundreds of naturalized Americans, with 384 foreign-born Americans marked for the first wave of litigation to revoke citizenship.

Matthew Tragesser, DOJ Deputy Director for Communications, said on April 23, 2026 that, “The Department of Justice is laser-focused on rooting out criminal aliens defrauding the naturalization process. Under the leadership of President Trump and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the department is pursuing the highest volume of denaturalization referrals in history. We are moving at warp speed to ensure fraudsters are held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent.”

Abigail Jackson, White House Spokesperson, said on April 23, 2026, “Citizenship fraud is a serious crime; anyone who has broken the law and obtained citizenship through fraud and deceit will be held accountable. This isn’t a White House initiative-it’s federal law.”

Francey Hakes, Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, described the 384 individuals during an internal meeting as the “first wave of cases” and said the department had enlisted civil litigators in 39 regional offices to handle the caseload.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi said on March 26, 2026 that the department was acting to strip citizenship from people who concealed crimes or defrauded the public during the immigration process. Her statement cast denaturalization as a law enforcement priority rather than a one-off review of old files.

That shift marks a sharp break from how the federal government handled these cases for decades. Between 1990 and 2017, the United States averaged 11 denaturalization cases per year; current internal targets point to 2,400 annual referrals, a more than 200-fold increase.

Internal USCIS guidance issued in December 2025 directed field offices to refer 100 to 200 denaturalization cases per month to the Justice Dept for fiscal year 2026. Historically, a small specialized unit in Washington handled most such matters, but prosecutors in U.S. Attorney’s offices across the country now have a central role.

Civil denaturalization gives the department a way to file suit in federal district court and ask a judge to revoke citizenship. The cases turn on alleged willful misrepresentation or concealment of a material fact during the naturalization process, including undisclosed criminal history, use of a false identity, or a sham marriage.

The governing legal standard comes from Maslenjak v. United States in 2017. Under that ruling, the government must show that a false statement was material, meaning citizenship would have been denied if the truth had been known.

Federal officials have framed the current campaign around several categories of alleged naturalization fraud. Those categories include people accused of concealing criminal records, including violent crimes and human rights violations, people tied to large-scale financial fraud such as PPP or Medicare fraud, and people accused of identity fraud, including entering under a different name to hide a prior deportation.

The practical consequences extend beyond the citizenship certificate itself. A person who loses citizenship typically reverts to prior status, usually lawful permanent resident status, but the same alleged fraud can also make that person immediately deportable.

Family members can also face consequences if their immigration status flowed from the naturalized relative. Denaturalization can carry derivative effects for spouses or children who obtained residency through that person, raising the stakes of what begins as a civil case in federal court.

Public concern has grown alongside the size of the initiative. Amanda Frost of the University of Virginia said the volume of cases sends a message that “naturalized citizens don’t have the same rights and stability as native-born citizens.”

Administration officials have presented the campaign in stark terms, describing citizenship obtained through deception as illegitimate from the start. Jackson’s statement from the White House and Tragesser’s statement from the Justice Dept both tied the initiative to enforcement against alleged fraud rather than to any new statute or executive program.

Still, the numbers show how far the government has moved from past practice. A system that once averaged 11 cases a year now aims for 100 to 200 referrals each month, with denaturalization work spread across 39 U.S. Attorney’s offices instead of a narrow Washington-based unit.

Recent government notices show how the agencies have been publicizing individual matters as part of that broader push. The [DOJ Newsroom](https://www.justice.gov/news) lists releases including the denaturalization of Vladimir Volgaev on March 23 and Gurdev Singh Sohal on April 16, while the [USCIS Newsroom](https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom) includes an update on “Belizean Woman Found Guilty of Naturalization Fraud” published on April 20, 2026.

The department has also pointed to policy-related case announcements through its [Office of Public Affairs denaturalization page](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr), where case filings and court actions appear. Those records, along with court dockets in federal district courts, will now provide the clearest measure of whether the Justice Dept sustains the pace officials have set for the new Denaturalization Effort.

What emerges from the first months of the campaign is not a narrow clean-up of isolated cases but a national litigation project built around allegations of naturalization fraud, monthly referral targets, and a court-based process that can strip citizenship years after it was granted. With 384 people already identified as the opening group, the administration has turned denaturalization from a rarely used remedy into one of the federal government’s most active immigration enforcement tools.