Legal experts warn Trump push to strip critics of citizenship 'faces high legal hurdles'

MAGA Republicans have been calling for progressive politicians they dislike to be stripped of their U.S. citizenship, from Somalia-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) to Uganda-born New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. And Trump critics, including lawyers for the American Civil Union (ACLU) are firing back that denaturalizing U.S. citizens simply because their views run contrary to MAGA's would be unconstitutional.

According to NBC News reporters Colleen Long, Laura Strickler, Daniella Silva and Nicole Acevedo, the Trump Administration "is dramatically expanding an effort to revoke U.S. citizenship for foreign-born Americans as it works to curb immigration, according to two people familiar with the plans." But legal experts are pointing out the flaws in their plans.

In an article published on February 12, the journalists report, "Over the past several months, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security that's responsible for legal immigration, has been sending experts to its offices around the country or reassigning staff members to focus on whether some citizens processed through those offices could now be denaturalized, these people said. The goal of emphasizing naturalized citizens is to supply the office of immigration litigation with 100 to 200 possible cases per month, one of the people familiar with the plans said. Such cases have typically been very rare, involving people who concealed criminal histories or previous human rights violations during their application processes."

The Trump Administration's denaturalization campaign, according to the NBC News reporters, "is part of the overall push" by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "to drastically curtail immigration and deliver on Trump's policy agenda."

"The push has included DHS' sending scores of immigration enforcement officers into U.S. cities on deportation missions and purchasing mega warehouses to hold detainees," Long, Strickler, Silva and Acevedo explain. "DHS has also increasingly sought to remove legal immigrants from the U.S. by revoking thousands of visas, including for some people who participated in pro-Palestinian protests, and trying to deport green card holders."

Margy O'Herron of the New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice warns that the mere threat of denaturalization can chill free speech.

O'Herron told NBC News, "Citizens are afraid that if they do or say something the government doesn't like — even if those things are lawful and protected by the Constitution — they will be a target."

According to the Brennan Center's website, denaturalization "faces high legal hurdles."

Writing for the Brennan site, O'Herron and her colleague Faiza Patel explain, "It is not easy to strip naturalized Americans of their citizenship. The law imposes a high bar, and the Supreme Court has been particularly vigilant in cases where a person's political beliefs may be driving the effort. Unfortunately, if the administration's goal is to cast a pall of uncertainty over naturalized citizens, it can be achieved by bringing a small number of loudly heralded cases."

O'Herron and Patel note that anarchist Emma Goldman was "repeatedly targeted by President Theodore Roosevelt's administration" during the 1900s — and she was eventually denaturalized and deported back to Russia in 1919, when Democrat Woodrow Wilson was president.

"During World War I," according to O'Herron and Patel, "President Woodrow Wilson's administration began denaturalizing German- and Asian-born citizens, along with anarchists and people who spoke out against the war. President Franklin Roosevelt redoubled these efforts during World War II, adding alleged Nazi sympathizers to the list of targets. These abuses, which mainly attempted to use laws meant to correct fraud in the naturalization process, led to a series of Supreme Court decisions imposing strict guardrails on government attempts to deprive naturalized Americans of their citizenship. As a result, in recent decades, citizenship stripping has been rare, with only 11 denaturalization cases on average each year from 1990 to 2017."

The National Immigration Forum also offers legal insights on denaturalization.

According to a Q&A by Christian Penichet-Paul (the Forum's vice president of policy and advocacy), "The federal government may seek to revoke U.S. citizenship under two general grounds for denaturalization: (1) Procurement of naturalization by concealing a material fact or by willful misrepresentation…. (2) Illegal procurement of naturalization."

Penichet-Paul explains, "Are there limits on denaturalization? Yes. The federal government must meet a high burden of proof when attempting to revoke an individual's naturalization by civil proceedings or as a result of a criminal conviction for naturalization fraud…. For a criminal conviction, the federal government must show 'proof beyond a reasonable doubt' that the individual violated 18 U.S.C. § 1425 because the individual knowingly obtained or attempted to obtain naturalization through fraud for him or herself or for another individual. Denaturalization as a result of a criminal conviction is subject to a ten-year statute of limitation."

According to an ACLU fact sheet, "Denaturalization is a drastic measure that should only be taken in the most extreme circumstances. But the administration is dramatically expanding denaturalization, using questionable standards and proceedings."

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