The U.S. Department of Justice has begun to prioritize stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship when charged with crimes, according to a recent memo.

Why it matters: It ramps up the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which it has expanded to target, deport and detain legal permanent residents and citizens.

Driving the news: The DOJ directed attorneys to prioritize denaturalization in cases where naturalized citizens commit crimes, per the memo.

• The DOJ calls for “civil denaturalization” in the case of “war crimes,” “extrajudicial killings,” “human rights abuses,” and for those “convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the United States,” as well as “terrorists.”
• “The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence,” the memo said.
• Representatives for the White House, DOJ and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment on Monday evening.

What is a naturalized citizen?

• Naturalization “is the process by which U.S. citizenship is granted to a lawful permanent resident after meeting the requirements established by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA),” per U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

How many immigrants are naturalized citizens?

• Of the 46.2 million immigrants living in the U.S. in 2022, 24.5 million – 53% – were naturalized citizens, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis of government data.

What people are eligible to become naturalized citizens?

By the numbers: In the past decade, the U.S. naturalized more than 7.9 million citizens, per the USCIS.

• Naturalized citizens must undergo an involved application process, but eligibility criteria generally includes being a lawful permanent resident for at least five years, with exceptions for spouses of citizens and members of the U.S. military.
• The median years spent as a permanent resident for all citizens naturalized in 2024 was 7.5 years.

The INA requires that naturalization applicants can read, write and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language and have a knowledge and understanding of U.S. history and government.

How many citizens have been denaturalized?

• From 1990-2017, the DOJ filed 305 denaturalization cases, about 11 per year.
• The number has surged since President Trump’s first term.

What they’re saying: “Denaturalization is no longer so rare,” noted Cassandra Burke Robertson, a professor at Case Western Reserve University’s law school, in 2019, saying that the rise began under the Obama administration, “which used improved digital tools to identify potential cases of naturalization fraud from years before.”

• “But the Trump administration, with its overall immigration crackdown, is taking denaturalization to new levels.”
• Robertson also noted that denaturalization was a common political tool of the McCarthy era.

Since January 2017, the USCIS has selected some 2,500 cases for possible denaturalization and referred at least 110 denaturalization cases to the Justice Department for prosecution by the end of August 2018.

• The DOJ filed at least 30 denaturalization cases in 2017 — twice the number it filed in 2016, per The Miami Herald.

How does the DOJ guidance change things for naturalized citizenship?

In the memo, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote that pursuing denaturalization will be among the agency’s top five enforcement priorities for the civil division.

• “The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence,” he said.’
• The DOJ directed attorneys to prioritize denaturalization in cases where “an individual either ‘illegally procured’ naturalization or procured naturalization by ‘concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.'”

Are the DOJ’s denaturalization efforts constitutional?

Robertson told NPR that the DOJ’s pursuit of denaturalization cases is particularly concerning.

• “Robertson says that stripping Americans of citizenship through civil litigation violates due process and infringes on the rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment,” NPR notes.

The denaturalization push gives the Trump administration another tool to police immigrants’ free speech rights.

• The Trump administration has targeted students, universities and immigrants for alleged antisemitism. Frequently, those targeted have been critical of Israel’s war in Gaza.
• The DOJ’s memo cites “ending antisemitism” as another priority target.

The Trump administration already detained for months — and sought to deport — pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who is a green card holder.

• The government argued in a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that allowing Khalil to remain in the country would “undermine U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”
• That echoes the language of the new memo, pushing for the denaturalization of those “convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the United States.”

Has the Justice Department denaturalized anyone yet?

• At least one person has already been denaturalized following a conviction recently. That person was a convicted collector and distributor of child sexual abuse material, per the DOJ.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to give more details on the person denaturalized following a conviction.