President Donald Trump's administration has significantly stepped up efforts to revoke the U.S. citizenship of naturalized people, a move that is part of its broader immigration strategy and has sparked concern among legal experts and immigrant rights organizations.

According to information published by CNN, senior officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) plan to file at least 250 denaturalization cases before October, a figure that far exceeds the pace recorded during previous administrations. The objective, according to authorities, is to identify people who obtained US citizenship through fraud or who hid relevant information during their naturalization process.

The initiative represents one of the largest federal efforts in recent years to review and, in some cases, revoke citizenship granted to immigrants who completed the legal process to become Americans.

The immigration offensive extends to naturalized citizens

Although the Trump administration has focused much of its immigration policy on combating irregular immigration, it is now also focusing resources on reviewing cases of naturalized citizens.

According to data cited by the aforementioned media, the Department of Justice presented 29 cases of citizenship revocation in less than two months during 2026. The figure is striking when compared to historical records. Between 2008 and June 2026, a total of 166 denaturalization lawsuits had been filed, according to the Transactional Records Access Center at Syracuse University.

“This is a legal tool that Congress has had in place for decades,” the official told CNN.

The authorities maintain that the cases focus on people accused of immigration fraud, serious crimes, sexual abuse against minors, war crimes or individuals who would have hidden links to terrorist activities during the immigration process.

More lawyers and resources to expedite cases

The expansion of the program has led the Department of Justice to redeploy personnel from different areas to deal with the growing number of files.

A memorandum issued in June 2025 by Deputy Attorney General Brett Shumate established ten priority categories for citizenship revocation. These include people considered threats to national security, individuals involved in war crimes and those who have lied about relevant criminal records.

Currently, the unit specializing in denaturalization has a dozen lawyers, but the administration has drawn on staff from other divisions to expand its operational capacity.

In addition, federal prosecutors in different regions of the country are receiving files to process them locally, which could lead to hundreds of new cases in the coming months.

Experts warn about legal limits

Although federal law allows US citizenship to be revoked when fraud or illegal obtaining of the benefit is proven, specialists remember that these procedures face very high evidentiary standards.

Former Justice Department official and executive director of Justice Connection, Stacey Young, considered that the main obstacle for the administration will be the judicial system itself.

“The judicial process itself will continue to be a major impediment to its goal of denaturalizing large numbers of people,” he declared.

For his part, Daniel Kanstroom, a law professor at Boston College, pointed out that the legal protections surrounding American citizenship have been reinforced for decades by Supreme Court decisions.

If a person loses citizenship, they generally regain the immigration status they had before becoming naturalized, although in certain cases they could also face deportation proceedings.

The Trump administration insists that its actions are directed only against those who obtained citizenship fraudulently. However, the increase in cases and the massive reallocation of federal resources have once again placed the issue of denaturalization and US immigration policy at the center of the national debate.