<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/01/us-citizenship-denaturalization-trump-memo>
"A justice department memo directing the department’s civil division to target
the denaturalization of US citizens around the country has opened up an new
avenue for Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, experts say.
In the US, when a person is denaturalized, they return to the status they held
before becoming a citizen. If someone was previously a permanent resident, for
example, they will be classified as such again, which can open the door to
deportation efforts.
The memo, published on 11 June, instructed the justice department’s civil
division to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in
all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence”. Immigration matters
are civil matters, meaning that immigrants – whether they are naturalized
citizens or not – do not have the right to an attorney in such cases.
Muzaffar Chishti from the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan thinktank,
explained that much of immigration law was based on discretion by government
officials. To revoke a person’s citizenship, US officials must demonstrate that
they are not of “good moral character” – a subjective and broad term with
little defined parameters.
Now, the recent memo lists a broad range of categories of people who should be
stripped of their naturalized citizenship status, providing further guidance as
to who is not of good “moral character”. This included “those with a nexus to
terrorism” and espionage, war criminals and those who were found to have lied
in their naturalization process. Officials still need to prove their case,
Chisthi explained.
“[The administration] can’t, on their own, denaturalize people, they still have
to go to a federal district court,” said Chisthi. “Denaturalization finally
does belong to federal district courts – but they are obviously keen on finding
every way they can to denaturalize people they think did not deserve to be
naturalized.”
However, the justice department’s memo is not solely confined to those expanded
categories. It gives more discretion to officials to pursue these cases,
prompting a fear for analysts and attorneys that the directive by the Trump
administration is overly broad."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
