The Department of Justice has directed “attorneys to prioritize denaturalization for naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes.” Denaturalization is the process of stripping citizenship from people who became U.S. citizens after having been born in another country. But denaturalization has implications for everyone.
For context, denaturalization isn’t very common, usually referencing the Red Scare and Nazi eras. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that denaturalization is generally unconstitutional, except in cases of naturalization fraud. Denaturalization escalated with the Obama administration, where Operation Janus assessed lying during citizenship processes. What counts as “fraud”? One in 10, or 20 million, Americans cannot easily access their citizenship records. How many of those records have errors?
Today, the Trump administration is latching onto vague determinations of “good moral character” to make cases for denaturalization. These immigration cases would be civil, not criminal, so defendants wouldn’t have the right to attorneys, and prosecutors would benefit from lighter burdens of proof.
Black people, whether African American or immigrant Black American, have been incarcerated, deported, and exiled for “bad behavior” throughout U.S. history, from survival crimes to revolutionary organizing. Denaturalization, plus Trump’s attacks on birthright citizenship, puts all of our citizenship into question.
Trump said it himself this month: “We have a lot of bad people...many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here, too.”