The Justice Department has launched an accelerated effort to strip citizenship from 40 Americans over a six-week period, in what officials describe as an early phase of a campaign expected to grow substantially in the coming days and weeks.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the 40 cases filed by the DOJ between August 28 and October 2 amount to the “largest denaturalization effort in modern history.”
The department is racing to file 250 denaturalization cases by the end of October. That would be more than twice the 120 cases brought between President Donald Trump’s return to office on January 20, 2025, and late August.
The ambitious target has alarmed immigration attorneys and advocates, who are questioning both the strain on government resources and the strength of some of the cases.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice will continue to employ the denaturalization process to maintain our national security and protect the American people,” Blanche said Tuesday.
The people targeted in the latest denaturalization cases are accused of crimes across 19 federal districts, officials said. They originally came to the United States from countries including Mexico, China, Iran, Pakistan and the Philippines.
“From an individual convicted of espionage to others convicted of sexual offenses against minors, these defendants concealed critical facts from the US government and represent serious criminal offenders,” Blanche said in a press release.
Many of the cases now pending involve allegations that defendants lied on government forms or left out information about their conduct. The DOJ says those details would have made them ineligible for US citizenship.
Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a press conference at the Department of Justice headquarters
Demonstrators hold protest signs during a march in Atlanta as part of a “No Kings” protest against the Trump administration
It remains unclear whether, or how many, of the alleged errors and omissions may have been accidental.
The rapid pace of the campaign and its ambitious filing goal have nonetheless drawn concern from immigration lawyers and advocates. They fear some of the people involved may not receive a meaningful opportunity to present their cases in federal court.
The administration’s efforts already far exceed the pace seen under previous administrations.
Between 1990 and 2017, the Justice Department filed an average of only 11 denaturalization cases each year, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute.
By comparison, the Biden administration filed just 24 denaturalization cases over four years.
“The Trump administration’s second-term approach on denaturalization aligns with much of the rest of its immigration policy agenda: more enforcement, less legal immigration, and harder-to-access citizenship,” MPI researchers Muzaffar Chishti and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh said in a report.
The researchers also said the campaign’s immediate objective may be to create a climate of fear, particularly because some denaturalization proceedings can take years to resolve.
“Creating a climate of hostility is much more achievable than large-scale denaturalizations, as history has shown,” they said.
Since returning to office last year, Trump and his administration have made a sweeping immigration crackdown a central priority.
FIND OUT MORE: Love Tom Cruise’s Digger? Watch These 5 Movies Next
So far, the administration has revoked hundreds of thousands of visas held by migrants and green card holders authorized to live and work temporarily in the United States. It has also ended so-called TPS, or Temporary Protected Status, designations for most countries.
rump has also sought to end so-called ‘birthright citizenship’ protections for babies born on US soil via multiple executive orders, despite Supreme Court’s rejection of the effort earlier this year.
His agenda has faced continued push back.
Earlier this week, a federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration from imposing ‘astronomical’ fines up to $1.8 million on illegal migrants who fail to leave the US after receiving final deportation orders.
US District Judge George O’Toole, a Bill Clinton appointee, called Trump’s fines – issued to tens of thousands of migrants – unlawful in an order on Monday.
Protesters demonstrate against Trump’s immigration policies in New York Ciry
The fines are part of the president’s hard-line immigration crackdown, and the administration’s broader push for migrants to ‘self-deport’
The fines included maximum penalties of $1.8 million, which would push the migrants into financial ruin, he said.
The judge called Trump’s fines ‘exorbitant’ and said they would hurt migrants, who already ‘live in an economically precarious position.’
DHS did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment. A spokesperson said DOJ is ‘reviewing’ the decision.
The fines are part of the president’s hard-line immigration crackdown, and the administration’s broader push for migrants to ‘self-deport.’
As part of the effort, DHS sent notices last July to thousands of migrants who had final deportation orders.
It notified them of the new financial penalties – which included daily fines of $998 – and gave them just 30 days to contest them.
Then-CBP acting commander Gregory Bovino exits a convenience store of a gas station while conducting an immigration raid in Kenner, Louisiana
The plan also allowed DHS to retroactively impose fines on migrants for a period of up to five years, for a maximum of $1.8 million.
DHS said earlier this year that it had issued more than 100,000 such fines to migrants in the US, bringing the total amount of civil fines to a whopping $84 billion.
A group of migrants brought a class action lawsuit against DHS last November to challenge the fines.
Lawyers for the group argued that the fines violate the Administrative Procedure Act as well as the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause and other protections under the US Constitution.