Blanche says immigrants who committed fraud to become U.S. citizens should worry

Phoenix — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche touted the Trump administration's expanded efforts to revoke the citizenship of certain foreign-born Americans on Wednesday, telling CBS News "a lot" of them should not be citizens. In a sit-down interview in Phoenix, Blanche said the second Trump administration is pursuing more denaturalization cases now than in the last nine years and asserted that immigrants who have obtained American citizenship fraudulently should be "worried." "If you're going to come and become a citizen in this country, but you're going to do it by fraud, you're going to do it in a way that's illegal, you should be worried," Blanche said. Asked who is being targeted by the denaturalization campaign, Blanche said, "We are not limiting ourselves to anybody in particular, except to say that unfortunately, and I think you're going to hear more about this in the coming days and weeks, there are a lot of individuals who are citizens who shouldn't be." Blanche declined to provide a specific number on how many naturalized citizens could lose their citizenship under the crackdown, which is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to more heavily scrutinize legal immigrants. While most components of the U.S. immigration system are overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department is responsible for revoking the citizenship of naturalized citizens. …