U.S. launches major expansion of denaturalization campaign

The Trump administration on Friday announced a major expansion of its denaturalization campaign targeting foreign-born American citizens accused of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship. The Justice Department unveiled denaturalization cases in federal courts across the country against roughly a dozen U.S. citizens born overseas. Officials said they had committed serious crimes or immigration fraud, or had ties to terrorism. The announcement represents a dramatic increase in the federal government's use of denaturalization, a lengthy and complicated legal procedure that has rarely been invoked by prior administrations. Between 1990 and 2017, for example, the U.S. government filed just over 300 denaturalization cases — or an average of 11 per year. The group of naturalized U.S. citizens whose citizenship the Justice Department is now seeking to revoke includes immigrants from Bolivia, China, Colombia, Gambia, India, Iraq, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Somalia and Uzbekistan. Among those targeted by the denaturalization crackdown are a Colombian-born Catholic priest convicted of sexually assaulting a minor; a man born in Morocco with alleged ties to al Qaeda; a Somali immigrant who pleaded guilty to providing material support to al Shabaab, a U.S.-designated terrorist group; and a former Gambian police officer allegedly involved in war crimes. …