“It is kind of, in a way, trying to create a second class of U.S. citizens.” That’s how Sameera Hafiz, policy director at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, summed up the mood after the Department of Justice’s new memo on denaturalization landed with a thud on June 11. For law and policy watchers, immigration attorneys, and civil rights advocates, the memo’s reach is as broad as it is unsettling—targeting nearly 25 million naturalized Americans and reshaping the very notion of what it means to be a citizen.
The memo, signed by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, orders DOJ attorneys to “maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence.” The list of priorities? It’s sweeping: war crimes, serious human rights abuses, gang activity, financial fraud, and any case “referred by a United States Attorney’s Office.” The memo even gives attorneys the leeway to pursue denaturalization in “any other case” they find important enough—a catch-all that leaves a lot to the imagination.
What’s especially jarring for many is the shift from criminal to civil proceedings. In civil denaturalization, the government’s burden of proof is lighter—no need to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” just “clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence.” And, as Cassandra Robertson, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, points out, “any individual subject to denaturalization is not entitled to an attorney.” That means naturalized citizens facing the loss of everything—identity, security, the right to live in the only home they may know—must fend for themselves in court, often against the full force of the federal government.
This isn’t just a technicality. The new approach has real, immediate consequences. On June 13, a judge stripped Elliott Duke, a military veteran originally from the UK, of their citizenship after a conviction for distributing child sexual abuse material and failing to disclose it during naturalization. Duke, who had already renounced UK citizenship, is now effectively stateless. “My heart shattered when I read the lines [of the order]. My world broke apart,” Duke told NPR.
For those following the arc of U.S. history, denaturalization isn’t new—but its aggressive revival is. In the early 20th century, denaturalization was used to target anarchists, suspected communists, and those deemed racially ineligible. At its peak during the McCarthy era, the U.S. government filed about 22,000 denaturalization cases a year—until the Supreme Court stepped in. In 1967, the Court ruled in Afroyim v. Rusk that denaturalization is “inconsistent with the American form of democracy, because it creates two levels of citizenship.” After that, denaturalization became rare, reserved for the most egregious cases—think Nazi war criminals or terrorist funders.
But now, the DOJ’s new memo appears to sidestep that legacy. Legal experts like Steve Lubet of Northwestern University warn that the vague, expansive categories in the memo could let the government target people for post-naturalization conduct, not just fraud at the time of application. “Many of the categories are so vague as to be meaningless. It isn’t even clear that they relate to fraudulent procurement, as opposed to post-naturalization conduct,” Lubet told NPR.
The memo’s timing is no accident. It comes as the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division undergoes a radical transformation, with about 70% of its attorneys departing in just five months. The division, once the federal government’s vanguard for fighting discrimination, is now focused on advancing executive orders that roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, restrict transgender rights, and shift the definition of civil rights itself. As Stacey Young, a former division attorney, put it: “It’s not an arm of the White House. It doesn’t exist to enact the president’s own agenda. That’s a perversion of the separation of powers and the role of an independent Justice Department.”
For naturalized citizens and their families, the ripple effects are profound. Children who derived citizenship through a parent could lose their status if that parent is denaturalized for fraud or misrepresentation. The fear of retroactive punishment for minor or unintentional mistakes—sometimes decades old—now hangs over millions.
While the government’s stated aim is to target “predators, criminals, and terrorists,” the expansion of civil denaturalization powers, the removal of the right to counsel, and the lowering of the burden of proof have many experts and advocates worried about due process and equal protection. As Brian Figeroux, Esq. notes, “The 14th Amendment protects naturalized citizens equally with those born in the United States, ensuring they are not subjected to arbitrary or discriminatory treatment.”
The story of denaturalization in America is still being written. But for now, the DOJ’s new memo has redrawn the lines of citizenship—and the stakes for millions of Americans have never felt higher.
