The Justice Department has filed denaturalization cases against 40 naturalized citizens accused of serious crimes, launching what Attorney General Todd Blanche called the largest such effort in modern history.
In a six-week stretch ending in early October, the Department of Justice brought 40 denaturalization cases across 19 federal districts, targeting people who obtained U.S. citizenship and then were tied to grave criminal conduct. Daily Mail reported that Blanche framed the filings as part of a broader drive to protect national security and restore integrity to naturalization.
The cases sit inside a much larger enforcement surge. From President Trump’s return to office on January 20, 2025, through late August, DOJ brought 120 denaturalization cases. Officials are racing toward a target of 250 filings by the end of October. That pace dwarfs the recent past. Between 1990 and 2017, the Justice Department averaged only 11 denaturalization cases a year. The Biden administration brought just 24 across four full years.
Blanche did not say much about who is in the dock.
"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."
He added that the department would keep using denaturalization “to maintain our national security and protect the American people” under Trump’s leadership. Just The News reported the complaints were filed in multiple U.S. district courts between late August and October 2, 2026, and listed alleged offenses that include acting as an agent for a foreign government, voluntary manslaughter, aggravated sodomy, sexual abuse of a minor, immigration fraud, and espionage.
Denaturalization is not a casual tool. It is the legal process for stripping citizenship from people who were naturalized after allegedly lying or omitting material facts on government forms, facts that would have made them ineligible in the first place. Many of the pending cases turn on those concealed histories.
The defendants in the latest wave came from countries including Mexico, China, Iran, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Breitbart reported additional detail on individual targets, including Yusmary Shirley Duran Mejia, accused of failing to disclose a money-laundering conviction, and Iain Lumsden, accused of concealing a child-pornography conviction. Other cases involve people from Mexico, Cuba, Pakistan, and India who allegedly hid criminal histories, used false identities, or committed fraud during naturalization.
Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department put the principle in plain English.
"Every single one of these individuals lied their way into U.S. citizenship. This administration will continue to pursue the largest denaturalization effort in department history to restore trust and integrity in U.S. citizenship."
That is the core claim: citizenship obtained by deception is not a protected prize. It is a fraud on the American people.
For decades, denaturalization stayed rare. Migration Policy Institute data cited in the coverage show an average of just 11 cases a year from 1990 through 2017. Biden’s DOJ barely moved the needle. Trump’s Justice Department has already blown past those numbers and is still climbing.
MPI analysts Muzaffar Chishti and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh read the shift as part of a wider agenda.
"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."
They also argued that “creating a climate of hostility is much more achievable than large-scale denaturalizations, as history has shown.” Immigration lawyers and advocates have raised alarms that defendants may not get a full chance to fight the cases in court. Those concerns sit beside the government’s record of who these defendants are: people tied to espionage, sex crimes against children, and other serious offenses.
Blanche’s own summary left little room for the soft framing.
"Today’s announcement marks the largest denaturalization effort in modern history."
The numbers back the label. Forty cases in roughly six weeks. One hundred twenty since January 20, 2025. A stated goal of 250 by month’s end. That is not a press release. It is a caseload.
Denaturalization is only one track. The administration has revoked hundreds of thousands of visas for migrants and green-card holders and ended Temporary Protected Status designations for most countries. It also sought to end birthright citizenship through executive orders, a move the Supreme Court rejected earlier this year.
Separately, the Department of Homeland Security moved to impose steep civil fines on illegal immigrants who remain in the country after final deportation orders. Notices went out last July. The structure included daily penalties of $998, retroactive for up to five years, with a maximum of $1.8 million per person. DHS said earlier this year it had issued more than 100,000 such fines, totaling $84 billion. The stated aim was to pressure people with final orders to leave, a push often described as “self-deport.”
A group of migrants filed a class action last November challenging the fines under the Administrative Procedure Act, the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, and other constitutional protections. This week, U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Boston, a Bill Clinton appointee, blocked the administration from imposing those fines. He called them “exorbitant” and said they would hurt migrants who already “live in an economically precarious position.” He deemed the fines unlawful. A DOJ spokesperson said the department is “reviewing” the decision. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
The fines fight and the denaturalization drive are different tools aimed at the same problem: people who broke immigration law, lied on official papers, or both, and then stayed. One path hits the wallet. The other hits the passport.
Espionage. Sexual offenses against minors. Voluntary manslaughter. Money laundering. Child pornography. False identities. Marriage fraud. These are not paperwork glitches. They are the kinds of facts that, if disclosed at the naturalization stage, would have stopped the oath from ever being administered.
Attorney General Blanche tied the filings directly to public safety. The Justice Department is not chasing technicalities for sport. It is identifying naturalized citizens who hid disqualifying conduct and asking federal courts to unwind the grant of citizenship those lies produced. Cases are pending. Final judgments still have to be won. But the filing pace alone marks a break from years of near-inaction.
Protests have followed the broader immigration crackdown, including marches in Atlanta and demonstrations in New York City. That is politics. The court filings are law. Nineteen federal districts now have denaturalization complaints on the docket from this latest wave alone. The defendants’ countries of origin span multiple continents. The common thread is concealment of facts the government says were critical.
Whether every case ends in revocation is for judges to decide. Whether the country should treat citizenship as a prize that survives proven fraud is not a close call for most Americans who play by the rules.
Citizenship means something only if the people who swear the oath told the truth to get there, and the law finally has the will to say so in court.
