Trump DOJ to prioritize denaturalization cases

The circumstances under which a person can be denaturalized involve the commission of serious criminal acts. These include having obtained citizenship under false pretences, war crimes, extrajudicial killings, other human rights abuses, and gang membership. Denaturalization can also occur to prevent convicted terrorists from returning to the United States or from traveling under the banner of a US passport.

The memo states that civil proceedings can be used to "revoke a person's United States citizenship if an individual either 'illegally procured' naturalization or procured naturalization by 'concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.'"

"The Civil Division," it reads, "shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence. To promote the pursuit of all viable denaturalization cases available under 8 U.S.C. § 1451 and maintain the integrity of the naturalization system while simultaneously ensuring an appropriate allocation of resources, the Civil Division has established the following categories for denaturalization cases:

1. "Cases against individuals who pose a potential danger to national security, including those with a nexus to terrorism, espionage, or the unlawful export from the United States of sensitive goods, technology, or information raising national security concerns;
2. "Cases against individuals who engaged in torture, war crimes, or other human rights violations;
3. "Cases against individuals who further or furthered the unlawful enterprise of criminal gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and drug cartels;
4. "Cases against individuals who committed felonies that were not disclosed during the naturalization process;
5. "Cases against individuals who committed human trafficking, sex offenses, or violent crimes;
6. "Cases against individuals who engaged in various forms of financial fraud against the United States (including Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan fraud and Medicaid/Medicare fraud);
7. "Cases against individuals who engaged in fraud against private individuals, funds, or corporations;
8. "Cases against individuals who acquired naturalization through government corruption, fraud, or material misrepresentations, not otherwise addressed by another priority
9. "Cases referred by a United States Attorney’s Office or in connection with pending criminal charges, if those charges do not fit within one of the other priorities; and
10. "Any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue."

There are nearly 25 million naturalized citizens in the United States and recently, Elliott Duke's citizenship was revoked. On June 13, per NPR, "a judge ordered the revocation of the citizenship of Elliott Duke, who uses they/them pronouns. Duke is an American military veteran originally from the U.K. who was convicted for distributing child sexual abuse material — something they later admitted they were doing prior to becoming a U.S. citizen."

Because these will be civil proceedings, there is a lower burden of proof and those who are targeted for denaturalization are not given the right of an attorney. "I do not understand how anyone could possibly be opposed to the Justice Department taking such action to protect the nation from obvious predators, criminals, and terrorists," said the Heritage Foundation's Hans von Spakovsky.

He noted that those who are facing denaturalization are permitted to hire their own attorney, though the court will not appoint one should they decide to. "Nothing prevents that alien from hiring their own lawyer to represent them. They are not entitled to have the government — and thus the American taxpayer — pay for their lawyer," Spakovsky said.

CIV Enforcement Memo - BAS_0 by The Post Millennial on Scribd