Denaturalization cases surge as record numbers face losing US citizenship

The Trump administration is stepping up efforts to revoke U.S. citizenship from naturalized Americans, with data showing a major increase in denaturalization lawsuits filed this year.

At least 105 civil denaturalization lawsuits were filed in federal district courts during the first seven months of 2026, including 50 filed in July alone, according to data published by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. TRAC previously reported that roughly 125 such lawsuits were filed nationwide between 2008 and 2025.

The figures show a significant increase in the government’s use of denaturalization proceedings, a civil legal process through which federal authorities seek to revoke citizenship that has already been granted.

How Does the Denaturalization Process Work?

The Justice Department has made denaturalization a priority under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

While U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) can identify and investigate potential cases, the Justice Department generally must initiate civil litigation to revoke a person’s citizenship. Such cases typically allege that a person obtained citizenship through fraud, misrepresentation or concealment of material facts during the naturalization process. If the government prevails, the person can lose their U.S. citizenship and potentially face removal proceedings, depending on their circumstances.

Newsweek has contacted the Department of Justice for comment via email.

Because denaturalization cases are filed in federal court, judges must determine whether the government has met the legal burden required to revoke citizenship. Individuals targeted by such lawsuits can challenge the allegations and retain legal representation throughout the proceedings.

“The current pace of denaturalization litigation is extraordinarily high,” Ricky Murray, a former senior USCIS official, told Newsweek. “This increase reflects a perfect storm of additional personnel, enhanced technology, new agency policies, and a government-wide emphasis on reviewing prior adjudications.”

USCIS Defends Denaturalization Push

USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler told Newsweek that the agency “has a zero-tolerance policy for anyone who lies or misrepresents themselves during the naturalization process.”

“Under the leadership of President Trump, USCIS is protecting public safety by more thoroughly screening and vetting all aliens. USCIS is working with the Department of Justice to aggressively pursue and recommend denaturalization of anyone who obtained citizenship through fraud. We will not take any shortcuts and continue to protect the American people from those who attempt to defraud them,” he continued.

In June 2025, the Justice Department’s Civil Division issued guidance directing attorneys to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence.” The guidance identified cases involving fraud or willful misrepresentation in obtaining citizenship, certain criminal conduct and national security concerns among the circumstances that could warrant denaturalization.

Where Are Denaturalization Lawsuits Being Filed?

TRAC reported that lawsuits were filed in at least 37 states and the District of Columbia between January and July. Florida recorded the highest number of cases, with 19 filings during the first seven months of the year, followed by Texas and Maryland with 10 each. California, which recorded 21 denaturalization filings over the 2008-2025 period, has recorded five new cases this year.

The July surge was particularly notable. The 50 lawsuits filed that month followed the 55 cases TRAC had identified during the first six months of 2026, representing one of the largest monthly totals recorded since TRAC began recording the data. TRAC’s analysis is based on federal court records and tracks civil lawsuits filed by the government seeking to revoke U.S. citizenship.

The Migration Policy Institute estimates that about 25.8 million naturalized U.S. citizens lived in the United States in 2024. USCIS naturalized 818,500 people in fiscal year 2024, while almost 8 million immigrants became U.S. citizens over the past decade, according to agency data.

Historically, Murray said, potential denaturalization cases were generally identified through investigations by USCIS’ Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate or during reviews triggered when someone applied for another immigration benefit. Field offices often had limited personnel, competing priorities and little experience preparing the complex cases for federal prosecutors.

How the Administration Prioritizes Denaturalization

Under the current administration, USCIS has devoted more resources to reviewing potential cases and has treated denaturalization as an internal and public-facing priority, Murray said. He added that the agency established monthly denaturalization targets in December 2025 that appeared highly ambitious given the work required to investigate and prepare each case.

“Regardless of whether those targets were immediately attainable, they clearly signaled that the administration intended to devote significant resources to denaturalization,” Murray said.

Murray said USCIS has centralized its denaturalization work; invested in technology that can identify connections among names, identities, fingerprints and immigration records; and increased scrutiny of previously approved immigration cases. The Justice Department’s decision to prioritize civil denaturalization has also removed a significant barrier to bringing lawsuits, he said.

“There are now more channels through which a potential denaturalization case can be identified, more specialized resources available to investigate it, and fewer institutional barriers to litigation,” Murray said. “The dramatic increase in filings is therefore not surprising.”

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the federal government initiated an average of about 11 denaturalization cases annually between 1990 and 2017. During Trump’s first term, that figure rose to roughly 25 cases per year.

Cassandra Burke Robertson, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said the pace seen under the second Trump administration was “historically extraordinary,” with comparable numbers not seen since the Supreme Court limited denaturalization in 1967.

“For most of the last half-century, civil denaturalization was a tool of last resort, reserved largely for Nazi-era war criminals and a handful of egregious fraud cases,” she told Newsweek.

The Supreme Court significantly limited the government’s ability to revoke citizenship in its landmark 1967 decision in Afroyim v. Rusk. In the ruling, the court said, “The very nature of our free government makes it completely incongruous to have a rule of law under which a group of citizens temporarily in office can deprive another group of citizens of their citizenship.”

The court also held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects a person’s right to remain a U.S. citizen unless that citizenship is voluntarily relinquished.

Robertson said civil denaturalization cases have no recognized statute of limitations, do not provide a right to court-appointed counsel and require clear and convincing evidence instead of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

She warned that higher filing volumes and enforcement targets could encourage marginal cases. “The people most likely to be caught in a marginal or weak case are the ones least able to defend one,” Robertson said.

She added, “The biggest issue is that it makes citizenship feel less secure for naturalized citizens.”

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Shakeema Edwards.