Chicago – December 18, 2025
The Trump administration intends to increase its efforts to strip some naturalized Americans of their U.S. citizenship, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing internal guidance.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services guidance, which was issued on Tuesday, asks its field offices to “supply Office of Immigration Litigation with 100-200 denaturalization cases per month” in the upcoming 2026 fiscal year, according to the newspaper.
That would mark a dramatic increase in denaturalization cases, which, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, stood at about 11 per year between 1990 and 2017.
Under U.S. law, a person can be denaturalized for several reasons, including illegally gaining U.S. citizenship and misrepresenting a material fact during the naturalization process.
The timeline for denaturalization cases varies, but they can take years to resolve.
A USCIS spokesperson said it was not a secret that the agency’s “war on fraud” prioritized people who unlawfully obtained U.S. citizenship, particularly under the previous administration.
“We will pursue denaturalization proceedings for those individuals lying or misrepresenting themselves during the naturalization process,” the spokesperson said.
