JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MAKES SURPRISE MOVE THAT PUTS ILHAN OMAR BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT

DOJ Files Record Wave of Denaturalization Cases—But Citizenship Cannot Be Revoked Simply Because Someone Later Commits a Crime

The Justice Department is dramatically increasing its use of one of the federal government’s most consequential immigration-enforcement tools.

Denaturalization.

On August 3, DOJ announced that it had filed civil lawsuits against 25 naturalized U.S. citizens over a two-week period, asking federal courts to revoke their citizenship on allegations that they obtained it illegally or concealed information that should have prevented them from becoming citizens in the first place.

The complaints were filed between July 20 and August 3.

According to the Justice Department, 123 civil denaturalization complaints have now been filed since President Donald Trump returned to office on January 20, 2025—the largest number in recorded department history.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche described the 25-case wave as the largest coordinated denaturalization effort DOJ has ever undertaken.

And he made clear that the department does not view it as a temporary surge.

“Today’s filings represent the largest coordinated denaturalization effort in Department history, but they are only the beginning,” Blanche said.

That makes the announcement significant.

But it also requires an important legal distinction.

The Justice Department cannot generally strip a naturalized American of citizenship simply because that person commits a serious crime after becoming a citizen.

The government has to connect the case to the legality of the naturalization itself.

Under 8 U.S.C. §1451, federal prosecutors may seek revocation when naturalization was illegally procured or when citizenship was obtained through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.

That is the central principle underlying the 25 lawsuits.

The government is not merely saying these defendants are bad people who no longer deserve citizenship.

It is alleging that they were never legally entitled to obtain naturalization in the manner they did.

That difference matters.

Naturalized citizenship is not a temporary status that the executive branch can withdraw at will.

Denaturalization generally requires a federal court proceeding, and the government bears a demanding burden when it asks a court to undo citizenship that has already been granted.

Federal courts have described that burden as requiring “clear, unequivocal, and convincing” evidence.

The latest cases have not yet reached that point.

For now, they are complaints.

DOJ itself states that the claims are allegations and that no determination of liability has been made.

That qualification is particularly important because the department’s announcement contains some extraordinarily serious accusations.

Among the conduct identified across the 25 cases are attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, aggravated assault and sexual abuse of children.

But the cases do not all involve the same factual theory.

Some concern allegedly concealed criminal conduct.

Others involve false identities.

Others involve immigration fraud that prosecutors say existed long before the person became a U.S. citizen.

One case illustrates how the government says the process can work.

DOJ filed a denaturalization action against Zia Murad Bhatti, a Pakistani-born resident of Arkansas.

According to the government’s complaint, Bhatti originally entered the United States using the name Raza Moorad and was ordered removed.

Prosecutors allege that he later obtained permanent residence under the name Zia Murad Bhatti through marriage to a U.S. citizen without revealing the earlier identity and removal order.

He later naturalized.

The government is now asking a federal judge to revoke that citizenship on the theory that his immigration history and prior identity were concealed during the process.

Another category involves conduct that allegedly occurred before naturalization but was discovered or prosecuted later.

DOJ’s case against Tatiana Power, for example, alleges that she participated in criminal conduct involving the sexual exploitation of children before becoming a U.S. citizen.

The department says later criminal proceedings established that her involvement began before she naturalized.

Prosecutors now argue that the conduct prevented her from satisfying naturalization requirements and that she concealed material information during the citizenship process.

That illustrates another important point.

A conviction occurring after naturalization does not necessarily mean the government is trying to revoke citizenship because of something the person did as an American citizen.

If later evidence establishes that disqualifying conduct occurred before or during the naturalization process—and that it was concealed from immigration authorities—the government can attempt to use that earlier conduct as the basis for denaturalization.

Whether it succeeds depends on the facts and legal requirements in each individual case.

The Justice Department launched a similar coordinated wave two months earlier.

On June 8, DOJ announced denaturalization actions involving 17 individuals accused of conduct including sexual abuse of minors, financial fraud, immigration fraud and unlawful drug distribution.

The August announcement therefore represents an acceleration rather than an isolated enforcement action.

The department says it is now moving at what Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate called “record speed.”

The numbers support the claim that the pace has increased sharply.

DOJ says 123 civil denaturalization complaints have been filed since Trump returned to office.

For comparison, outside researchers reviewing federal court records had identified 166 civil denaturalization complaints in total between 2008 and June 12, 2026, underscoring how heavily recent filings are concentrated in the current period.

Those figures are not perfectly interchangeable because they come from different datasets and methodologies.

The 123 figure is DOJ’s count beginning January 20, 2025.

The longer-term figure comes from an independent review of federal court records.

But both point in the same direction.

Denaturalization has moved from a relatively uncommon immigration-enforcement mechanism into a much more visible Justice Department priority.

That change is significant because citizenship sits at the top of the American immigration system.

Lawful permanent residents can lose their status and be removed under circumstances established by immigration law.

Naturalized citizens ordinarily stand on a fundamentally different footing.

Once naturalization has been lawfully obtained, citizenship does not simply expire because a person later becomes unpopular, politically controversial or criminally convicted.

Revocation focuses on defects in how citizenship was obtained or on specific statutory grounds established by Congress.

And losing citizenship is not exactly the same thing as being deported.

If a federal court grants a denaturalization request, it revokes the order admitting the person to citizenship and cancels the certificate of naturalization.

What happens afterward depends on the individual case.

A former citizen may revert to a prior immigration status in some circumstances.

In other cases, the facts underlying the denaturalization may leave the person without lawful status or provide a basis for removal.

But removal is a separate legal process.

Denaturalization itself is not a deportation order.

That distinction is easy to lose when citizenship revocation is discussed as part of a larger immigration crackdown.

And the larger crackdown is substantial.

ICE data released during the summer showed a sharp increase in immigration detention.

More than 43,000 people were booked into ICE detention during June 2026—the highest monthly number since Trump returned to office.

The total works out to roughly 1,438 detention bookings per day.

By July 11, more than 65,000 people were being held in ICE detention, according to analyses of agency data.

The population also includes large numbers of people without criminal convictions.

ICE’s own categories distinguish between detainees with convictions, those with pending criminal charges and what it calls “other immigration violators”—people without known convictions or pending charges in the agency’s system but who may nevertheless be removable under immigration law.

That distinction matters when comparing the broader immigration campaign with DOJ’s denaturalization announcements.

The Justice Department has emphasized some of the most serious allegations in its citizenship cases: attempted murder, child sexual abuse, violence, fraud and concealed identities.

Those cases are not necessarily representative of everyone being swept into expanded immigration enforcement.

The detention system is much broader.

A person does not have to be accused of a violent crime to be detained in immigration custody.

That is one reason the denaturalization campaign should be understood as one component of a much larger strategy rather than as a complete picture of whom the administration is targeting.

Another component involves citizenship verification.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services operates the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, known as SAVE.

SAVE allows registered federal, state and local government agencies to query government records to verify immigration status and, increasingly, citizenship information.

The Trump administration has expanded the system’s role in election administration.

By the end of 2025, USCIS said SAVE had processed more than 48 million voter-verification queries and that 24 states had signed memorandums of agreement for voter verification.

That expansion has turned what was historically associated with immigration-status and benefits verification into another tool used by states for voter-list maintenance.

Supporters argue that the system provides election officials with federal data that can help identify people who are not U.S. citizens.

Critics have raised concerns about using immigration databases for voter eligibility because an erroneous or outdated government record can have serious consequences when attached to a citizen’s right to vote.

The important factual point is narrower.

SAVE can provide information to authorized government agencies.

A database match or query is not itself equivalent to a judicial finding that a particular person is ineligible to vote.

The administration is also reviving immigration procedures that had effectively remained dormant for decades.

In July, the Justice Department filed the first case ever brought before the U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court.

Congress created the specialized court in 1996.

Until this year, no government had used it to pursue a removal case.

DOJ is seeking the removal of Nazira Haji Zada, an Afghan national living in Fort Worth, Texas.

The government alleges that she supported family members involved in an ISIS-inspired plot to conduct a mass-casualty shooting around Election Day 2024.

Her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, pleaded guilty to terrorism-related offenses and was awaiting sentencing when DOJ announced the Alien Terrorist Removal Court case.

The case against Nazira Haji Zada remains a separate proceeding.

Her relatives’ convictions do not by themselves establish the government’s allegations against her.

DOJ must prove the statutory basis for removing her before the specialized court.

Under the law governing the court, the government must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the person meets the relevant terrorism standard.

The court is unusual partly because Congress designed it to handle sensitive national-security information.

It can permit the government to use classified evidence under procedures intended to avoid public disclosure that could damage national security.

The statute also provides procedural protections, including counsel in qualifying circumstances and appellate review by the D.C. Circuit.

That makes the case notable for more than the individual allegations.

It shows the administration searching across the immigration code for authorities that previous administrations rarely or never used.

A similar pattern is visible at the State Department.

The department is now operating a pilot procedure involving public-charge bonds for certain immigrant-visa applicants.

The policy is narrower than requiring every immigrant to post money before receiving a visa.

Under State Department guidance, certain applicants who would otherwise face denial under the public-charge provision may be given an additional route to overcome that problem by applying for a bond through USCIS.

A consular officer determines whether the procedure applies and sets the amount based on the circumstances of the particular case.

The department says the program is currently being used only for selected applications.

Applicants are supposed to apply for a bond only after being instructed to do so by a consular officer.

That is another distinction worth keeping clear.

The administration has strengthened public-charge enforcement.

It has not announced that every immigrant seeking permanent residence must purchase a bond.

Taken together, these policies illustrate a broader second-term strategy.

ICE is detaining larger numbers of people.

USCIS has expanded SAVE as a citizenship-verification tool.

The State Department is using public-charge bonds in selected immigrant-visa cases.

DOJ has activated the Alien Terrorist Removal Court for the first time.

And civil denaturalization has become a far more aggressive enforcement priority.

But those authorities are legally different from one another.

An ICE arrest is not a denaturalization case.

A SAVE query is not proof that someone is unlawfully registered to vote.

A public-charge bond is not a universal immigrant entry fee.

An Alien Terrorist Removal Court application is not a criminal conviction.

And a denaturalization complaint is not a final order stripping someone of citizenship.

Those distinctions become especially important when an administration deliberately deploys many immigration authorities at the same time.

The headline numbers can otherwise make separate legal processes look like one unified procedure.

They are not.

The denaturalization cases themselves may ultimately provide the clearest test of how far the administration intends to push this particular tool.

DOJ’s current batch is heavily focused on allegations involving serious crimes, false identities and conduct that prosecutors say was concealed during naturalization.

That makes many of the cases easier for the administration to defend politically.

Few people are likely to argue that someone should be permitted to retain citizenship if the government actually proves that the person obtained it through a fraudulent identity or deliberately concealed disqualifying crimes.

The harder questions emerge around how broadly the government defines unlawful procurement and material concealment.

Denaturalization law is powerful precisely because its consequences reach backward.

A successful case can treat an improperly obtained naturalization as legally defective from the beginning.

But that power is also why courts have historically required the government to meet a demanding evidentiary standard.

Citizenship is not supposed to be lost on suspicion alone.

That is the safeguard that separates the government’s allegations from the final result.

DOJ may file 25 complaints in two weeks.

It may identify conduct that sounds devastating in a press release.

It may point to previous criminal convictions involving some defendants.

But for each person whose citizenship the government seeks to revoke, prosecutors still have to establish the legal connection between those facts and the original naturalization.

A crime committed after citizenship was lawfully obtained does not automatically erase citizenship.

A crime committed beforehand may matter if it made the applicant legally ineligible or if the applicant materially concealed it.

A false statement may matter if it satisfies the statutory requirements for denaturalization.

And identity fraud going to the legality of permanent residence or naturalization can provide another path.

Each case turns on its own facts.

That is why the 123-case figure is significant without being the same thing as 123 denaturalizations.

They are lawsuits filed.

Federal judges still decide whether the government has proved them.

For Trump, the political direction is unmistakable.

His administration is moving beyond border enforcement and deportation alone and using immigration law at virtually every stage of a person’s relationship with the United States—from visa applications and detention to citizenship verification and, in selected cases, citizenship itself.

For DOJ, the argument is that naturalization must remain available only to people who obtained it lawfully.

For critics, the larger concern will be whether a record-setting campaign stays confined to clear fraud and statutory ineligibility or gradually pushes denaturalization into more aggressive territory.

The latest 25 cases do not answer that future question.

They establish something narrower.

Denaturalization is no longer a rarely noticed corner of federal immigration enforcement.

With 123 civil complaints filed since January 2025 and senior Justice Department officials promising more cases, it has become a deliberate and increasingly prominent part of the Trump administration’s immigration strategy.

But the government’s increased willingness to file cases does not lower the legal standard required to win them.

The Justice Department can bring the complaint.