DOJ Prioritizes Revocation of Citizenship

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The Department of Justice announced it will prioritize stripping citizenship from naturalized citizens wherever it can.

Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate wrote that “The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence.”

Although the public announcement of this policy was worded to emphasize revoking citizenship from naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes, the policy also includes “any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue.” That allows wide discretion for authorities to simply decide a person’s citizenship should be taken away. Crimes mentioned include national security violations and fraud against individuals or the government.

DOJ intends to accomplish denaturalization through civil litigation. In such proceedings, there is no right to legal counsel. A person targeted this way can only have a lawyer if they are able to contact and pay for one on their own. Civil cases move quickly and set a lower burden of proof for the government to meet in order to get the result it wants.

Some countries require their citizens to give up citizenship there in order to become naturalized Americans. DOJ has not said what will happen where denaturalizing a USA citizen would leave a person stateless.

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