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A recent Justice Department memo instructs officials to strip U.S. citizenship from naturalized Americans on an expansive scale. The directive prioritizes national security cases, but the language is broad, directing prosecutors to pursue cases determined “sufficiently important to pursue.”
Denaturalization is a historical rarity, write law scholars Cassandra Burke Robertson from Case Western Reserve University and Irina D. Manta from Hofstra University. Although it spiked in the 1940s and 1950s during the anti-communist Red Scare period, the practice became extremely rare after the Supreme Court in 1967 ruled that the government usually cannot strip Americans of their citizenship.
But the Justice Department memo, combined with the first Trump administration’s effort to review 700,000 naturalization files, represents an unparalleled advancement of denaturalization efforts. The order surely faces legal challenges, Robertson and Manta argue, but may lead to a wider problem.
If the Trump administration can revoke citizenship from naturalized Americans with minimal due process protections, that weakens the security that U.S. citizenship is expected to provide, likely limiting their full engagement with democracy, they write.
Also in this week’s politics news:
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New American citizens recite the Oath of Allegiance during a naturalization ceremony in Miami on Aug. 17, 2018.
AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
Cassandra Burke Robertson, Case Western Reserve University; Irina D. Manta, Hofstra University
In 1967, the Supreme Court said the government usually cannot take away citizenship without a person’s consent.
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The U.S. Capitol is seen shortly after the Senate passed its version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 1, 2025.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Charlie Hunt, Boise State University
Lawmakers who are aligned politically with the president are increasingly voting in line with the chief executive. Doing otherwise could cost them on Election Day.
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The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg
Paul M. Collins Jr., UMass Amherst
What is the purpose of US District Courts
and Court of Appeals, and why do some courts have multiple judges and others have only one?
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Brian O'Neill, Georgia Institute of Technology
Historically, the aggressive use of polygraphs in government is associated with weakening morale and diminished information flow.
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Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College
For decades, Lebanon has been torn apart by internal division and external conflict. There may currently be a narrow window for a different future.
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Maurizio Valsania, Università di Torino
For all the festivities around July 4, the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, actually depicts a wounded, fearful society, teetering on the brink of disaster. Sound familiar?
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Rachel Rebouché, Temple University
A provision in the big legislative package and a related Supreme Court ruling mark the culmination of a strategy to defund the health care provider that was in full swing by 2007.
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