Donald Trump is pushing a Citizenship Revoked campaign that would seek at least 250 citizenship-revocation cases in federal court by October 2025. The Justice Department has already moved against nearly 90 people since the start of 2025, a pace that puts naturalized citizens facing fraud allegations at the center of a broadened enforcement drive.
Justice Department case count
The government can ask a judge to revoke citizenship when a person obtained it through fraud or misrepresentation, including using a false identity or concealing a disqualifying criminal record during the naturalization process. The Trump administration says hundreds of people deserve to have their citizenship stripped, and it is targeting people it says should not have become citizens in the first place.
Markwayne Mullin said, “When you commit fraud during the naturalization process, you forfeit the right to keep your U.S. citizenship” and “DHS is committed to ensuring we denaturalize and remove these fraudsters with every tool at our disposal.”
Trump and Biden comparisons
The scale is larger than recent administrations. The Biden administration brought 24 denaturalization cases over four years, while Trump’s first term saw 102 denaturalization cases. The Trump administration’s current target of at least 250 cases by October 2025 would exceed both of those totals, even before the year ends.
Within a week of taking office in 2025, Trump ordered “adequate resources” to be dedicated to denaturalizing some U.S. citizens. On July 20, the White House called the effort the “Largest Denaturalization Effort Ever,” tying the campaign to a wider immigration enforcement agenda and to the DOJ civil division’s push to prioritize these cases nationwide.
Stacey Young on naturalized citizens
Cassandra Robertson, a Case Western Reserve University law professor and denaturalization expert, said, “This is a major increase that we haven’t seen in decades,” a description that fits a process long treated as rare because the cases are expensive, resource-intensive, and can take years to resolve. Earlier denaturalization cases largely targeted national security threats, affiliates of terror groups, and suspected war criminals.
Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer, said, “I don't think this will make any dent in the administration's deportation goals,” and added, “I think it does send a message that naturalized citizenship is impermanent and precarious.” For the more than 26 million naturalized citizens in the United States, the practical question is which specific cases the federal court filings will target as the October deadline approaches.
