WASHINGTON, DEC 26 /DNA/: The Trump administration is planning a sharp expansion of efforts to strip United States citizenship from naturalised Americans, prompting alarm among immigration advocates and strong condemnation from Democratic lawmakers, including a senior member of Congress who warned that the move would undermine the foundations of American citizenship.
According to internal guidance circulated to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field offices and first obtained by The New York Times, the administration has asked the agency to “supply [the] Office of Immigration Litigation with 100 to 200 denaturalisation cases per month” during the 2026 fiscal year. If carried out, the plan would mark an unprecedented escalation of denaturalisation in the modern era.
Between 2017 and this year, just over 120 denaturalisation cases were filed in total, according to Justice Department figures cited by US media reports. In comparison, meeting the new monthly targets could result in as many as 2,400 cases a year.
USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser said the administration’s focus would be on fraud. “The goal is to prioritise the denaturalisation of people who have been found lying or misrepresenting themselves in the naturalisation process,” he told NPR.
In comments to The New York Times, Tragesser said: “We will pursue denaturalisation proceedings for those individuals lying or misrepresenting themselves during the naturalisation process. We look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Justice to restore integrity to America’s immigration system.”
Immigration law experts say denaturalisation has historically been used only in rare and narrowly defined cases.
Elizabeth Taufa of the San Francisco-based Immigrant Legal Resource Centre told NPR that while past administrations, including that of former president Barack Obama, had used new digital tools to identify potential cases of naturalisation fraud, establishing numerical targets was new and troubling.
“Every single time this happens, it creates this horrible chilling effect in the naturalised citizen and eligible-to-naturalise population, where folks get scared,” Taufa said. She added that meeting a quota of 100 to 200 cases a month would be a “Herculean undertaking”, warning it could not be done “without cutting some corners”.
‘Will harm all Americans’
The proposal has drawn a strong reaction from Capitol Hill. US Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, the ranking member of the House Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Subcommittee, said she was “absolutely outraged” by the plan.
“I am absolutely outraged by the Trump administration’s plan to denaturalise American citizens by the hundreds every single month and use the immigration system to terrorise immigrants across this country, including US citizens,” Jayapal said in a statement.
“These arbitrary numerical targets Trump has put out show that he is using the immigration system to go after anyone who disagrees with him, anyone who comes from countries he doesn’t like or decides to call ‘shithole’ countries, anyone he wants to terrorise into submission,” she said. “Trump’s campaign of terror has never been about going after the ‘worst of the worst’, and this latest move makes that crystal clear.”
Jayapal warned that the policy should concern all Americans, not just immigrants. “Every US citizen should be outraged by this,” she said. “If he can do this to ‘them’, he can certainly do it to you.”
A naturalised citizen herself, Jayapal underscored the meaning and security of citizenship. “The idea that our own government would now seek to rip away this sacred bond that binds naturalised citizens to our country will harm all Americans, and indeed, the very idea of America,” she said, recounting her own long journey through multiple visas before becoming a US citizen.
The guidance comes as the Trump administration has intensified a broader immigration crackdown, including restrictions on asylum at the southern border, a pause on asylum applications inside the US, and entry bans affecting travellers from several predominantly African and Middle Eastern countries.
Administration officials say the measures are intended to preserve national security and the integrity of the immigration system.
Immigration advocates and legal experts say the denaturalisation drive is likely to face court challenges, noting that under US law citizenship can be revoked only in limited circumstances, primarily involving proven fraud. They warn that the new policy risks sowing fear among millions of law-abiding naturalised Americans who believed their citizenship was secure.
Opposition to proposed Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility rule
In a separate statement, immigration leaders in the House and Senate also opposed the Trump administration’s proposed “Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility” rule, warning that it unlawfully rewrites longstanding immigration law and would discourage immigrant families from accessing basic health, nutrition, and housing assistance to which they are legally entitled.
The lawmakers said the proposal would bypass Congress by redefining the term “public charge”, which for more than 135 years has applied only to individuals who are primarily dependent on the government for subsistence. Under existing law, a determination that an immigrant is likely to become a public charge can affect eligibility to enter the US.
The administration’s proposal, they warned, would go much further by penalising immigrants for using supplemental benefits such as health care, nutrition, or housing assistance — programmes that Congress deliberately made available to support working immigrant families.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “is seeking to circumvent Congress by administratively altering the 135-year-old meaning of the term ‘public charge’ in violation of congressional intent”, the members wrote.
“Congress has deliberately rejected the very changes that DHS now seeks to implement administratively, in complete defiance of our will and intent.”
