CJ Day
Staff Writer
The Justice Department announced last Wednesday the creation of a new section in their immigration office with the expressed purpose of stripping naturalized American citizens of their citizenship, the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration to reform immigration policy.
Denaturalization is an extreme step to take in any case regardless of potential crimes, said Noah Novogrodsky, a professor at the University of Wyoming Law School who specializes in immigration law.
“Denaturalization in any case is extremely rare,” he said. “You see it in cases of people committing war crimes, committing treason…I’m unfamiliar with seeing it in these minor cases.”
Right now, the plan is for the office to inquire into the records of naturalized citizens to find out if the applicant ever willfully lied on one of the many forms they had to fill out to become a citizen.
The Justice Department has already attempted to strip a handful of naturalized citizen’s citizenship through this process, though Novogrodsky is doubtful that these legal maneuvers will succeed.
“There’s no precedent in this area,” said Novogrodsky. “The government is going to have to overcome a lot of presumptions, there’s a whole host of defenses that a good lawyer could use.”
The lack of precedent is not the only reason Novogrodsky is skeptical that the new office will actually result in any denaturalization. While it is legal for the Justice Department to inquire into the histories of naturalized citizens to find irregularities, the actual process of denaturalization is much harder to accomplish.
In the United States, denaturalization is almost unheard of. In the places where it is often employed, like the European Union, it is most commonly used in situations where a citizen commits an act of terrorism in another country. In these cases, countries denaturalize those who have committed war crimes, so they are not extradited back to their country of citizenship.
“Most denaturalization in the United States is the product of a massive criminal case,” said Novogrodsky. “It’s a big deal when it happens, and the government can’t just decide to do it.”
It is far more likely the new office is posturing on the part of the Trump administration, Novogrodsky said. The move is likely an attempt by the Justice Department to appeal to their base and ramp up anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of the 2020 election.
“It seems like a solution in need of a problem to me,” he said. “It’s intended to scare recent citizens, a way to control the country’s demographics.”
The bar is so high for immigrants to become citizens already that it is unlikely there are massive irregularities in their paperwork, which makes the new office largely unnecessary. Novogrodsky said he felt it is more likely the move is intended to please anti-immigrant groups.
“You consume enough of certain kinds of media, and you start to think that all violent crime in America is done by immigrants,” he said. “That’s just not true, and it’s especially not true of naturalized citizens. It can take decades to work through the process, you have to be a clean candidate.”
Naturalized citizens in Wyoming have very little to worry about from this office, as Wyoming has a very low percentage of immigrants that could be credibly charged, Novogrodsky said. In any case, naturalized citizens in Wyoming are not of any real concern to the Justice Department for any reason.
“They came here, they’ve laid down roots, they’ve had kids, they’ve opened small businesses, they’re pillars of the community,” Novogrodsky said.
Even if the Justice Department decides to prosecute any naturalized citizen in Wyoming under the new guidelines, it wll take months for any court case to make progress. Even so, other citizens in America are now at a higher risk of deportation.
