DOJ Files Denaturalization Cases Against 25 Naturalized Citizens, Largest Coordinated Effort on Record

The Justice Department filed denaturalization complaints against 25 naturalized U.S. citizens between July 20 and August 3, alleging they lied their way to citizenship while hiding crimes ranging from attempted murder to child sexual abuse, according to Fox News Digital and the Justice Department's own announcement.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche called it straightforward. "U.S. citizenship is one of our nation's highest privileges, and it must be obtained lawfully and honestly," Blanche told Fox News Digital. He said the complaints allege the individuals secured naturalization through fraud or concealment, including hiding violent crimes, sexual offenses against children, and fraudulent identities.

The Justice Department's Civil Division, led by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, called it the largest denaturalization surge in the department's recorded history. Shumate confirmed the number to Fox News Digital directly.

The 25 individuals named in the filings are natives of 17 countries: Pakistan, Moldova, India, Mexico, Colombia, Nigeria, Liberia, Ghana, Jamaica, Taiwan, Honduras, Cameroon, Jordan, Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti and Sweden, according to Fox News Digital. The DOJ initially reported 24 cases before adding a 25th later Monday.

A separate Justice Department release described the allegations as including attempted first-degree murder and assault, along with what the department characterized as scamming and drug dealing among the accused. The department's own announcement framed the group as including child molesters, scammers, and drug dealers, though it did not publicly release the individual case files or names in the material reviewed.

These 25 cases push the department's total denaturalization filings to 88 since January 20, 2025, when the Trump administration took office, according to Fox News Digital.

What the Complaints Allege

The range of accused conduct is wide. Fox News Digital reported the complaints cover attempted murder, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, marriage fraud, identity fraud, passport fraud, bank and credit card fraud, and practicing medicine without a license.

Denaturalization is a civil legal process, not a criminal one. The government has to prove in federal district court that a person's citizenship was obtained illegally, typically because they concealed a material fact or lied during the naturalization process. It's a fundamentally different track than a criminal deportation case, and it strips people of citizenship they've often held for years.

None of the 25 named individuals have been convicted in these specific denaturalization proceedings as of this filing. These are civil complaints, not criminal charges, and the cases will be litigated in federal district courts. The Justice Department itself has not published a full public accounting of each defendant's alleged crime, prior conviction status, or country of naturalization tied to specific names, based on what's currently available.

The Bigger Picture

This denaturalization push is happening alongside other immigration enforcement moves out of the DOJ. The department has also sued Colorado, arguing the state's in-state tuition and financial aid policies for illegal immigrants defy federal law and put non-citizens ahead of American citizens, according to the Justice Department's own materials.

Separately, DHS Chief Counsel James Percival told Fox News that a group of federal district judges are engaging in what he called "naked political activism" by repeatedly blocking deportations and Temporary Protected Status rollbacks despite Supreme Court rulings on the matter. Percival was careful to specify this applies to a subset of judges, not the judiciary broadly.

Percival is naming specific judicial behavior he says conflicts with Supreme Court precedent, but the claim that named judges are engaged in "open defiance" is his characterization, not an independent judicial finding. Federal judges routinely issue rulings that immigration hawks view as obstruction and that civil liberties advocates view as necessary checks on executive overreach. Whether specific rulings actually conflict with binding Supreme Court precedent is a legal question that would need to be evaluated case by case, not accepted wholesale from either side.

On the denaturalization front itself, civil denaturalization proceedings carry a lower evidentiary bar than criminal trials, and stripping citizenship is one of the most severe legal actions the government can take against a person. The Justice Department is not simply asserting guilt without process here. These are formal complaints headed to federal district courts, where the government will have to prove its case, and the accused will have the opportunity to contest the allegations.

Blanche's own words frame this as just the start. "Today's filings represent the largest coordinated denaturalization effort in Department history, but they are only the beginning," he told Fox News Digital. Given that framing, the open question is how many more of these 88-and-counting cases actually result in citizenship being revoked in court, versus how many get contested, delayed, or dismissed. The federal court dockets will settle that fact, case by case, in the months ahead.