The Department of Justice has filed cases to de-naturalize 17 legalized migrants after decades of widespread citizenship fraud in the nation’s immigration system.
“Gaining U.S. citizenship is a privilege and under the steadfast leadership of President Trump, this Department of Justice maintains a zero-tolerance policy for the abuse of this process,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a department statement.
“American citizenship is a privilege, and it must be earned honestly,” said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “If you come here break our laws, and lie in your immigration proceedings, you forfeit that privilege,” he added.
Federal law allows the deportation of migrants who committed deception during the citizenship process. But it does not allow legalized migrants to be denaturalized for crimes after being naturalized, which can be accomplished as soon as five years after winning a green card.
Although notable, the de-naturalization campaign covers only a tiny portion of the many civic and economic problems created by establishment-backed mass migration policies since 1990. “The expansion of denaturalization remains very small in scale,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a pro-migration advocate with the American Immigration Council. “17 people is a significant increase from historical efforts, true, but represents around 0.00006% of the total naturalized population.”
Yet the de-naturalization cases may be the tip of a very large iceberg because they reach further than the prior cases of war-criminals and death-camp guards.
The 17 cases focus on migrants who hid their commonplace crimes during the multi-year, multi-stage process before naturalization. “This Department of Justice maintains a zero-tolerance policy for the abuse of this process,” said Blanche.