President Donald Trump’s administration is forcing government immigration lawyers to volunteer to help the Department of Justice with an aggressive campaign to strip hundreds of naturalized Americans of their U.S. citizenship.
The DOJ has compiled a list of 385 foreign-born Americans it wants to target for denaturalization, and has filed 35 cases since the start of Trump’s second term, Axios reported.
The 79-year-old Trump has tried to make denaturalization a priority during both administrations, but during his first term, the DOJ struggled to make significant progress because the cases require the government to meet a high burden of proof.
Now, lawyers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have been instructed to accept transfers to the DOJ in order to beef up staffing on the cases, according to Axios.
The moves are supposedly voluntary, but multiple sources told Axios the lawyers had been “force volunteered” or “volun-told” to take on the new assignment.
They don’t need to have denaturalization or even trial experience—just an active law license.
Last month, senior DOJ officials were advised that civil litigators in 39 regional U.S. attorneys’ offices would be assigned to file the denaturalization cases as part of a broader effort to “ramp up” the process, The New York Times reported.
The administration has also ordered Department of Homeland Security staffers to refer more than 200 denaturalization cases a month, according to the Times.
By comparison, just 120 Americans were stripped of their citizenship between 2017 and 2025.
“There’s a reason why ‘denats’ have never really taken off,” one source told Axios. ”It’s really hard to prove... the standard is really high, and you need good evidence. A lot of cases, it’s just not there.”
For civil revocation of naturalized citizenship, the government must prove by “clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence which does not leave the issue in doubt” that the person lied on their citizenship application.
Citizenship can also be revoked in connection with criminal convictions. The DOJ announced earlier this month that it had filed denaturalization actions against 12 people accused of serious crimes, including terrorism and child sexual assault.
Last year, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow announced he was “declaring war on fraud” in the naturalization process, including making the citizenship test more difficult. Edlow has also been a long-time advocate of increasing the number of denaturalization cases.
A spokesperson for USCIS told Axios in a statement, “We are proud to support this critical effort by providing the Department of Justice with a team of our most skilled immigration law attorneys.”
A DOJ spokesperson said the department welcomed the assistance from USCIS lawyers “to advance the President’s mission to promote public safety and root out fraud.”
The Daily Beast has also reached out for comment.
