Alien Crime · Denaturalization · U.S. Dept. of Justice · June 9, 2026

They Lied to Become Citizens. Now the DOJ Wants the Citizenship Back.

On June 8, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it had filed civil actions in federal courts across the country to strip U.S. citizenship from 17 naturalized Americans— people the government says lied their way to citizenship while hiding sex crimes against children, multimillion-dollar fraud, drug distribution, and the use of false identities. The defendants range in age from 39 to 69 and come from 13 countries, from Cuba and Haiti to Somalia, India, and the former Yugoslavia.

It is the single largest denaturalization batch in decades, and it is not a one-off. It follows a 12-person batch in May 2026 involving alleged terrorist supporters and war criminals, and it flows directly from a June 11, 2025 internal memo in which the head of the DOJ Civil Division ordered his attorneys to “prioritize and maximally pursue” denaturalization in every case the law and evidence allow. Between 1990 and 2017, the Justice Department averaged about 11 denaturalization complaints a year. This administration has filed more than that in a single week.

One precision matters at the outset. These are civildenaturalization actions, not criminal convictions for fraud. Several defendants were already convicted of the underlying crimes; the new filings allege they concealed those facts to obtain citizenship. The government still has to prove its case before a federal judge by “clear, convincing, and unequivocal” evidence. The accusations in the complaints are allegations. The crimes named here are, in most cases, matters of record.

17 — naturalized citizens named in the June 8, 2026 denaturalization batch — from 13 countries, ages 39 to 69 · Source: DOJ Office of Public Affairs, Newsweek
8 U.S.C. § 1451 — the statute that lets the government revoke citizenship procured "illegally" or by "concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation" · Source: Congressional Research Service
52 vs. 24 — civil denaturalization complaints filed since January 2025 versus the entire four-year Biden total — vs. an 11-per-year average from 1990 to 2017 · Source: CBS News

§ 01 / The 17 — Who They Are

The DOJ press release groups the 17 by the conduct the government says they hid. Six of the cases involve child sexual abuse or exploitation — statutory rape, abuse of minors, and possession of child sexual abuse material; one defendant was a Roman Catholic priest accused of grooming and abusing a child. Several others involve large-scale financial fraud: a Cuban-born defendant, Leidys Delmas Garcia, tied to a multimillion-dollar physical-therapy billing scheme against Blue Cross Blue Shield; Talman Harris, a Jamaican-born defendant convicted in a stock-manipulation and wire-fraud case that cost investors tens of millions; and a Cuban defendant accused of helping loot a Florida tribal casino.

The rest run from drug distribution to identity fabrication. Federico Michel Fermin (Dominican Republic) was convicted of distributing prescription drugs wholesale without a license. Abdikadir Ali Kadiye (Somalia) allegedly filed for admission to the United States under two separate identities, and later admitted to a Customs and Border Protection officer that he had done so. Maria Lourdes Montoya (Mexico) allegedly misrepresented her husband’s identity to secure permanent residence and then citizenship. In each case the legal theory is the same: the person was either ineligible to naturalize or lied about something material, and so — under federal law — never lawfully held the citizenship in the first place.

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§ 02 / The Legal Machinery: 8 U.S.C. § 1451

Denaturalization is the only lawful way to revoke the citizenship of a naturalized immigrant, and it cannot touch citizens born in the United States. The governing statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1451, lets the government cancel a certificate of naturalization that was “illegally procured” or “procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” In plain terms: if you lied about something that mattered to your eligibility — or were never eligible to begin with — the citizenship can be voided as if it had never legally existed.

There are two roads. A criminal denaturalization rides on top of a fraud conviction and carries criminal due-process protections. A civildenaturalization — the road the DOJ is using for these 17 — is a lawsuit, decided by a judge, with no jury and no automatic right to a government-paid lawyer. The government’s burden is high: the Supreme Court has long held that denaturalization requires “clear, unequivocal, and convincing” evidence that does not leave the issue in doubt. That high bar is exactly why, for most of modern history, the tool was used only a handful of times a year.

A federal judge weighs a stack of denaturalization complaints under the 8 U.S.C. 1451 statute — Civil denaturalization runs through federal court, not immigration court — a judge decides, there is no jury, and the government must prove its case by 'clear, unequivocal, and convincing' evidence.

“This Department of Justice continues to file denaturalization actions at record speeds to restore integrity in our naturalization process.”
Brett A. Shumate, Assistant Attorney General, DOJ Civil Division · paraphrased from the June 8, 2026 DOJ press release

§ 03 / The Policy Behind the Push

The 17-person batch did not appear from nowhere. On June 11, 2025, the head of the DOJ’s largest litigating division, Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate, issued a memo to all Civil Division staff laying out five enforcement priorities — ending “sanctuary” jurisdictions, combating antisemitism, protecting women and children, rolling back diversity programs, and prioritizing denaturalization. On that last point Shumate was explicit: the division “shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence.”

The memo named ten categories to chase first: national-security threats, war criminals and human-rights violators, members of transnational criminal organizations, people who concealed serious offenses, those convicted of human trafficking or sex or violent crimes, government-program fraudsters (PPP, Medicare, Medicaid), large-scale private fraud, citizenship obtained by bribery, cases referred by U.S. Attorneys, and a catch-all for “any other” case the division deems important enough. The 17 names announced in June map cleanly onto those buckets — child predators, fraudsters, drug dealers, identity fabricators — which is the point: the memo built the pipeline, and the filings are what comes out the other end.

U.S. Justice Department

@TheJusticeDept · June 8, 2026 · paraphrased from the department's public statement

The Justice Department has filed actions to strip U.S. citizenship from 17 naturalized individuals accused of concealing serious crimes — including child sexual abuse, large-scale fraud, and drug distribution — when they applied to become citizens. Citizenship is a privilege, not a shield for those who lied to obtain it.

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§ 04 / From Rare Tool to Standing Program

The numbers are the story. For nearly three decades — 1990 through 2017 — the Justice Department filed an average of just 11 denaturalization complaints a year. Under the first Trump term the pace rose to roughly 42 a year; under President Biden it settled to about 16 a year, 24 total across the four years. Since January 2025, by DOJ’s own count, the department has filed more than 52 civil denaturalization complaints — already more than the entire Biden administration, with the year only half over.

NPR, reviewing internal materials, reported that officials have discussed a target of 100 to 200 denaturalization cases a month, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services feeding referrals to the Civil Division. Whether that volume is achievable is a real question — the “clear and convincing” standard is a genuine brake, and judges have to sign off on every revocation. But the intent is unmistakable: a tool the government once reached for a dozen times a year is being rebuilt into a standing program with monthly quotas.

A line chart climbing steeply from 11 denaturalization cases a year to a monthly quota of 100 to 200 — From an average of 11 complaints a year (1990–2017) to a discussed target of 100–200 a month — denaturalization is being scaled from a rare exception into a routine enforcement program.

Who Runs the Denaturalization Effort

AAG Brett A. Shumate — head of the DOJ Civil Division; author of the June 11, 2025 memo that made denaturalization a top-five enforcement priority and the named DOJ voice on the 17-person batch.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche (R) — now leads the Justice Department; quoted on the June 8 batch calling citizenship “a privilege” the department will protect with a “zero-tolerance policy.”

Former AG Pam Bondi (R) — set the denaturalization agenda the 2025 memo was built to advance before departing the post in April 2026; the policy is hers in origin even as Blanche now executes it.

The statute — 8 U.S.C. § 1451 — the legal engine: revocation for citizenship “illegally procured” or obtained by “concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.”

§ 05 / The Civil-Liberties Counterweight

This is where the story earns its caution. Civil denaturalization is powerful precisely because it is civil: no jury, no appointed counsel, and a person who has lived as an American for decades can be hauled into court and, if the government prevails, returned to the legal status of a deportable non-citizen. Critics — including immigration scholars and former DOJ lawyers — warn that monthly quotas pressure prosecutors toward volume over the individualized, exacting proof the law demands. A quota and a “clear, unequivocal, and convincing” standard pull in opposite directions.

The honest answer is that both things can be true. A man who concealed the sexual abuse of a child to obtain citizenship should not keep it; almost no one disputes that. And a program built to strip hundreds of citizenships a month, in civil proceedings with thin procedural guarantees, deserves close scrutiny — because the same machinery that reaches a child predator could, if pointed carelessly, reach someone whose “misrepresentation” was far less than the headline cases suggest. The fix is not to abandon the tool; it is to keep the proof exacting and the cases individual, exactly as 8 U.S.C. § 1451 was written to require.

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump

If you LIED to become a U.S. Citizen and hid CRIMES against children, fraud, and drug dealing, you should never have been a Citizen in the first place. Our Justice Department is taking it back — 17 more, with many more to come. Citizenship is a PRIVILEGE, not a reward for fraud!

Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post

§ 06 / The Bottom Line

Strip away the politics and the core fact is clean: federal law has always said that citizenship obtained by fraud was never lawfully held, and the Justice Department is now enforcing that law at a scale the country has not seen in generations. The 17 names announced on June 8 are not the product of a new statute — 8 U.S.C. § 1451 has been on the books for decades — but of a decision to actually use it, codified in a 2025 memo and executed as a standing priority.

What readers should hold onto is the distinction the headlines blur. These are civil cases, the accusations are allegations until a judge rules, and the underlying crimes — child abuse, fraud, drug distribution — are in most instances already on the record. The accountability question is real and points two ways at once: hold the people who lied to citizenship to account, and hold the government to the high, individualized standard of proof that keeps a denaturalization program from becoming a numbers game. Both are owed to the public. Neither is optional.

Pam Bondi

@AGPamBondi · 2025 · paraphrased from her public remarks on denaturalization

Gaining U.S. citizenship is a privilege. Those who concealed serious crimes — child predators, fraudsters, drug dealers — to obtain it betrayed that privilege, and the Justice Department will pursue denaturalization wherever the law and the evidence support it.

U.S. Justice Department@TheJusticeDept

The Civil Division is filing denaturalization actions at record pace to restore integrity to the naturalization process. Naturalized citizenship procured by fraud or concealment of serious crimes was never lawfully held — and federal law allows it to be revoked in court.

Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post