Washington has quietly moved experienced immigration attorneys from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services into U.S. attorney offices to help prosecute denaturalization cases, accelerating a long-stalled enforcement tool and signaling that stripping fraudulently obtained citizenship is now a priority for the administration.
The administration is temporarily reassigning USCIS lawyers to U.S. attorney’s offices around the country so they can work directly on denaturalization cases, a move meant to bring subject-matter expertise into federal prosecutions. The Department of Justice has already filed 35 denaturalization cases since the new term began, with 12 of those filed in a single month, and a June 2025 DOJ memo listed denaturalization as a top priority.
USCIS framed the transfers as institutional support for enforcement and stressed the agency’s role in the effort. “We are proud to support this critical effort by providing the Department of Justice with a team of our most skilled immigration law attorneys.” DOJ officials said the lawyers will help advance public safety goals and root out fraud, and the teams do not require prior trial experience, only an active law license.
Not everyone inside the agencies is thrilled; some staff described the assignments as “volun-told” and “being force volunteered,” suggesting the reassignments carry pressure as well as purpose. The administration is clear that denaturalization is no longer a back-burner item but a front-line enforcement priority, building on work begun during the first term when USCIS assembled a small specialized team to identify potential cases.
USCIS had identified roughly 2,500 possible cases in the earlier effort but sent only a fraction to DOJ, leaving many matters unresolved. Leadership argues that decentralizing denaturalization work makes the effort harder to dismantle and more likely to stick, and the aim now is to weave revocation cases into the routine work of U.S. attorneys rather than route everything through a single unit.
Edlow has laid out that decentralization in public remarks and emphasized ordinary offices should use denaturalization as a benchmark. “I think it’s just as useful to have a decentralized denaturalization process. I don’t need it specially sent to an office. I want every office using this as a benchmark.” He added a blunt operational line: “If that gives rise to the need for a denaturalization, we’re going to move forward.”
The pipeline is growing. Beyond the 35 filed cases, officials have shortlisted hundreds of names for potential denaturalization actions, indicating the administration intends a sustained, systemwide effort. Embedding USCIS attorneys in prosecutors’ offices brings expertise on naturalization law and fraud directly to teams that handle courtroom work, narrowing the gap between case identification and legal action.
On May 8 the Justice Department announced efforts to denaturalize 12 individuals who had become U.S. citizens, and the group traced back to 11 countries, including Iraq, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Somalia, The Gambia, Bolivia, Kenya, India, China, and Nigeria. Allegations in those filings ranged from concealment of war crimes to murder and terrorism, and allies in the field warned that people who became citizens through fraud or illegal means “should be worried.”
Senior law enforcement figures have pushed for clearer authority and tougher tools to remove citizenship when warranted. FBI Director Kash Patel urged lawmakers and the public to support tougher measures and described a failure to act in a terrorism case, insisting on “stronger legislation” and “the ability to denaturalize,” and citing an instance he called the “Old Dominion attack” where a person was “convicted and sentenced [for] terrorism” but “no one bothered to denaturalize him and remove him from the country.”
The legal burden for denaturalization remains high and intentional, requiring the government to prove willful misrepresentation with “clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence which does not leave the issue in doubt.” One source familiar with the process noted denaturalization efforts have “never really taken off,” explaining: “It’s really hard to prove… the standard is really high, and you need good evidence.” That high bar is why placing USCIS attorneys into U.S. attorney offices matters.
The administration has moved in parallel on other immigration enforcement tools, changing rules for Adjustment of Status to require most applicants to return to their home countries and apply through embassies, and seeking to reinvigorate mechanisms like third-country deportations. Officials describe these shifts as restoring the original intent of the law and cutting down on incentive structures that encourage shady practices, aiming to remove loopholes that reward bad actors.
Critics will call denaturalization harsh or political, but supporters argue fraud corrodes the value of citizenship for lawful applicants and undermines public trust. The leadership view is plain: citizenship obtained by fraud can and should be revoked when the law and evidence support it, and the administration is staffing and organizing operations to make that happen effectively.
For decades denaturalization sat largely unused; this administration has taken it off the shelf and is building a sustained program that combines legal expertise with prosecutorial reach. The legal standards remain demanding and evidence must be convincing, but the message from leadership is simple: citizenship means something, or it means nothing.
