The Trump administration is escalating its campaign to revoke the citizenship of naturalized Americans

The American website “Axios” revealed that the administration of President Donald Trump has begun transferring lawyers specializing in immigration matters to the Department of Justice on a temporary basis, in a move aimed at accelerating efforts aimed at withdrawing US citizenship from naturalized citizens.

These moves are among the top priorities of Trump administration officials seeking to track down what they describe as “frauds” in the legal immigration system, even though citizenship revocation cases require an extremely complex legal burden of proof before the courts.

The website quoted four former officials as saying that lawyers from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services are currently being transferred to the offices of federal prosecutors to work exclusively on citizenship withdrawal files.

Two sources described the transfer process as saying that the employees were placed under “compulsory volunteering,” while a third source explained that the administration does not require these lawyers to have previous experience in pleading before the courts or in cases of withdrawal of citizenship, but rather it is sufficient for them to hold a valid law license.

For his part, Immigration Department spokesman Zach Kahler commented on this step, saying: “We are proud to support this critical effort, by providing the Department of Justice with a team of our most skilled lawyers specializing in immigration law.”

35 cases in the second term

In terms of numbers and data, a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice reported that the Trump administration has filed 35 citizenship revocation cases since the beginning of the second presidential term, including 12 cases filed this month alone.

Ministry officials also included 385 people on a shortlist to face charges of withdrawing citizenship, according to a New York Times report last April. The administration had sought to expedite these procedures in the first term through a dedicated team that identified 2,500 potential cases, but only a small percentage of them were referred to the Ministry of Justice.

A memorandum issued by the Ministry of Justice in June 2025 considered the citizenship revocation file a “top priority” for the administration, noting that these issues “enhance the overall integrity of the naturalization program.” A department spokesperson welcomed the assistance of immigration lawyers in support of the President’s “mission of promoting public safety and rooting out fraud.”

Legal obstacles and decentralization

Proving naturalization fraud cases faces major obstacles, as the website quoted a source as saying, “There is a reason why citizenship revocation cases are not widespread. Proving them is very difficult, and the legal standard is high and requires strong evidence that is not available in many cases.”

In civil cases, the law requires providing “clear, convincing, and conclusive evidence that leaves no room for doubt” to prove that the person intentionally lied on the naturalization application, while penalties may reach criminal charges for anyone proven to have obtained citizenship illegally without meeting the conditions.

Despite these complexities, the head of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services, Joe Edlow, believes that intensifying these cases remains a major goal. Edlow said in previous statements at the Center for Migration Studies: “I think it is useful to have a decentralized process for withdrawing citizenship. If that is necessary, we will move forward. I do not need to send the files to a special central office. Rather, I want every immigration office to take this procedure as a standard standard for its work.”