DOJ Citizenship Revocation Plans Raise Constitutional Concerns
The Justice Department issued a June 11, 2025 memo directing attorneys to “maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings,” sparking concerns about potential political targeting of naturalized citizens[1]. While the memo lists priorities like national security threats and criminal conduct, it includes broad language allowing cases deemed “sufficiently important to pursue”[1:1].
Legal experts warn this discretion could enable politically motivated denaturalization. “The politicization of citizenship rights is something that really worries me, I think it’s just flatly inconsistent with our democratic system,” said Cassandra Burke Robertson, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University[2].
Recent events highlight these concerns:
- The White House press secretary indicated support for investigating NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s citizenship based on rap lyrics[3]
- Trump suggested examining Elon Musk’s citizenship status after Musk criticized his spending bill[4]
- Trump threatened to revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship, though this is legally impossible as she was born in the U.S.[4:1]
Constitutional scholars emphasize that denaturalization through civil proceedings “lacks many constitutional protections,” with no right to court-appointed lawyers or jury trials[4:2]. The Supreme Court previously restricted denaturalization in 1967, ruling it “inconsistent with the American form of democracy, because it creates two levels of citizenship”[1:2].
“Denaturalization is exceedingly rare and has occurred for people who concealed information of war crimes, Nazi membership, criminal histories, or immigration fraud such as using a stolen identity,” said Michelle Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute[4:3].
NPR - DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
CNN - Law used to kick out Nazis could be used to strip citizenship from many more Americans ↩︎
MSNBC - Trump’s DOJ issues memo on plan to strip citizenship ↩︎
PolitiFact - Can Donald Trump revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s U.S. citizenship? ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
This is an intentional lie about the definition of “commit crime”. In this case (and pretty much all cases that relate to the government) it means convicted of.
Soon they label “original sin” a crime and then use it to go after anyone.
Ex post facto technically. Also that doesn’t pass the common law sniff test for criminal culpability