OPINION:
The latest cries of outrage and fury by the political left make me wonder whether they have totally lost their minds.
Their criticism of the priority the Trump administration is now placing on stripping the citizenship of dangerous criminals is so out of touch with common sense that it is almost surreal.
All this hysteria is over a June 11 memorandum sent to the lawyers inside the Civil Division of the U.S. Justice Department by Brett Shumate, the assistant attorney general in charge of that division. In the memo, Mr. Shumate lays out the enforcement priorities of the division, which prosecutes and defends all civil matters involving the federal government.
His top priority is “combatting unlawful discriminatory practices in the private sector” that “violate civil rights laws.” His second listed priority is “ending antisemitism,” a loathsome phenomenon that has manifested itself at universities and colleges throughout the nation and something the prior administration refused to do anything about.
Hard to argue with those priorities, isn’t it?
The third priority is to protect women and children, including ending “deception of consumers, fraud, and violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by any entity that may be misleading the public about the long-term side effects of chemical and surgical mutilation.” The fourth priority is “ending sanctuary jurisdictions,” a move that has naturally angered supporters of illegal immigration, including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
Yet it is the fifth priority, “prioritizing denaturalization,” that has the denizens of the left in an uproar. They are raising polemic warnings about the “Red Scare” of the 1950s and a new “dark chapter” in American history because, they say, the Trump administration will use the new directive to persecute its political enemies.
Nutty, overblown rhetoric aside, what does the memorandum actually say?
Under federal law, 8 U.S.C. §1451(a), the Justice Department can institute a civil proceeding in a federal court to revoke the citizenship of a naturalized U.S. citizen if that person either “illegally procured” the naturalization or procured the naturalization by “concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.”
The Justice Department has been enforcing this law and pursuing such cases for decades through its Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, as well as its predecessor unit, the Office of Special Investigations. As Mr. Shumate correctly explains, the purpose of this law is to allow the government to revoke the citizenship of people who engaged in the commission of war crimes, extrajudicial killings or other serious human rights abuses; to remove naturalized criminals, gang members or, indeed, any people convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the United States; and to prevent convicted terrorists from returning to U.S. soil or traveling internationally on U.S. passports.
The memorandum then lays out the priorities. Those who will be targeted for denaturalization include (in order):
- Terrorists, spies and those who illegally export “sensitive goods, technology, or information raising national security concerns.”
- Torturers, war criminals and other human rights abusers.
- Members of criminal gangs, transnational criminal organizations and drug cartels.
- Those who didn’t disclose felony convictions on their naturalization applications.
- Human traffickers, sex crime offenders and violent criminals.
- Fraudsters who criminally financially cheated the U.S.
- Fraudsters who criminally financially cheated private parties.
- Those who obtained citizenship through fraud or corruption.
Who would want any of these people to remain in the United States and enjoy the benefits of citizenship, especially when they lied about their past to obtain it in the first place?
Keep in mind that the Justice Department can’t just revoke citizenship; it has to file a civil action in a federal court presided over by a federal judge. Based on the evidence, a determination is then made in a judicial proceeding as to whether the government has met the legal standard of the statute to revoke a person’s citizenship.
The outcry by the left over this issue shows once again that if there is anyone whose priorities are out of line, it is the critics of this policy. Those concerned with the safety of the public should be glad that the Justice Department will be doing everything it can to remove dangerous and thoroughly disgusting individuals from the communities and neighborhoods where we live, work and play.
• Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
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