The Justice Department has ramped up efforts to revoke citizenship for convicted criminals and people who committed war crimes in their native countries, part of the Trump administration’s broader focus this year to initiate hundreds of denaturalizations per month.
The department moved in the past week to denaturalize certain residents in Florida, California and New York who had violent histories, and celebrated the loss of citizenship for a Texas man who is a child sex offender.
Officials said those targeted by the denaturalization push carried out their crimes before becoming citizens, then omitted their offenses on their citizenship applications and in subsequent screening interviews.
“This Department of Justice will continue to strip citizenship from those who commit heinous crimes and conceal them during the naturalization process,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “American citizenship is a great and sacred privilege that must be earned honestly.”
The surge in denaturalizations follows the department’s updated guidance in December directing the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to put forward 100-200 denaturalization cases per month in fiscal year 2026. The New York Times first obtained the new marching orders.
For perspective on the increased pace, the U.S. filed only 305 denaturalization cases between 1990 and 2017 — an average of 11 per year — and sought to revoke citizenship for nearly 170 naturalized Americans during President Trump’s first four-year term.
Revoking citizenship was traditionally reserved for terrorist-related cases and those who assisted despotic regimes. The legal process requires the USCIS to refer a case to the Justice Department when there is enough evidence that the prospective citizen withheld some personal information that would have disqualified them, such as a crime or human rights abuse.
People born in the U.S. cannot have their citizenship taken from them.
But the Justice Department widened the pool of denaturalization candidates last summer in hopes of fulfilling the ambitious agenda. Now federal prosecutors are seeking out violent criminals, gun offenders, human traffickers and fraudsters of all kinds.
The recent batch of those being sought for denaturalization include Gurmeet Singh, who was convicted of rape in New York shortly after he became an American citizen in 2011.
Prosecutors on Monday said Singh, an Indian national, was a taxi driver in New York who woke a sleeping passenger in his backseat by putting a knife to the woman’s throat, bound and gagged her, and then raped her.
Officials said Singh concealed his active criminal case while undergoing the naturalization process. He’s currently serving a 20-year sentence in a New York state prison.
The Justice Department also on Monday filed to revoke the citizenship of Erwin Galindo, a California resident who did not disclose during his naturalization proceedings that he had sexually abused an 11-year-old girl and raped his 14-year-old daughter.
Court documents said Galindo threatened to have his daughter deported back to Guatemala if she discussed the attack with anyone.
Galindo pleaded guilty in 2016 and was given an 8-year sentence, prosecutors said. He was released after spending five years behind bars.
Last week, federal prosecutors in Florida filed to denaturalize Luis Miguel Fernandez Gaviola for hiding his war crimes while in the Peruvian military.
The civil court documents said Mr. Fernandez Gaviola commanded an infantry unit in 1989 that killed eight residents in the District of Pucara because of the victims’ suspected ties to a rival political group.
Mr. Fernandez Gaviola came to the U.S. in 1992. When he applied for citizenship in 2003, prosecutors said he did not disclose his prior military experience or his role in the political slayings.
“No one who commits atrocities like these is entitled to the precious gift of U.S. citizenship,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said in a statement. “We owe it to the American people to protect them from human rights violators who abuse positions of power, wherever they engaged in their offensive acts.”
The department has had some success in revoking citizenships.
A federal judge in Texas ordered to negate Carlos Noe Gallegos’ naturalized status after prosecutors said he never revealed his prior sexual assault of a child.
Court documents said Gallegos came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1998, and later married an American citizen.
Prosecutors said he sexually assaulted a child under the age of 14 in 2007, but did not list the crime when applying for his naturalization two years later.
Gallegos was charged for the sexual assault in 2016. He pleaded guilty to the offense and was sentenced to six years of community service, according to court documents.
The case also highlights how time-consuming denaturalizations can be: legal efforts to revoke Gallegos’ citizenship started during Mr. Trump’s first term and were largely prosecuted under President Biden.
But the first year of Mr. Trump’s second term has shown an ability to expedite those cases, with the Justice Department winning eight of the 13 denaturalization cases it brought in 2025.
“After one year, this Department of Justice has filed and won nearly the same number of denaturalization cases that the Biden administration did in four years,” a Justice Department spokesperson said. “Those who gained citizenship through unlawful means and endanger our national security will not maintain the benefits of being an American citizen.”
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.