Immigration attorneys weigh in on federal denaturalization push

Henrico County attorney Dustin Dyer’s email generates an immediate automatic reply to all inquiries. “Due to the current political climate impacting immigration policy, our office is experiencing an unprecedented surge in email inquiries,” the email states, cautioning the recipient that emails are answered in order of receipt.

Dyer, principal attorney at Dyer Immigration Law Group, said that his practice has been impacted by the Trump administration‘s shift in immigration policies, which Dyer said represented a push
“toward an enforcement-heavy approach” to the process.

“My practice has become more defensive and forward-looking,” Dyer said.

The latest shift in policy and rhetoric from the federal government came last month, when The New York Times reported that the Justice Department identified 384 foreign-born citizens whose citizenship it wants to revoke. It is unclear why the individuals have been targeted for denaturalization.

The New York Times further reported a shift to assign denaturalization cases to prosecutors in U.S. attorney’s offices across the country, a change from the traditional approach of filing such proceedings through experts in the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation. The move is expected to increase the pace of denaturalizations.

Virginia Beach immigration attorney Radlyn Mendoza, founding partner of Gardner & Mendoza, told Virginia
Lawyers Weekly that the vast majority of her clients would be unaffected by the reported increase in denaturalization.

“But when lawful permanent residents hear that this administration is ramping up efforts to denaturalize citizens, it creates a chilling effect,” Mendoza said. “Permanent residents opt out of applying for citizenship, wait for Trump to leave office, and put any efforts toward naturalization on hold.”

Denaturalization

Amanda Frost, an immigration law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said that historically denaturalization was used aggressively by the federal government during the Red Scare of the 1950s. At that time, people were denaturalized for reasons pertaining to ideological differences or if they engaged in conduct suggesting ties to foreign countries.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in Afroyim v. Rusk served to curtail the aggressive use of this tool, overturning a federal law mandating the loss of U.S. citizenship for voting in a foreign election and declaring such aggressive use of denaturalization a 14th Amendment violation.

Frost said that following Afroyim, the federal government can only denaturalize a citizen if their naturalization came about via fraud or error. Such cases include matters involving sham marriages or cases in which an applicant withholds information from their past that would have made them ineligible.

“After Afroyim, both Republican and Democratic administrations used denaturalization sparingly, choosing to denaturalize only a handful of people each year, and only in the most egregious cases,” Frost said, noting that the number of denaturalization cases per year was typically around 10 to 15 people.

Frost said that changed during President Donald Trump’s first administration, when the administration investigated “thousands of people but did not succeed in its goal to denaturalize many people.”

Ultimately, Frost said, the administration was slowed by the denaturalization process, which requires going to court to obtain a judicial decision first.

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions described denaturalization as a tool of immigration enforcement and particularly supported use of civil denaturalization because it had no statute of limitations and did not come with the procedural protections that must accompany prosecution,” Frost said.

The second Trump administration is focused on similar goals in denaturalization, with Frost specifically noting the use of denaturalization “as a tool to discourage immigration” and encourage self-deportation.

Evan Criddle, a law professor at William & Mary, said that while denaturalization serves “as an important safeguard against fraud in the naturalization process,” it remains unclear that the plans to expand denaturalization are “rationally related to this goal.

“The administration has imposed monthly targets for denaturalization cases, raising concerns that the initiative has less to do with uncovering actual fraud and more to do with advancing the administration’s broader anti-immigration agenda,” Criddle said.

Frost also said denaturalization could potentially be used to target ideological opponents, although that has yet to occur.

“[The administration] has used immigration law to target those whose speech and conduct it does not like, so it would not be surprising if the government began using denaturalization specifically against those whose speech of conduct it dislikes,” Frost said.

“Immigration advocates rightly worry that the administration could pursue denaturalization selectively against its critics or disfavored groups, such as the Somali community in Minnesota,” Criddle said.

Impact

As of early May, Dyer said he had not seen a noteworthy increase in denaturalization filings in his caseload but remarked that the rhetoric from the federal government “represents a concerning shift.”

“Denaturalization has historically been an extraordinary remedy, reserved for narrow circumstances involving clear, provable fraud or serious national security concerns,” Dyer said.

Like Mendoza, Dyer said that the most immediate impact is a “chilling effect on naturalized citizens, many of whom believed that citizenship represented finality and security.”

“We are now advising clients that their entire immigration history, sometimes going back decades, may be subject to renewed scrutiny,” Dyer said.

Criddle also spoke to the immediate impact on immigration.

“Even if courts ultimately reject many of these denaturalization bids, the administration’s campaign is likely to have a chilling effect on civil liberties for naturalized citizens,” Criddle said.

Mendoza said the impacts of the chilling effect on permanent residents, including causing them to delay or opt out of applying for citizenship, are “a shame, not just for our clients and their families, but for us as immigration lawyers too.

“The immigration journey culminates in the moment our clients take the Oath of Allegiance — a proud moment for them and us,” Mendoza said. “U.S. citizenship carries real weight.”

As for practice impacts, Mendoza noted that thousands of applicants going through legal immigration processes have been stopped or slowed due to issues such as halts to visa issuance and processing for persons from specific countries and enhanced security checks under a February executive order that have caused delays throughout the system.

“These are applicants who did the ‘right’ thing and got in the proverbial line,” Mendoza said. “These are U.S. citizens and permanent residents who petitioned for family members who can no longer enter the U.S. because of a country ban.”

Dyer said his practice has had to shift how it counsels clients in response to changes in federal immigration policy.

“We are placing greater emphasis on ensuring absolute consistency across filings, conducting preemptive audits of prior applications and preparing clients for the possibility of future scrutiny, even after achieving lawful permanent residence or citizenship,” Dyer said.

He added that the Trump administration’s recent denaturalization push specifically could impact immigrants with lawful status.

“While the government has a legitimate interest in addressing fraud, expanding denaturalization as an enforcement priority risks blurring the line between correcting egregious misconduct and destabilizing the security of lawful status,” Dyer said.

The denaturalization push is just the latest of many stories related to immigration in national news headlines, including the Trump v. Barbara case before the U.S.
Supreme Court that examines the issue of birthright citizenship. The case stems from a Trump executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented or temporary-visa parents, a move that litigants claim violates the 14th Amendment. The case was argued in April and is expected to be decided by late June.

Mendoza said her office has fielded “countless questions from clients and the community about things they’ve seen or heard in the news” — whether it applies to their matter or not.

“All you have to do is turn on the news to be scared if you weren’t born in this country,” Mendoza said. “Even I ordered a passport card to carry with me everywhere just in case I get pulled over — and I was born at Portsmouth Naval Hospital and grew up in Norfolk.”