It goes without saying (or at least, it should) that any immigrant who obtained U.S. citizenship through false pretenses is subject to having that citizenship revoked, and afterwards be returned to their country of origin. That's what an NBC report says that the United States Department of Justice is doing, in the cases of 40 naturalized citizens accused of making false statements or omitting criminal histories from their citizenship applications.
These people, if their citizenship status is revoked, are looking at a plane ride home.
The Justice Department is taking action to revoke the citizenship of 40 (Note: An earlier update read 39) foreign-born Americans, saying they committed immigration fraud by lying or omitting facts on their applications, according to a draft announcement obtained by NBC News.
The move is part of a new crackdown by the Trump administration on naturalized U.S. citizens who were born outside of the U.S. Federal prosecutors across the country began a sweeping review of naturalized U.S. citizens in April, targeting at least 300 people for possible denaturalization.
300 people may not seem like a lot measured against the millions who are in the country illegally, but there's a matter of principle here: These people are accused of lying to obtain citizenship, and if the allegations are proven, they don't deserve to be United States citizens.
The announcement of the 40 cases, which is expected as early as Monday, marks the largest effort in recent history to denaturalize U.S. citizens, far outpacing an average of 15 cases a year during previous administrations, according to a Justice Department official. And while 40 cases fall well short of the 300 the administration said it was targeting, the Justice Department official said the review of other naturalized citizen applications is ongoing. NBC News reported that the administration’s original goal was to have the office of immigration litigation review as many as 200 possible fraudulent naturalization cases per month.
The Justice Department prosecutors assigned to the administration’s denaturalization task force must now prove these allegations in federal court to have citizenship revoked. If revoked, those individuals could face deportation.
The message here is clear: Enter the United States illegally, whether that be by sneaking across the border or by applying for naturalization under false pretenses, and sooner or later you will be repatriated.
There are several ways in which one can become a citizen, but it isn't guaranteed, not even by marrying a citizen — or, in the case of our rather lunatic birthright system policies, giving birth to one. It's a process that involves paperwork and background checks, although it appears that, in the past, those background checks perhaps have not been as scrupulous as they should have been. In this, as with the entire mess the Biden administration left on all things immigration-related, there is an awful lot of cleanup to be done.
Citizenship in the United States isn't a right; nobody, save naturally-born Americans, is entitled to American citizenship. It's a privilege, and one that must be earned. Lying about one's background isn't the best way to go about that. Now, 40 potential fraudsters may be finding that out the hard way — and who knows who all is among the other 300 that DOJ is looking into? Might there be a member of the United States House of Representatives among their number?
Editor’s Note: We voted for mass deportations, not mass amnesty. Help us continue to fight back against those trying to go against the will of the American people.
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