The Justice Department is prioritizing a plan to strip certain people of their citizenship through denaturalization proceedings. And their definition of who's eligible is broad and general, ripe for political abuse. Via Vox:
The president and White House officials have suggested that some prominent denaturalization targets could include one-time Trump megadonor Elon Musk, with whom the president had a public falling out, and Zohran Mamdani, a progressive who recently won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City. It’s not clear, however, what legitimate grounds the administration might have to denaturalize either of them.
The news may rattle any of the estimated 24.5 million naturalized citizens currently living in the US. That might especially be the case for those who have voiced opposition to Trump, given that his administration has already weaponized immigration policy against dissidents.
Ostensibly, denaturalization is about protecting the integrity of the citizenship process. In practice, the new push “is about targeting speech the government doesn’t like, and it is chilling all naturalized citizens,” said Amanda Frost, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and author of You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping From Dred Scott to the Dreamers.
This wouldn’t be the first time denaturalization has been used as a tool of political repression. During the Red Scare following World War II, the US pursued denaturalization cases with an eye toward rooting out un-American behavior, both real and perceived.
