citizens

WASHINGTON, June 3 (UPI) — As the Justice Department increases efforts to strip some naturalized Americans of their U.S. citizenship, U.S. senators on Wednesday debated whether such efforts violate the Constitution.

Republicans argued during a Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution that it has been too hard to take away citizenship of naturalized citizens. But Democrats oppose increasing denaturalization and said it reflects President Donald Trump‘s broader anti-immigrant agenda.

“When someone lies during that [naturalization] process, conceals material facts, hides criminal conduct, masks allegiance to a foreign enemy or swears loyalty with mental reservation, he commits fraud against the United States,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., chairman of the subcommittee.

Countered Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a naturalized citizen. “It’s more than astounding, it should be unconstitutional. Let’s be clear. This has never been about law and order for the Republicans. This is all about getting immigrants. It’s about terrorizing immigrant communities.”

The Trump administration has significantly increased denaturalization efforts since the beginning of the president’s second term. Between 1990 and 2017, the government opened 11 denaturalization cases, on average, every year, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

Since January, the government has opened 34 denaturalization cases and revoked citizenship of 11 people. This is part of a larger, unprecedented push led by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to review 100 to 200 denaturalization cases per month.

“The Trump administration is right to revive denaturalization,” Schmitt said. Democrats, however, raised alarms that the push will have far-reaching consequences for naturalized Americans who are accused of crimes after becoming citizens.

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the subcommittee, said he has no issue denaturalizing citizens who have committed fraud or misled officials during their naturalization process.

“I support that, but I don’t agree that naturalized citizens should be punished for something that happens after they become a citizen,” he said. “It’s the view of the Supreme Court. So, we do not have to reach too far back in our nation’s history to see that a familiar cycle is unfolding.”

The denaturalization campaign has marked a significant shift from previous administrations, which mainly targeted those with links to terrorist organizations or found guilty of war crimes.

But a June 2025 memo from the Department of Justice told government attorneys to expand the campaign to those involved in fraud or sex crimes. The memo later added a broad instruction that attorneys should pursue “any other cases … that the division deems to be sufficiently important.”

A law professor and an attorney pushed back against that tactic.

“The idea is to try to normalize the idea of denaturalization so that they can focus efforts against people who are kind of universally condemned,” said Cassandra Robertson, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University. “Then it’ll be a smaller step to start using denaturalization against other people.”

Robertson said that she had spoken to many naturalized citizens who now fear their citizenship may be revoked over actions like criticizing the government. She cited growing attacks from lawmakers to denaturalize public figures like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“If they’re threatening these high level people, what protection does an ordinary person have?” Robertson asked rhetorically.

David Leopold, an immigration attorney in Cleveland and former president of the American Immigration Attorney’s Association, said he sees similar fears among many of his naturalized clients. He said some have been stopped at airports and asked about their immigration history, despite having U.S. citizenship.

“This administration has succeeded in doing what a lot of authoritarian governments do, and that is spreading fear,” Leopold said.

Democrat Welch said the Trump administration’s denaturalization push seeks to advance the president’s deportation goals.

“The administration has — it is absolutely clear — a very radical goal. And that is mass deportation of immigrants from our country,” Welch said. “It’s doing real damage to our country, and as part of that effort, we’ve seen the abusive lengths that this administration is willing to go to.”

In January, Schmitt, supported by Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., introduced the SCAM Act, which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify the denaturalization process.

One notable expansion of the Act would lengthen the statute of limitations from five to 10 years for being able to revoke the citizenship status of naturalized Americans. The bill has yet to face votes.

“I’m proud to co-sponsor the Scam Act because I believe citizenship must be grounded in conduct that confirms rather than contradicts the promises made in connection with the naturalization process,” said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

The violence prompted 300 Mozambicans to return home by their own means over the weekend, with more than 500 still in the country now beginning the official repatriation process.

At least five Mozambican nationals have been killed in “xenophobic attacks” in South Africa over the weekend, the Mozambican government said, marking the first deaths officially linked to country-wide protests against undocumented immigration.

About 800 Mozambicans got caught up in violence that broke out in the southern coastal city of Mossel Bay on Friday, the government press office said in a statement received on Tuesday.

“Regrettably, seven Mozambican citizens have died, five of them as a direct consequence of the xenophobic attacks and the other two as a result of a road accident, when they were travelling in a private vehicle on their way back to Mozambique,” the statement said.

The violence prompted 300 Mozambicans to return home on Saturday, said the statement.

“The remaining just over 500 have since been sheltered in a safe location in the Western Cape Province, and as of today, 1 June, the process of their repatriation to Mozambique is already underway,” it said.

South African police said on Sunday they were investigating the deaths of two men at an informal settlement in Mossel Bay, a port town about 380km (236 miles) east of Cape Town, where xenophobic attacks had been reported.

They did not say whether the deaths were linked to the protests. It was also not immediately clear what nationalities the two men were.

But the area mayor, Dirk Kotze, voiced “deep concern and dismay at the current xenophobic attacks where people have been murdered, houses burned and families displaced”.

The region has seen anti-migrant protests similar to those reported in the financial capital Johannesburg, Durban and parts of the Eastern Cape province in recent weeks.

South Africa has faced recurring waves of xenophobic violence since 2008, when dozens of migrants were killed and thousands displaced in attacks across the country. Similar flare-ups occurred in 2015 and 2021.

The latest spike in anti-immigrant tensions comes as political parties seek support before local government elections in November.

The first flight carrying around 300 Ghanaians evacuated from South Africa following anti-immigrant tensions and reported attacks on foreign nationals has arrived in Accra. Authorities welcomed returnees with reintegration support and transport assistance.

Peru’s public prosecutor says many of their citizens are victims of deception, lured by ⁠the promise of jobs but ended up in Ukraine.

Peru has launched an investigation into an alleged human trafficking network that lured citizens with false promises of employment in Russia, only for them to end up fighting in Russia’s war against Ukraine, the public prosecutor’s office has said.

Individuals were “recruited through deceptive job offers to work as security agents and other roles” in Russia, “with the promise of financial compensation”, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Friday.

The investigation will focus on the alleged crimes of “human trafficking” and “aggravated human trafficking”, the office said.

Percy Salinas, a lawyer representing families of people who ended up on the front lines in Ukraine, told the local TV channel N that 13 Peruvians have died in the war in Ukraine so far, according to the AFP news agency.

Salinas said individuals were reportedly offered monthly salaries of between $2,000 and $3,000, and that an estimated 600 Peruvians have been lured since last October to fight for Russia.

In a statement released on Thursday, Moscow’s embassy in Lima acknowledged that Peruvians had signed contracts to join the Russian armed forces.

The Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had asked the Russian embassy to clarify the situation and obtain information about the location and wellbeing of citizens serving in the Russian military. The ministry noted that Peruvian citizens are required to seek permission from the Foreign Ministry before serving in a foreign military.

The families of some of the victims who claimed they were recruited under false pretences to fight in Ukraine protested outside the ministry in Lima on Thursday, demanding their loved ones be repatriated.

Peru is the latest country to raise complaints against Russia over the deceptive recruitment of foreign nationals to fight in Ukraine.

More than 1,780 citizens from 36 African countries are believed to be fighting alongside Russian forces, according to Ukrainian estimates from February.

Russia has also previously acknowledged enlisting soldiers from North Korea, thousands of whom are estimated to have been killed or wounded in battle, as part of a military pact agreed between Moscow and Pyongyang.