President Donald Trump says his administration is pursuing denaturalization in certain cases, with particular attention on Somali Americans.
In an interview with The New York Times last week, Trump said he would revoke citizenship “in a heartbeat” for people he believes were dishonest during the naturalization process. He also claimed that “many of the people that came in from Somalia, they hate our country,” pointing to Minnesota’s Somali community and federal cases in which authorities have convicted dozens since 2022 for stealing hundreds of millions from a COVID-era child nutrition program.
Trump added that the push would not be limited to Somali Americans, but he did not identify other communities, saying only that he would move to strip citizenship when people “deserve to be stripped” of it.
Why it matters for Asian American communities
The effort could raise concerns for Asian American communities because Asian immigrants make up a significant share of naturalized U.S. citizens. India, the Philippines, and Vietnam were among the top-five countries of origin for the 818,500 people who became U.S. citizens in the fiscal year that ended last September.
Naturalization rates are also higher among Asian immigrants (63%) than among all foreign-born residents overall (52%), with Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian communities exceeding 80%. Advocates warn that stepped-up enforcement and aggressive referral targets could increase scrutiny even for people who completed their applications correctly—especially in cases where limited English proficiency, long processing times, or hard-to-replace records might have contributed to unintentional mistakes.
What the law allows
Under U.S. law, denaturalization generally requires proof of intentional fraud—meaning the applicant misrepresented or concealed material facts during the citizenship process—or, in some circumstances, membership in communist or terrorist groups within five years after naturalization. Post-citizenship criminal conduct, by itself, is not a basis for denaturalization.
Even so, critics argue that officials could try to treat minor application errors as deliberate deception.
New referral targets
Guidance issued last month instructs USCIS offices to submit 100 to 200 denaturalization referrals per month during fiscal 2026—far above the roughly 120 cases filed from 2017 through 2025 combined.
