Trump Administration Seeks To Revoke Citizenship Of 12 Naturalized Americans, Including Victor Manuel Rocha

The Trump administration moved Friday to revoke the U.S. citizenship of 12 more immigrants for crimes or alleged lies in their citizenship applications, with the Justice Department filing denaturalization actions in federal courts across the country on Thursday and Friday.

“The Department of Justice has ramped up its use of a rarely deployed legal tool to strip citizenship, targeting 12 naturalized Americans accused of hiding ties to terrorism, violent crimes and other offenses, and signaling more cases will follow”

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Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said, “This Department of Justice continues to file denaturalization actions at record speeds to restore integrity in our naturalization process,” as acting attorney general Todd Blanche said the cases target people who “should never have been naturalized as United States citizens.”

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The Hill reported the Department of Justice announced it was seeking to denaturalize a dozen people from various parts of the country accused of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, alleging they lied during the naturalization process, including about previous criminal behavior.

The Hill said the DOJ described the group as ranging in age from 28 to 75 years and including former U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia Victor Manuel Rocha, a native of Colombia, who is serving a 15-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges related to his work as a covert spy for the Cuban government.

Fox News Digital said the Friday action included civil complaints or charges against those from Iraq, Somalia, China and India, as the DOJ escalated a rarely deployed legal tool to strip citizenship.

The San Francisco Chronicle identified one target as Oscar Pelaez, a 75-year-old native of Colombia who entered the U.S. in 1992, became a religious worker in 1993, and was granted U.S. citizenship in 2001 after denying previously undisclosed crimes.

The Chronicle said Pelaez pleaded no contest in 2002 to charges of sexually abusing a teenage boy for years while he was a priest at Sacred Heart Church in Turlock, and he was sentenced to six years in prison before being released on parole in 2005 while required to register as a sex offender for life.

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The Seattle Times said the Justice Department sought to revoke citizenship for people alleged to have obtained their status through fraud or by lying about past criminal acts, or because they demonstrated allegiance to terror groups after obtaining their citizenship.

Fox News Digital described Ali Yousif Ahmed as gaining citizenship after saying he fled Iraq in 2009 because al-Qaeda terrorists attacked his family, while authorities said Iraq sought Ahmed’s extradition in 2019 for allegedly murdering two Iraqi police officers while a leader in al-Qaeda.

The Hill said the DOJ claimed the 12 never should have qualified to become American citizens and therefore their status should be revoked because it was “illegally procured or procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.”

The Seattle Times reported that Department of Homeland Security officials were told to refer upward of 200 cases for denaturalization a month, and Justice Department officials across the United States were advised to prepare to take on nearly 400 cases as part of a first wave of revocations.

Cassandra Burke Robertson, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, told the Seattle Times that the cases “represent a significant escalation in the government’s denaturalization efforts,” adding that “The sheer volume in such a compressed time frame is historically unusual.”

The Hill said the process can only occur in federal court and that the government holds a “high burden of proof,” with civil actions requiring “clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence which does not leave the issue in doubt,” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Fox News Digital said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche warned during a CBS News interview that people “should be worried” if they obtained citizenship through fraud, and Blanche said, “Who our targets are? We are not limiting ourselves to anyone in particular except to say that unfortunately, and I think you're going to hear more about this in the coming days and weeks, there are a lot of U.S. citizens who shouldn't be.”

The San Francisco Chronicle quoted Kevin Johnson, an immigration law professor at UC Davis, saying, “Denaturalization can be seen as part of the mass deportation campaign,” as the article described federal courts rejecting most of Trump’s efforts including plans to hold migrants without bail during deportation proceedings.