With its latest initiative, the Trump administration is doubling down on its immigration strategy. Now, naturalized citizens are being called into question. 

The Justice Department is reportedly moving to put regular federal prosecutors on denaturalization cases. This shift will likely speed up the administration’s efforts to strip citizenship from naturalized Americans accused of fraud or other wrongdoing.

The New York Times reports that officials have identified 384 people whose citizenship they want to annul, though the reasons for targeting those cases were not clear.

“The Department of Justice is laser-focused on rooting out criminal aliens defrauding the naturalization process,” said Justice Department spokesman Matthew Tragesser, the Times shared.

“Citizenship fraud is a serious crime; anyone who has broken the law and obtained citizenship through fraud and deceit will be held accountable,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.

Officials have shared that these citizens are a part of the “first wave” of targets, though it’s unclear what the next wave will zero in on. In the past, denaturalization has been rare and is typically handled by specialists in the department’s immigration litigation office. The Times also shared that the U.S. stripped citizenship from 120 naturalized citizens between 2017 and late 2025.

Though with this new approach, U.S. attorneys’ offices around the country could manage more of these cases, which would increase the pace of filings.

Federal law allows the government to seek revocation of citizenship if it was obtained through fraud or concealment of key facts, and in some cases, for certain crimes. However, the government must prove its case in court, which lawyers say makes denaturalization difficult and often, very time-consuming.

The move follows earlier Trump administration steps to boost denaturalization referrals from the Department of Homeland Security, which is part of a broader immigration crackdown. 

Civil rights advocates have argued that the push could create fear among naturalized citizens.