Donald Trump’s justice department has moved to strip the citizenship of 40 naturalized citizens accused of crimes in what authorities describe as “the largest” such initiative over a single period during his administration.

US Justice Department officials on Monday announced the filing of “denaturalization actions” against more than three dozen people alleged to have committed such offenses as “acting as an agent for a foreign government, committing voluntary manslaughter, and aggravated sodomy against a special-needs man”.

The denaturalization requests in question were submitted in multiple federal courts between 21 August and 2 October, according to the justice department.

The federal Immigration and Nationality Act allows for naturalized US citizenship to be revoked by a federal court if the government proves that it was illegally obtained through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.

A statement attributed to the US attorney general, Todd Blanche, maintained those at the center of Monday’s announcement “concealed critical facts from the US government and represent serious criminal offenders”.

Trump in previous months had reportedly pushed the US justice department to pursue denaturalization cases en masse. The New York Times reported in April that the justice department had identified at least 384 foreign-born US citizens whose naturalization it wanted to revoke.

Denaturalization requests to courts often involve individuals who lied to government authorities during the naturalization process or obtained citizenship through false marriages. There are also some instances where people who committed criminal offenses can lose their citizenship.

In 2025, the first year of Trump’s second presidency, the justice department filed a memo instructing its civil division to ramp up denaturalization efforts, including by adopting more categories of individuals qualifying for denaturalization – which experts have said has supported the president’s mass deportation agenda.

Because denaturalization cases are costly and require extensive manpower, the justice department has historically pursued them only sporadically.

From 2017 to late 2025, the US denaturalized about 120 people, the Times reported. A justice department official said the initiative reported by the Times in April marked only “the first wave” of citizenship-stripping cases.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice will continue to employ the denaturalization process to maintain our national security and protect the American people,” Blanche’s statement on Monday said.

The 40 people subject to denaturalization proceedings announced on Monday came from various countries, among them Mexico, China, Iran, Pakistan and the Philippines.

One of those individuals was Jinchao Wei, a former Chinese-born US navy sailor who was convicted in August 2025 of charges including espionage and unlawfully exporting technical data related to defense articles. Prosecutors have said Wei began plotting to sell military secrets to China months before becoming a US citizen in May 2022 and concealed that conduct during the naturalization process.

Wei was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison. (The Guardian UK)

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