The Trump administration is launching a new crackdown on naturalized citizens accused of gaming America’s immigration system, moving to strip citizenship from 17 foreign-born criminals ranging from child sex offenders to multimillion-dollar fraudsters.
The Justice Department is expected to announce Monday that it has filed denaturalization actions against a group of naturalized citizens who allegedly lied, concealed serious crimes, or committed fraud while obtaining U.S. citizenship.
“U.S. citizenship is a privilege, not a right for people who obtained it through deception,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said as the administration unveiled its latest effort to purge what officials describe as bad actors who abused the naturalization process.
Among the most shocking cases is Haitian-born Jean Claude Alfred, 68, who federal officials say was sexually abusing his minor daughter while applying to become an American citizen.
According to the Justice Department, Alfred denied committing any crimes during his citizenship application process despite allegedly abusing his daughter during that same period. He was later convicted by a Florida jury on charges including attempted sexual battery of a child in a familial relationship and lewd assault on a minor.
The Daily Wire reported that another target is Colombian-born Fernando Cristancho, a Roman Catholic priest sentenced to 22 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually grooming and abusing a young parishioner between the ages of 11 and 13. Federal officials allege Cristancho concealed his criminal conduct from immigration authorities while seeking naturalization.
The administration is also seeking to denaturalize Delmas Garcia, a Cuban-born woman convicted in a massive healthcare fraud scheme that prosecutors say generated more than $36 million in false insurance claims.
Garcia admitted operating dozens of physical therapy clinics in Florida that billed insurers for treatments that were either medically unnecessary or never provided at all.
Also on the list is Andrea Marroquin, the daughter of a notorious Colombian drug trafficker. Prosecutors allege Marroquin concealed a fraudulent marriage and used drug money inherited from her father to carry out a series of illicit real estate transactions in Miami before becoming a U.S. citizen.
The latest actions are part of a broader Trump administration push to dramatically expand denaturalization efforts nationwide.
Last year, the Justice Department directed federal prosecutors to prioritize cases involving individuals who obtained citizenship through fraud, misrepresentation, or concealment of serious criminal activity. The New York Times reported that USCIS was subsequently instructed to increase referrals of potential denaturalization cases, with reports indicating the agency was expected to identify between 100 and 200 new cases each month.
The administration argues the initiative is aimed at restoring integrity to the naturalization system and ensuring citizenship is reserved for immigrants who follow the law.
“The Trump administration is taking action to correct these egregious violations of our immigration system,” Blanche said in a previous announcement unveiling a separate round of denaturalization cases involving terrorism suspects, war criminals, sex offenders, and fraudsters.
Critics have accused the administration of vastly expanding a legal tool that historically was used only sparingly. For decades, denaturalization cases averaged roughly a dozen filings annually, but federal officials now say hundreds of potential cases are under review.
Under federal law, citizenship can be revoked if prosecutors prove it was obtained illegally or through willful misrepresentation of material facts during the naturalization process. The government carries a high burden of proof and must convince a federal court that citizenship was fraudulently secured.
For the Trump administration, however, the message is straightforward: if someone lied their way into American citizenship, the government intends to take a second look.
And for some of the nation’s worst criminals, that second look could mean losing the very citizenship they worked to obtain.
Why is there even a question. Commit a crime here after we granted citizenship and it’s REVOKED and your criminal ass is deported and you are Never Allowed to return. That should cover it.