Pirate's Cove

UK Guardian writer Jose Oliveres was so upset over the prospect of naturalized citizens being stripped of that status that he made an interesting admission

Trump seizes on ‘moral character’ loophole as way to revoke citizenship

A justice department memo directing the department’s civil division to target the denaturalization of US citizens around the country has opened up an new avenue for Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, experts say.

In the US, when a person is denaturalized, they return to the status they held before becoming a citizen. If someone was previously a permanent resident, for example, they will be classified as such again, which can open the door to deportation efforts.

The memo, published on 11 June, instructed the justice department’s civil division to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence”. Immigration matters are civil matters, meaning that immigrants – whether they are naturalized citizens or not – do not have the right to an attorney in such cases.

Whoa, wait a minute, civil matters? No attorney necessary? So all that apoplexy about illegals getting due process was overblown? That they do not require legal representation, because crossing the border is, as they all say, a civil matter, so they can appear in court without a lawyer and be handed a judgement of a small fine and deportation? Huh. Cool!

Muzaffar Chishti from the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan thinktank, explained that much of immigration law was based on discretion by government officials. To revoke a person’s citizenship, US officials must demonstrate that they are not of “good moral character” – a subjective and broad term with little defined parameters.

Now, the recent memo lists a broad range of categories of people who should be stripped of their naturalized citizenship status, providing further guidance as to who is not of good “moral character”. This included “those with a nexus to terrorism” and espionage, war criminals and those who were found to have lied in their naturalization process. Officials still need to prove their case, Chisthi explained.

As for stripping citizenship, the laws are real, but, rarely used. Reportedly, only 107 have been stripped. There are no published numbers of those who denaturalized themselves and left, which would allow them to return to the U.S., at least for visits. The Biden admin even published info on this back in 2024.

Would the Trump admin actually do this? He might, after the shitstorm Democrats put him through after Biden took office in January 2021. Trump was freed up to just go pedal to the metal. And there are plenty to strip and deport. How about Ilhan Omar and all the other hardcore Islamist Somalis up in Little Somalia, ie, Minneapolis, who were brought in by the government in a large group and given citizenship. They didn’t earn it. There are many more who are in the same boat, being Islamic extremists and/or America haters. I doubt that people who earned US citizenship, going through the full process, will be part of this.

For Jorge Loweree, director of policy for the American Immigration Council, a new category in the memo stood out to him: individuals accused of being gang and cartel members.

Loweree is concerned “because of the way that the administration has treated people that it deems to be gang members”, he said. “ It wasn’t that long ago that the administration flew hundreds of people from the US to a prison in El Salvador on, in most instances, flimsy evidence.”

What if they go through the process, which would necessitate going in front of a federal judge, and it’s proven they are gang members? Does AIC really want to protect gang members? Really, most 1st World countries have the same thing available to them, and use it.