WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) condemns in the strongest terms the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security’s expansion of denaturalization efforts. This memo outlines a broadened scope of citizenship revocation—a measure once reserved for war criminals and egregious fraud—to target individuals for minor paperwork errors, upending lives after decades of lawful residency.

Under the guise of national security, the directive invites arbitrary enforcement, disproportionately threatening naturalized citizens from vulnerable communities. By lowering the burden of proof—from requiring intent to deceive to penalizing technical oversights—the administration is weaponizing bureaucracy to strip people of their citizenship. This is not an isolated policy shift but part of the administration’s systematic campaign to expand dragnets against immigrants, refugees, and even long-standing naturalized Americans, all to meet lawless and chaotic deportation targets.

Nicole Melaku, NPNA executive director, stated: “Since 1790, naturalization has been vital for individuals to adjust their status and obtain the full benefits, privileges, and rights of citizenship—including protection from deportation. As part of the onslaught of anti-immigrant measures rooted in the criminalization narrative, the current administration now wants to strip away established protections from naturalized citizens. We will not allow our communities to be intimidated or ill-informed about their rights and remedies as naturalized citizens. We will be vigilant of instances of denaturalization, document racial profiling and politically motivated denaturalization, and hold this administration accountable for this attempt to funnel more individuals to the deportation pipeline.

This memo is another representation of Stephen Miller’s white nationalist agenda in action—a deliberate strategy to terrorize immigrant communities and normalize their erasure. The recent surge in Islamophobic rhetoric from lawmakers and right-wing media only amplifies this threat. We demand that judges, policymakers, and allies reject this cruel overreach and defend the rights of every American, whether naturalized or natural-born. Citizenship fortifies our democracy, and it is not conditional.”

Said Angelica Salas, Executive Director for Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), “The President of the United States continues to try to do away with the 14th amendment as he has incessantly attacked birthright citizenship and now is poking holes at citizenship. The bar to denaturalize someone is extremely high, and only egregious acts have merited such governmental action. As the current administration lowers the bar to harm and ostracize immigrants by labeling everyone as criminals, those of us who are naturalized citizens have now suddenly become suspect. We do not know how far this Administration is willing to go in its obsessive attacks. Still, we hold on ferociously to our belief in the Constitution and the citizenship by birth and naturalization rights it enshrines.”

Said Murad Awawdeh, President & CEO, New York Immigration Coalition, “The Trump administration’s attempt to strip naturalized citizens of their U.S. citizenship is a direct threat to the promise that citizenship, once granted, is permanent and secure.  We know how this story goes: the flimsiest pretext of ‘fraud’ will be used to target immigrants and people whom the Trump Administration perceives to be their enemies. The June 11 memo is no less than an attack on our democracy and a dangerous escalation of its mass deportation agenda, and when the cases proceed in earnest, are likely to be debated in the courts. We urge the New York Congressional Delegation and Congress to take immediate action to block any legal authority that enables this weaponization of the denaturalization process.”

Said Dr. Carlos Aleman, CEO of the Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama (HICA), “At HICA, we believe in the promise of citizenship—not as a temporary privilege, but as a permanent right. The expansion of denaturalization efforts sends a chilling message to immigrant communities and undermines confidence in our democracy. If citizenship can be revoked over minor paperwork errors, then no naturalized American is safe. This erosion of trust strikes at the heart of what it means to belong, and we will not stand by as our communities are treated as disposable. Citizenship should never be conditional.”

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The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) is a multi-ethnic, multiracial coalition of 88 of the nation’s largest immigrant and refugee rights organizations with reach across over 42 states. Together with our members, we advance immigrant and refugee equity and inclusion, build and expand immigration legal services and integration programming capacity, and drive campaigns that strengthen democracy through increased civic participation. See our website for more information at partnershipfornewamericans.org.