Blanche: Immigrants who committed fraud to become U.S. citizens should worry

Phoenix — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche touted the Trump administration’s expanded efforts to revoke the citizenship of certain foreign-born Americans on Wednesday, telling CBS News “a lot” of them should not be citizens.

In a sit-down interview in Phoenix, Blanche said the second Trump administration is pursuing more denaturalization cases now than in the last nine years and asserted that immigrants who have obtained American citizenship fraudulently should be “worried.”

“If you’re going to come and become a citizen in this country, but you’re going to do it by fraud, you’re going to do it in a way that’s illegal, you should be worried,” Blanche said.

Asked who is being targeted by the denaturalization campaign, Blanche said, “We are not limiting ourselves to anybody in particular, except to say that unfortunately, and I think you’re going to hear more about this in the coming days and weeks, there are a lot of individuals who are citizens who shouldn’t be.”

Blanche declined to provide a specific number on how many naturalized citizens could lose their citizenship under the crackdown, which is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to more heavily scrutinize legal immigrants.

While most components of the U.S. immigration system are overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department is responsible for revoking the citizenship of naturalized citizens.

That requires a complicated and rarely used legal procedure to persuade judges to denaturalize U.S. citizens born overseas through civil or criminal proceedings in federal court. To denaturalize a U.S. citizen, the Justice Department has to prove that person obtained their citizenship fraudulently, such as by lying on their applications. Between 1990 and 2017, federal officials filed slightly more than 300 denaturalization cases, or an annual average of 11.

Historically, denaturalizations have been limited to egregious cases, mainly involving naturalized citizens accused of being human rights abusers, violent offenders or threats to national security. But last year, the Justice Department published a memo instructing officials to prioritize broader categories of people for denaturalization, including those accused of financial fraud. Trump administration officials have also vocally publicized a push to ramp up denaturalizations.

The campaign has alarmed some naturalized citizens, a population that stood at 24 million in 2023. Asked about those concerns, Blanche said he does not know “why they would be concerned” if they did not illegally obtain their citizenship.

“I don’t think it’s true that those 24 million citizens are worried. I think there’s a very small percentage of them who are worried. And yes, they should be,” he added.

Blanche said he was not sure why the campaign is “even controversial.”

“We shouldn’t tolerate fraud,” he said. “We shouldn’t tolerate lies.”

Blanche noted there’s a process for people who are targets of a denaturalization effort to challenge the procedure. He conceded that revoking someone’s citizenship is a “drastic consequence” but stressed that committing fraud to obtain that citizenship is also a “drastic action.”