“To see that this admin is plotting out how they're going to expand its use in ways that we have not seen before is very shocking & very concerning,”said Sameera Hafiz, policy director of the Immigration Legal Resource Center, a national advocacy org providing legal training in #immigration #law.

“It is…in a way trying to create a second class of US citizens:”where one set of #Americans is safe & those not born in the country are still at risk of losing their hard-fought #citizenship, she said.

Other #immigration experts point to another part of the guidance, which gives US attorneys broader discretion to determine other eligible #denaturalization cases. "These categories do not limit the #Civil Division from pursuing any particular case," the memo states, & priorities for denaturalization can include "any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue."

#law#DueProcess#Constitution#14thAmendment

🚨In #civil proceedings, any individual subject to #denaturalization is NOT entitled to an #attorney, Robertson said; there is also a lower #BurdenOfProof for the govt to reach, & it is far easier & faster to reach a conclusion in these cases.

Robertson says that stripping Americans of citizenship through civil litigation violates #DueProcess & infringes on the rights guaranteed by the #14thAmendment.

#law #immigration#Constitution

But #immigration #law experts expressed serious concerns about the effort's constitutionality, & how this could impact #families of naturalized #citizens.

🚨 The #DOJ memo says that the federal govt will pursue #denaturalization cases via #civil #litigation — an especially concerning move, said Cassandra Robertson, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University.

#DueProcess#Constitution#14thAmendment

The focus on #denaturalization is just the latest step by the #Trump admin to reshape the nation's #immigration system across all levels of govt, turning it into a major focus across multiple federal agencies. That has come with redefining who is let into the #UnitedStates or has the right to be an #American. Since his return to office, Trump has sought to end #BirthrightCitizenship & massively scale back #refugee programs.

#law #immigration

#Denaturalization is a tactic that was heavily used during the #McCarthy era of the late 1940's & the early 1950's & one that was expanded during the #Obama admin & grew further during #Trump's first term. It's meant to strip #citizenship from those who may have lied about their #criminal convictions or membership in illegal groups like the #Nazi party, or #communists during #McCarthyism, on their citizenship applications.

#law #immigration