Well, well, well. Turns out that lying on your citizenship application and then going on a crime spree is finally catching up with some folks. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a man whose first name sounds like a Marvel character from Oklahoma, has kicked off proceedings to yank American citizenship from ten naturalized migrants who allegedly conned their way into the country and then committed some truly horrific crimes. As The American Tribune reported, the government says these individuals hid criminal histories, used fake identities, or flat out lied during their naturalization process.
Now before anyone gets confused, this isn't about revoking citizenship because someone got a parking ticket after becoming American. Federal law is pretty clear: you can't lose your citizenship just for committing crimes post naturalization. But if you LIED to get that citizenship in the first place? That's a whole different ballgame, and apparently the government just showed up with bats.
The lineup of accused individuals reads like the world's worst fantasy draft. We've got convicted child sex abusers, a cocaine trafficker who pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess over five kilograms of the stuff, someone who allegedly committed nearly $900,000 in Medicare fraud, and a former priest convicted of sexually assaulting children in Washington, D.C. Real cream of the crop stuff here.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche pulled absolutely zero punches, saying these ten people "lied their way into U.S. citizenship" and lacked the good moral character that the law demands. Secretary Mullin added that when you commit fraud during naturalization, you basically hand back your own citizenship card. He promised to use "every tool at our disposal" to get these cases through the courts.
Among the accused is a 65 year old Pakistani national who was convicted of filing immigration applications under multiple fake names, and then apparently obtained citizenship under yet ANOTHER false identity. Points for consistency, I guess? Then there's a 44 year old who got naturalized in 2005 and later pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute cocaine, receiving a sentence of 100 days behind bars and five months of supervision. A real deterrent, that one.
One individual racked up nineteen counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child. Another was found guilty on eight separate counts of child sexual abuse after being naturalized in 2015. These cases are genuinely disturbing, and it's hard to argue against the government's position that people who concealed this kind of conduct should face consequences.
It's worth noting that nothing is finalized yet. The government has filed denaturalization actions, but each case still needs to wind its way through the court system. Federal officials are asking judges to cancel these citizenship certificates before immigration authorities can pursue deportation. So the legal process is just getting started, which means lawyers are about to have a very busy few months.
The whole effort is part of the Trump administration's broader push to root out citizenship obtained through fraud or willful misrepresentation. Whether you love or hate the politics behind it, the actual facts of these ten cases make a pretty compelling argument that maybe, just maybe, the vetting process could use some work.
Read more American news stories at: The American Tribune
