Your US citizenship can be taken away: here’s why

Nearly 25 million naturalised citizens in the United States (US), among whom are Nigerians, are confronting a growing uncertainty as federal authorities broaden the scope and enforcement of denaturalisation laws.

Currently, the Trump administration is significantly expanding efforts to revoke US citizenship from foreign-born Americans as part of a broader push to tighten immigration controls.

In recent months the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for administering legal immigration, has begun deploying specialists to field offices across the country and reassigning staff to review past naturalisation cases.

The focus is on determining whether some citizens processed through those offices could now face denaturalisation.

The renewed emphasis on naturalised citizens is intended to generate between 100 and 200 potential cases each month for the government’s immigration litigation office.

Historically, such cases have been rare and largely limited to individuals found to have concealed serious criminal records or previous human rights violations during the naturalisation process.

In a series of videos on her Youtube channel, Latoya McBean-Pompey, a New York-based immigration lawyer at Mcbean Law, PLLC, explains what causes a citizenship revocation and why the legal threshold has shifted.

According to McBean-Pompey, denaturalisation was once reserved for the most extreme cases. “Historically, it was limited to people who committed very serious crimes, such as war crimes or crimes against humanity,” she said. “That is no longer the reality.”

Read also: Nigerians with fraudulent naturalisation applications to be stripped of US citizenship

One of the most significant changes, she explained, is the absence of any time limit on civil denaturalisation.

“Under civil denaturalisation, there is no statute of limitations,” McBean-Pompey said. “The government can bring a case based on conduct that occurred 10, 15 or even 20 years ago. The two primary grounds are illegal procurement of naturalisation and wilful misrepresentation of a material fact.”

Illegal procurement means the individual was never legally eligible for citizenship in the first place, while wilful misrepresentation relates to false or misleading information provided during the naturalisation process.

McBean-Pompey outlined two principal pathways through which a naturalised US citizen can lose citizenship.

“The first is wilful misrepresentation or concealment of a material fact during the naturalisation process,” she said. “That includes lying on the N-400 application or during the naturalisation interview.”

For the government to succeed, it must prove four elements: that a fact was misrepresented or concealed; that the misrepresentation was wilful; that the fact was material; and that citizenship was obtained as a result of that misrepresentation.

In practice, many cases relate to crimes committed before naturalisation that was not disclosed. These omissions are often uncovered years later during unrelated criminal investigations.

The second route concerns post-citizenship conduct. Individuals may be denaturalised if they are found to have affiliated with terrorist, communist or other totalitarian organisations within a specified period surrounding their naturalisation.

Read also: Green card ban: Why U.S halted its processing for Nigerians, other nationals

The widening scope of denaturalisation has been reinforced by a Department of Justice memo issued on June 11, 2025, which set out civil enforcement priorities. Denaturalisation features prominently, with particular attention on financial crimes against the US government.

These include fraud linked to the Paycheck Protection Program, as well as Medicaid and Medicare fraud. Where such offences occurred before naturalisation and the individual answered “No” to crime-related questions on the N-400 form, prosecutors may later add a naturalisation fraud charge once the underlying offence is discovered.

Criminal naturalisation fraud carries a potential prison sentence of up to ten years. Civil cases do not involve jail time, but citizenship is revoked and the individual typically reverts to lawful permanent resident status, with removal proceedings possible if no lawful status remains.

McBean-Pompey warned that the tougher stance could have broader consequences. “This approach has the potential to discourage immigrant professionals, including physicians, from practising in the United States,” she said.

Tax-related issues have also become a growing source of exposure. Financial crimes against the US now explicitly include tax violations, marking a departure from earlier enforcement that focused largely on war criminals, spies and terrorists.

A recurring trigger is Part 9, Question 15A of the N-400 application, which asks whether an applicant has ever committed a crime or offence for which they were not arrested.

Under-reporting income or making tax errors before naturalisation, followed by a negative response to this question, it could later form the basis for denaturalisation if discrepancies are uncovered.

The DHS has sought broader access to Internal Revenue Service data, making historical tax records increasingly relevant. While authorities are unlikely to scrutinise all naturalised citizens, enforcement is expected to rely on targeted data sets and recent cases.

Crucially, denaturalisation generally hinges on pre-citizenship conduct. Actions taken after citizenship is granted do not usually form the basis of these cases.

Read also: U.S to increase processing fees for immigrants by 5.6% from March 1

McBean-Pompey goes on to explain how denaturalisation cases proceed.

“Most denaturalisation cases begin with a referral from USCIS to the Department of Justice. From there, cases may proceed either as civil actions or criminal prosecutions in federal court. Following denaturalisation, individuals typically revert to their previous immigration status. In some cases, particularly where no lawful status remains, deportation may follow”, she said.

Alongside these changes, the government has introduced a new rule that affects how appeals are handled after removal orders, reducing the safeguards that previously existed.

Previously, individuals could challenge removal decisions by appealing to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Under the new system, an appeal will be dismissed unless all permanent board members agree to keep the case for review. If no decision is taken within ten days, the appeal is automatically dismissed.

The rule does not apply to cases that are already pending. However, it covers all new appeals filed after it takes effect, 30 days after publication. At the same time, the deadline for filing an appeal has been reduced from 30 days to just 10 days.

In practical terms, this means that even people who fully comply with immigration court procedures may still lose their right to appeal if the board does not act within the shorter time frame. The administration says the change is necessary because the system is under pressure and argues that it will redirect more cases into the federal courts.

The risks are illustrated by a recent case highlighted by McBean-Pompey. In June 2025, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina issued a press release detailing the revocation of citizenship from a 51-year-old Nigerian-born man who naturalised in 2018.

Court documents allege that he falsely answered “No” when asked whether he had ever committed, assisted in committing, or attempted to commit a crime for which he was not arrested.

“After that, he took the Oath of Allegiance and became a US citizen in December 2018,” McBean-Pompey said. “That question confuses many people. It literally means: have you ever committed any crime, even if you were never arrested for it.”

“If the truthful answer was yes, but you answered no on the N-400 application,” she added, “the government can discover that years later.”

Ngozi Ekugo is a Senior Correspondent at BusinessDay. She holds a Masters in management from the University of Lagos, an undergraduate from University of Lagos, and is in an alumni of Queen's College. Shes currently an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM). She has a brief experience at Goldman sachs, London in its Human Capital Management division. She is interested in human capital development and is leveraging her varied experience across sectors to report labour and global mobility trends for stakeholders to make informed decisions.

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