Auto-transcript: Protecting American Citizenship III: Denaturalization and its Constitutional Limits

Chuck Grassley [0:04]

Okay, we'll call the hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on the Constitution to order. Today's topic is protecting American citizenship three, denaturalization and its constitutional limits. This hearing will examine the legal and policy issues surrounding denaturalization and why it is a critical safeguard of the value and meaning of American citizenship as well as the security and harmony of American society. We'll make our opening statements, the ranking member and myself, then we'll introduce our witnesses, swear them in, and then hear their testimony before proceeding to five-minute rounds of questioning. American citizenship is sacred. It's the highest civic honor this country can give. It carries rights, duties, allegiance, memory, inheritance, and obligation. It means joining the American people and accepting responsibility for the future of the nation. But for far too long, Washington treated naturalization like paperwork. Check the boxes, say the words, get the passport, collect the welfare check and federal tax credit, and move on. The approach desecrates American citizenship. It insults every immigrant who came here honestly, followed the law, learned our history, embraced our Constitution, and took the oath in good faith. The Constitution gives Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. Congress used that power to require more than residency and forms. Instead, applicants must show good moral character. They must be attached to the principles of the Constitution. They must be well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States. When someone lies during that process, conceals material facts, hides criminal conduct, masks allegiance to a foreign enemy, or swears loyalty with mental reservation, he commits fraud against the United States and the American people. Fraud has desecrated American citizenship, but that desecration did not happen overnight. It built up over the decades of lax enforcement, cheapened standards, and political cowardice. Reconsecrating citizenship requires a memory, or I should say a remedy, strong enough to remove those who abuse it. That's called denaturalization. Denaturalization cancels citizenship that should never have been granted. It enforces the conditions Congress placed on naturalization. It protects the American people from those who abused our generosity and turned the oath into a scam. The Supreme Court has made the rule clear. No alien has the slightest right to naturalization unless every statutory requirement is met. Citizenship obtained by fraud is stolen status. Stolen status should be revoked. Right now, across the country, we're seeing the consequences of a broken naturalization system that loosely granted citizenship and then refused to revoke it from those who stole it. A DOJ and DHS review found that naturalized citizens made up more than 25% of the international terrorism-related convictions from September 11, 2001 to 2016. Since then, the pattern has continued. Terrorism-related crimes, concealed sex offenses, health care fraud, drug trafficking, espionage, and massive fraud against government programs. In Minnesota, many of those involved in the Feeding Our Future scandal that stole a quarter of a billion dollars from a federally funded children's nutrition program were naturalized citizens. Money meant to feed needy children was spent on luxury goods, vacations, real estate, and sent overseas. It was stolen. That crime attacked more than the public trust. It attacked the public trust and the sacred trust between the nation's citizens and their government. When someone naturalizes and then joins ISIS, supports al-Qaeda, affiliates with other terrorist organizations, spies for a foreign intelligence service, joins a cartel or steals millions from American taxpayers, all recent examples of crimes committed by newly naturalized citizens, prosecutors should ask the obvious question, why did this person conceal when he was asked to become an American in the first place? And what did they conceal? If a man takes the oath of allegiance and then joins ISIS, the fraud likely began long before the battlefield. If a man swears attachment to the Constitution and spies for a foreign country, the betrayal likely began before the indictment. If a man claims good moral character and then steals millions from the American people, the lie may have been present at naturalization. The Trump administration is right to revive denaturalization. The Department of Justice must bring these cases. A USCIS and USCIS should continue referring them for prosecution. Prosecutors should pursue terrorists, fraudsters, spies, sex offenders, violent criminals, and anyone who concealed material facts to obtain citizenship. We need a serious nationwide denaturalization effort against fraudsters, felons, terrorists, spies, and anyone who obtained American citizenship by deceit. If the government never revokes citizenship obtained by fraud, the oath becomes theater. The application becomes a game. The American citizen becomes the sucker in his own country. That is why I've introduced the Stop Citizenship Abuse and Misrepresentation Act, the SCAM Act. The name fits because the abuse is real. If you scam the United States to get citizenship, you should lose it, and we have every right to revoke it. The SCAM Act gives the government stronger tools when serious conduct Serious tools when serious conduct shortly after naturalization reveals the truth that was hiding during the process. Major fraud against government programs, affiliation with foreign terrorist organizations, aggravated felonies, and espionage. Those acts should serve as powerful evidence that the person lacked good moral character, lacked attachment to the Constitution, or lacked a disposition towards the good order and happiness of the United States when he became a citizen. Scam Act also fixes a legal absurdity. Under current law, even after someone is denaturalized, courts can prevent their deportation by treating crimes committed during the fraudulent citizenship as if they do not count for deportation. This makes no sense. When citizenship is revoked because it was unlawfully obtained, the law should permit deportation. Prison alone cannot protect the American people if the terrorist, spy, or fraudster remains here after release. A recent case demonstrates the need to expand our denaturalization laws and ensure deportation. In 2016, a naturalized citizen was convicted on terrorism charges for trying to carry out a terrorist attack for ISIS. He was sent to prison, but was released early in 2024. He wasn't denaturalized, and he wasn't deported. So after his release earlier this year, he committed a terrorist attack at an American university, attacking a ROTC classroom and killing a lieutenant colonel. The terrorist should not have been allowed to remain a citizen in the United States. He should have been denaturalized and deported. And if he had been denaturalized and deported, that horrific attack would have been prevented. Fraudsters should be afraid. Terrorists should be afraid. Spies should be afraid. Cartel members should be afraid. Anyone who lied themselves into this country and obtained citizenship should be afraid. The American people are tired of a government that treats their citizenship as cheap, their laws as optional, and their generosity as an invitation to be exploited. This subcommittee will defend the value of American citizenship. We will support the Trump administration's denaturalization efforts. We will fight fraud in all forms. We will fight to pass the scam act. Denaturalization.

Richard J. Durbin [8:20]

is citizenship safeguard whose time has come. I turn it over to the ranking member. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank our witnesses for being here. Today is our third hearing, this Congress and this subcommittee, on, quote, protecting American citizenship. All of them have focused on the topic of immigration, and today's topic is on denaturalization of non-native-born citizens, and I will get to that in a moment. But first... I want to make a point at what we've not looked at. The administration has, it is absolutely clear, a very radical goal, and that is mass deportation of immigrants from our country. This includes Dreamers, DACA recipients, folks here illegally. And I oppose that. It's doing real damage to our country. And as part of that effort, we've seen the abusive lengths that this administration is willing to go. The violence in Minnesota, that's receded. But the cruelty of these policies to create fear and anxiety include targeting legal immigrants. The Trump administration is violently clamped down on Americans exercising their constitutional rights. In Minnesota, of course, we saw the killing of two people, a 37-year-old nurse, a 37-year-old mother. Immigration agents have detained U.S. citizens, including a Vermonter. respected principal Wilmer Chavarria, a school superintendent who was pulled out of Houston Airport and told, quote, you have no rights here. The Department of Homeland Security has authorized immigration agents to enter the homes of Americans without a judicial warrant. Immigrants have been deported without due process, sometimes in defiance of federal court orders prohibiting their deportation. The White House has turned to pulling every bureaucratic lever that the White House has within its considerable power, cutting off immigrants from jobs, financial services, medical care, tax credits, and daycare. There was a woman, an immigrant from El Salvador, legally in this country, providing janitorial services at the Boston airport, a job she revered gave her life dignity. She did it well. And last year, the administration had her fired. declaring that because of her legal immigration status, she could not carry out the work she had done for almost three decades. And this is all part of a radical crusade against immigration. It's not about securing the border. We're for that. It's not about deporting criminals. We're for that. It's about going after people, including folks who are here illegally. And I absolutely oppose that. Mr. Chairman, yesterday, my granddaughter graduated from Montgomery Blair High School. And I attended. There were 2,000 kids in her class. And many of the speakers were first-generation graduates of high school. And the pride of the parents, seeing their kids... graduate in the words of these kids where they spoke about values, they spoke about a life of purpose, they spoke about commitment to community, they spoke about friendship. We should be honoring and protecting those kids who are our future and putting our energies into protecting them and not just focusing on these. other issues that are about implementation of this mass deportation policy. This is too important for the future of our country, and it's very important to the present of our country that we treat legally entitled people with real dignity. Turning to the topic of today's hearing, denaturalization, I want to be clear. I agree, I agree with you, that we shouldn't allow people to abuse our immigration system. People should not be able to deceive the government and acquire citizenship by lying. We should be tough on fraud. But expanding the denaturalizations is not in furtherance of that goal in this administration. It's intended to create fear in our communities, to prevent people who are legally here from showing up to school, working, or seeing doctors. And by the way, some of those kids had family members, I'm talking at Montgomery Blair, who were picked up. even though they were here legally. Under current law, naturalized citizenship can be revoked if it was procured illegally or by concealment of material fact or willful misrepresentation. So, again, I want to be clear. I support that. But I don't agree that naturalized citizens should be punished for something that happens after they become a citizen. And that is just not my view. It's the view of the Supreme Court. So we do not have to reach too far back in our nation's history to see that a familiar cycle is unfolding. Denaturalization efforts have been clustered around both World Wars and the Red Scare and under the guise of national security has been abused. as some folks abuse the immigration system in targeting people, including immigrants, for their associations, for their speech, and political beliefs. It's been abused in our history time and again. And yes, American citizenship, Mr. Chairman, is precious. It is precious. And those kids that I saw at high school, they believe that. They are committed to making this a better country, to making ours a better community. But broadening the administration's authority to strip citizenship would put 24.5 million naturalized Americans at risk. And in April, I attended a naturalization ceremony back in Vermont, and I think a lot of my colleagues have done that in their states, and it's one of the most ennobling and inspiring experiences that we can have, to see a person... who by choice has undertaken the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. They see it as a responsibility. And they put in years of hard work in order to achieve that status. So yes. Where there's fraud, where there's lying, and that is the basis upon which a person received a citizenship certificate, take it away. But not use this process to add to the attack on people, so many of whom are here legally and who have the aspirations of those young kids, graduates of high school that I met yesterday. I yield back. Senator Durbin.

Richard Blumenthal [15:21]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It was my honor to chair this subcommittee. For a number of years, I tried to focus on issues related to the Constitution and fundamental civil and human rights. It is absolutely beyond me why, with all the challenges facing America, we are talking about denaturalization of citizens. Since the President took office last year, He and his supporters have used every available tool at their disposal to target their political opponents. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mullen even threatened, despite the objections of the Transportation Secretary, to punish the so-called sanctuary jurisdictions by targeting their airports. And the President and his supporters have repeatedly used threats of denaturalization to chill political speech and intimidate naturalized Americans who dare to challenge Trump's policies. In my office in the Capitol, on the credenza behind my desk, is a graying document that is a naturalization certificate of my mother. She came to the United States at the age of two, brought here as an immigrant from Lithuania. After she was married and had two children, she decided to become a citizen of the United States. I have her naturalization certificate, which she handed to me before she passed away. I'm proud of that, and I'm proud of the fact that it also declares that I'm a proud son of an immigrant. She's no longer with us, and therefore could not be threatened by anything that we say today at this hearing. But the thought of taking something so precious away from her because of her political views Doesn't sound like the America that she was aspiring to be part of. In a Thanksgiving Truth Social post, the president even said, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility. If you're a student of the Constitution, look at that as a standard for removing the citizenship of one of your neighbors. This spring, MAGA Congressman Chip Roy introduced the, quote, Mamdani Act of 2026, which aims to denaturalize individuals who advocate for socialism. Wonder what he defines as socialism. Medicare? Sound familiar? It should. These efforts harken back to Joe McCarthy, the tail gunner from Wisconsin, when naturalization was used as a tool to silence political dissidents. For the young people who are in the audience, I hope you've studied that era, but if you haven't, in the 1950s, a Republican senator from the state of Wisconsin decided to start looking for those people who just might be communists in the United States government. Well, he had hearing after hearing, and at the end of the day, there were disastrous results that hurt a lot of innocent people. There was talk of denaturalizing those people. who turned out to be communist or even were sympathetic to them. Among them was Harry Bridges. Harry Bridges was a renowned Australian-born labor leader accused of being a communist. During that McCarthy era, he faced a relentless campaign to revoke his citizenship. But the Supreme Court ruled in Bridges' favor, not once, but twice. In fact, the court has repeatedly held that stripping citizenship... based on an individual's views or expressions, quote, would run counter to our traditions, unquote. The court placed a high burden on denaturalization to prevent the types of abuses we saw during the McCarthy era. Relying on the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court found that Congress does not have the power to take away any American citizenship unless that citizenship was unlawfully procured. It is also held that all Americans are on equal footing in the eyes of the law, with the exception of eligibility for the presidency. Naturalized citizens are no different than those who were born here. With those high barriers under the law, the federal government now rarely engages in denaturalization. And when it does pursue it, it goes after war criminals and individuals who committed serious naturalization fraud. Even under the first Trump administration, only an estimated 160 people in four years were denaturalized. So why hold a hearing to discuss this rare process?