A 68-year-old former priest in Houston is currently serving a 10-year sentence for indecency with a child. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen after committing the crime. A 65-year-old man in Maryland sexually abused his minor stepdaughter from 2008 to 2015 — she was 10 when it started — and naturalized in August 2014, right in the middle of it.
Those are two of the 25 people the Justice Department just filed to strip of their citizenship.
The DOJ announced on August 3 that it filed 25 civil denaturalization complaints between July 20 and August 3 — a two-week blitz the department is calling the largest coordinated denaturalization effort in its history. Since January 20, 2025, the department has filed 123 civil denaturalization complaints total, which it says is the most in recorded history.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche didn't sugarcoat it. "U.S. citizenship is one of our nation's highest privileges, and it must be obtained lawfully and honestly," he said. "Today's filings represent the largest coordinated denaturalization effort in Department history, but they are only the beginning."
The 25 individuals are natives of 17 countries: Pakistan, Moldova, India, Mexico, Colombia, Nigeria, Liberia, Ghana, Jamaica, Taiwan, Honduras, Cameroon, Jordan, Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, and Sweden. The allegations read like a greatest hits of immigration fraud — concealed violent crimes, sexual offenses against children, fake identities, sham marriages, and straight-up perjury on naturalization applications.
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate of the Civil Division put it plainly: "Every one of these individuals committed crimes incompatible with U.S. citizenship. We are moving at record speed to denaturalize those who sought to deceive the federal government."
The case details are stomach-turning. Dwyane Robinson of North Carolina, a Jamaican national, was convicted of attempted first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon after an incident on December 31, 2013. He'd obtained citizenship through military service but was discharged under other than honorable conditions. Jose Luis Martinez-Zavala, age 80, from Mexico, pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault of a child in 2020 under Texas Penal Code § 22.021(a)(2)(B) — six years after he naturalized. Syed Tanweer Ahmad, an 82-year-old from Sweden, was convicted on 64 separate violations including 30 counts of practicing medicine without a license, 30 counts of grand theft, perjury, and forgery, earning a six-year sentence.
Then there's Tatiana Power, 46, from Moldova, convicted in 2022 in a child sexual abuse material enterprise. Haitham Mustafa, 58, from Jordan, ran a credit card fraud operation from 1999 to 2001 and was ordered to pay $146,646.43 in restitution. Jairo Javier Pedron Tellez, 29, from Cuba, conspired to steal approximately $175,000 through bank fraud, mail theft, and identity theft.
Critics on the left are predictably raising "due process" concerns about denaturalization. Which is an interesting objection when you're talking about people who obtained citizenship by lying about child sex crimes and attempted murder. The Immigration and Nationality Act is clear: naturalized citizenship is revocable if it was "illegally procured or procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation." These aren't technicalities. These are people who hid violent felonies to game the system.
For decades, fraudulent naturalization was treated like a paperwork problem — something that happened, got filed away, and nobody followed up on. The 123 complaints filed since January 2025 represent more activity than most prior administrations managed in full terms. The message is straightforward: citizenship isn't a participation trophy.
Twenty-five cases in 14 days. A hundred and twenty-three since Inauguration Day. And Blanche says it's only the beginning. Turns out when you actually enforce the law, you find a lot of people who broke it.