> 100 to 200 possible cases per month, one of the people familiar with the plans said
Headline makes it sound much more significant than it is.
If it could happen to 100 people per month, it could happen to anyone. This is of course a way to weaponize the system against dissent.
I am a naturalized US citizen. If I want to critique the administration, this is a message to me -- am I sure? What if they decide to make an example out of me? Maybe I'd better keep quiet.
Literally any law could be used to silence dissenters who have broken that law. That's not an argument against enforcing laws that have been on the books for over a century.
This administration, to put it mildly, does not have the trust of most Americans when it comes to fair enforcement of the law. That's the consequence of their own behavior.
That's pretty significant if you're one of the people who built a life in the USA only to have it stripped away from you.
If you committed fraud during your immigration paperwork, such as lie about being a convicted rapist or murderer, you should lose your citizenship.
Yeah with as much accuracy as the current ICE aktion on US inhabitants... In a perfect system maybe you can justify this, but when the system is ship them off and let them try to appeal that the government had no evidence from overseas then the law is effectively "cost people their job, their lifestyle, and their support system and keep them out of the country for a year or two (or permanently if they don't have savings), if they do anything I don't like"
this is why the second amendment exists
A major consideration is that the state holds a monopoly on violence. A single person defending their citizenship with a gun might be morally right, but they will end up physically dead. And a few hundred foreign-born citizens with guns might make the news but will end up equally dead.
Unless a HUGE portion of the country decides to take up arms at the same time, the second amendment isn't going to make the difference. As the administration's policies seems to be affecting individual groups one at a time, I doubt that enough people will be willing to lay down their lives over any single issue.
Bundy is still grazing his cattle on that BLM land to this day.
A lot of good it did Alex Jeffrey Pretti, not. They have far bigger guns, more guns, and can track where you are at all times, picking you up when you're very vulnerable, like in the middle of traffic.
The 2A helps only when a whole community were to get picked up all at once, which basically never happens. When individuals get picked up one at a time, it is in effect useless. Also, the state-specific interpretation of the 2A doesn't allow concealed carry of compact automatic weapons, and even if it did, it is basically a recipe for self annihilation because there are a lot more of them.
Also, there is no way that the people will mass organize to fight ICE violently. This again is because ICE targets individuals, not entire communities.
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pot calling the kettle black with that snarky little comment of yours. why do you assume that I have not protested and voted in the same way you have?
I have voted democrat in every election I could since I was 18. I participated in protests for occupy wall street and against Donald trump. where did that lead us? to this. something isn’t working.
if these people come for my family, all bets are off. i don’t care if no one is coming to save me. no one will make me and my family leave. i will die in america.
> pot calling the kettle black with that snarky little comment of yours
Well I saw what you wrote before it was flagged and the irony of this statement will be beyond anyone else reading this now.
that’s life for you. do something, look stupid, get laughed at, shrug.
i usually don’t care about the opinion of people on a computer nerd forum, but i felt the need to yell at them.
I do realize it’s hypocritical of me to call them out for calling me out for making snarky comments, but the best part about being human is hypocrisy.
Seems more like that thing where an asshole somehow thinks its everyone else in the world that's an asshole, but it has just really been them the entire time.
And one day it'll get used?
I'm going to assume that second amendment is going to continue to be upheld by Republican supporters. And you'll have an NRA who look at people getting executed for possessing a weapon without drawing, and keep saying "this is fine".
The hypocrisy with 2A supporters is palpable. They never supported 2A rights.
I'm a liberal (e: as in democrat) supporter of the 2A. On the other hand, while I do not and have never supported the NRA, didn't they immediately call out the republican politicians and cabinet members who were trying to pin the blame on Pretti for lawfully exercising his 2A rights before he was killed?
I sure wish the nation's 2A fandom would join the protests against masked troops flagrantly violating citizens' rights. One has to assume the mental calculus of whether or not to execute a citizen in the streets would change if the surrounding peaceful protesters are open carrying firearms.
Unfortunately they will instead continue writing fan fiction about protecting their rights while they vote for team "take the guns first" yet again.
We of course already knew that NBC is now yet another Party mouthpiece in the mold of the People's Daily, but if you needed confirmation just look at this beautifully contradictory opener (emphasis mine)
> WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is dramatically expanding an effort to _revoke U.S. citizenship_ for foreign-born Americans _as it works to curb immigration_
Next up is rounding up citizens into camps as it works to curb immigration, and we all know what comes next as it works to curb immigration.
Well, I hope for the citizens that they're married to card-carrying MAGA members highly ranked in the Party, as this is the only thing that matters and gives one a shield.
At this time, no one from abroad who hasn't already immigrated should want to become a US citizen because it means nothing and you could end up stateless and deported to a real hellhole.
Also, this is not the bottom; the bottom is worse and further away. Concerned US citizens, whether by birth or by legal immigration, should at this time probably start working on an exit strategy just as a backup.
I am not saying this because it's ideal; it's far from ideal, but because one has to be realistic and pragmatic.
The "first they came for" poem from the looming government pogroms will start with different categories, but have roughly the same content.
Idk why you’re getting downvoted for this. If watching masked federal agents grabbing kids off bus stops doesn’t make you think twice about living here what would it take? I for one will probably stay but only because I can trace my lineage back very far here but I grow less confident in that every day. It’s clear they aren’t following the constitution which means we are all at some level of risk of getting shipped to a camp.
Why?
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From your link:
Causes for denaturalization under the 1906 Act included fraud, racial ineligibility and lack of “good moral character.” In 1907, Congress expanded the laws on loss of citizenship by marking for expatriation all U.S.-born citizens who had naturalized in foreign nations and women who had married foreigners.
I'm not sure we should want to go back and dredge up the shadiest old laws for application today.
The sad thing is, laws like this are almost worse when they are used infrequently, since they the government can apply selective enforcement against people it doesn't like but are otherwise legal (we're seeing that now). Laws like this should be dredged up and revoked because they are otherwise landmines and secret weapons waiting to be abused by future (or current) governments.
This isn't some obscure law that's being "dredged up." It's been enforced continuously, including under Obama. It's just being made an enforcement priority. Previously, it was prosecuted only in serious cases, usually involving national security threats. But there's no good reason why it shouldn't be enforced for more mundane cases of immigration fraud, which are well within the scope of the law.
If it's not a serious case or a national security threat, why impose de-naturalization quotas? Surely if there are real threats out there we should be dedicating the energy to those?
(Also since you brought up Obama, why was Obama able to deport so many more people than Trump? And able to do it without terrorizing US cities with secret/poorly trained police, or needing a DHS with a larger budget than most other countries' militaries?)
You're fixated on a "technically this is legal" argument. But you're (perhaps willfully) missing the larger repercussions. This administration has lied and misled about their opponents committing fraud. You know they are not acting in good faith. So why would we want to further empower capricious, inconsistent, and politically motivated behavior?
You need to enforce it because illegal immigration is harmful in and of itself, even if the immigrants aren’t criminals or national security threats. Why do we enforce speed limits even when the person doesn’t cause a serious accident? Because the point of the law is to create a deterrent effect that compels people to follow a certain process.
Obama had an easier time deporting people because, at the time, most people in his party accepted the view that illegal immigration is harmful even without some other crime: https://www.foxnews.com/media/2010-obama-clip-goes-viral-whe.... Back then, even most Democrats embraced requiring immigrant to assimilate. If you think assimilation is important, then it naturally follows that we have to control the number of immigrants at a level where America changes them before they change America. Today, many of them reject assimilation in favor of multi-culturalism. If you embrace multi-culturalism, it’s hard to justify any limit on the number of immigrants. And at that point, illegal immigration just becomes a technicality.
Your argument makes no logical sense. The presence of one invalid criterion doesn't invalidate the whole law. In the 1950s, banks used to deny people loans because they had bad credit and because of their race. So does that mean that in 2026 banks shouldn't be able to deny people loans for having bad credit?
The modern law, 8 USC 1451, was enacted in 1952, and was amended repeatedly, including under the Clinton administration. Obama launched a major enforcement operation under the law back in 2009: https://www.hoppocklawfirm.com/operation-janus-operation-sec...
The current administration has established a pattern of making unsubstantiated fraud allegations against its political enemies. That is new.
It would be fine if the Trump administration didn't show a systematic and pervasive contempt for due process, the rule of law and facts.
I don't know what you're talking about, we have the best facts. No one has facts like we do. You've never seen facts like these.
And if you don't like these facts, we have alternate facts in the back room.
The problem is that people are detained indefinitely in extremely horrible camps (ICE facilities), essentially concentration camps, and are constantly pressured to self-deport before they get to see a judge who can clear them. It is their gameplay. Think about it happening to you. This is what's inappropriate and wrong.
Another serious problem is that the context of fraud is not well defined. Does it pertain to immigration or naturalization fraud, or to a general criminal history, or even to traffic violations? It is intentionally under-specified, open to exploitation, to selective enforcement. As noted in the Smithsonian article you linked, Supreme Court cases in the 1950s and ’60s declared unconstitutional several statutes pertaining to denationalization.
> The problem is that people are detained indefinitely in extremely horrible camps (ICE facilities), and are constantly pressured to self-deport before they get to see a judge who can clear them.
The law specifically permits detention pending a determination of immigration status, and in some cases requires such detention: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1226
> Another serious problem is that the context of fraud is not well defined. Does it pertain to immigration or naturalization fraud, or to a general criminal history, or even to traffic violations? It is open to exploitation.
The statute says: "It shall be the duty of the United States attorneys for the respective districts, upon affidavit showing good cause therefor, to institute proceedings in any district court of the United States in the judicial district in which the naturalized citizen may reside at the time of bringing suit, for the purpose of revoking and setting aside the order admitting such person to citizenship and canceling the certificate of naturalization on the ground that such order and certificate of naturalization were illegally procured or were procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation, and such revocation and setting aside of the order admitting such person to citizenship and such canceling of certificate of naturalization shall be effective as of the original date of the order and certificate..." 8 USC 1451(a).
So it is strictly limited to fraud in obtaining citizenship. But the statute is broad as to what constitutes fraud in procuring citizenship. Any "concealment of a material fact or ... willful misrepresentation" can be grounds for revoking citizenship.
> Supreme Court cases in the 1950s and ’60s that declared unconstitutional several statutes pertaining to denationalization.
Not ones related to fraud in procuring naturalized status.
>The law specifically permits detention pending a determination of immigration status, and in some cases requires such detention
In many cases, they are using detention where a simple bond would work. There's a NY Times opinion today detailing this: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/opinion/mass-detention-im...
It's hard to see this policy choice as anything other than putting pressure on people alleged to have committed a misdemeanor. Meanwhile, it will cost the federal government gobs of money to set up these camps, hire guards, and provide for the detainees. I don't want the government to waste my taxes on cruelty.
> In many cases, they are using detention where a simple bond would work.
But the bonds didn't work! That is what the prior administrations did, and the result of that was 22 million illegal immigrants in the country (according to a Yale and MIT study from 2018: https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/yale-study-finds-twic...).
The law specifically provides for detention and release on bond as two alternatives the Attorney General may choose between:
"On a warrant issued by the Attorney General, an alien may be arrested and detained pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States. Except as provided in subsection (c) and pending such decision, the Attorney General— (1) may continue to detain the arrested alien; and (2) may release the alien on— (A) bond of at least $1,500 with security approved by, and containing conditions prescribed by, the Attorney General; or (B) conditional parole..." 8 USC 1226(a).
The law does not allow for cruel and unusual punishment. The Eight Amendment is strongly being violated by the administration. The ICE facilities are extremely poor, unfit for habitation, and are essentially concentration camps. Refer to https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/opinion/mass-detention-im...
Invoking the eight amendment here is like some “sovereign citizen” theory of why they don’t have to pay taxes. The eighth amendment means you can’t draw and quarter people, it doesn’t mean that jails have to be nice: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/cruel_and_unusual_punishment
There is a big difference between being nice and being habitable. The ICE facilities are not habitable.
The person you're arguing with is simply in favor of concentration camps and ethnic cleansing. They have 15 years of comments you can skim to verify this, they are very consistent.
You are not changing their mind and are just giving them a venue to present this abominable "if it's legal it's fine" framework.
Just say you believe illegal migration is a human right instead of misrepresenting my views.
Read the article. The article is about citizens, not illegal immigrants. Also, the fraud rules that you're pushing have everything to do with race and nothing to do with the acquisition of citizenship.
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I believe migration is a right yes. Laws infringe rights all the time the legality doesn't bear on the morality at all.
You’re welcome to that view, but most people in the world don’t believe that. Including most people in the countries that these immigrants are coming from.
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”
> Causes for denaturalization under the 1906 Act included fraud, racial ineligibility and lack of “good moral character.”
And case law concerning this law, Ozawa vs United States:
> The decision goes on to deny that the common population could construe Ozawa, a man of Japanese descent, as white (thus, making him ineligible under section 2169 of the Revised Statutes of the United States).[9] Thus he could not be naturalized, under the current laws, in 1922.
Yeah, the article is the misleading one. Sure bud. Thanks for coming here to defend racism as a basis for citizenship.
Help me see the connection. The government can't denaturalize someone based on racial classifications. Does that mean it can't denaturalize people for any other reason?
You're citing a law based in racism as being perfectly fine to use in the year 2026 because racists previously made it a law.
How is denaturalizing people for lying on immigration documents "based in racism?" Canada as well, and in Sweden, France, Germany, etc., have the same law.
It makes no sense to say the law shouldn't be enforced simply because a different part of that law was struck down as being unconstitutional.
It is selective enforcement of the law that is grounded in racism, only in the USA.
Well they were lying about being white right? Since that’s an eligibility criteria setup by the 1906 law you are here to defend.
Help me understand your logic. Because the law had one invalid eligibility criterion in 1906 means we can’t enforce the law against people who lie about other things?
From 1906 to 1952 the eligibility criteria for naturalization included exceptions for fraud and for race.
You are here to say “that’s a good law actually, because fraud is bad. So we should enforce this law and retroactively denaturalize those who didn’t meet the criteria at the time.”
You act confused when people tell you this is stupid and racist.
Help me understand your logic.
You’re confused about what the law says. The current law, * USC 1451, was enacted in 1952, and it says you can denaturalize people for lying on their immigration paperwork. The current law has nothing to do with race, and Canada, Sweden, Germany, etc., have similar provisions.
You’re talking about a different provision of the law that hasn’t been in effect for 74 years. Nobody is talking about enforcing that provision.
That is literally the way laws work. Laws don't have moral statuses attached in them, we prescribe that to them as citizens. It would be wrong for this law to be enforced, and it should be revoked, but from a state perspective and a legal perspective, it IS "perfectly fine".
There is nothing morally wrong with the law either. It's morally irrelevant that it used to be in the same code provision as another law that was based on a racial classification. The law we're talking about today doesn't do that. And I would be surprised if any developed country doesn't have a similar law. Canada does, for example: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/immigration-citizenship/he...
Under the law you are suggesting is a just and legitimate basis for denaturalization, any non-white person naturalized before 1952 can be denaturalized, as they were committing fraud claiming to be white to be eligible for naturalization at the time.
I don’t have to be super imaginative to extend that to wondering how those people’s children could have inherited citizenship from a noncitizen who committed fraud against the US government.
But we’re all just trying to get back to “law and order” here right? What a stupid person you’d have to be to believe that.
History shows that mass internment and populous movements against a segment of society never end well for the governments that push these tactics. Unfortunately, the damage to the society is often deep and far reaching before the regimes face the consequences.