NYT "Trump issues target to revoke citizenship of 1 million~200 people monthly"

The administration of Donald Trump in the United States reportedly issued a directive to frontline immigration agencies to refer 100–200 cases per month of citizenship revocation of naturalized U.S. citizens to the department handling immigration litigation.

On the 17th (local time), The New York Times (NYT) reported that it had obtained internal guidance from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) delivered on the 16th containing such instructions.

The NYT said this symbolizes that President Trump's immigration enforcement policy has entered a new phase. It also noted that if enforcement on the scale of the stated target were actually carried out, it would amount to citizenship revocation unprecedented in modern American history.

Reportedly, the cumulative number of citizenship revocation cases from the start of Trump's first administration in 2017 through this year is just over 120 cases.

U.S. federal law stipulates that a naturalized citizen's citizenship may be revoked exceptionally only in cases such as fraud in the naturalization process or other very limited circumstances.

The procedure to find "illegal naturalized citizens" and revoke their citizenship is carried out through civil or criminal court proceedings.

The U.S. Supreme Court regards citizenship as a fundamental value of democracy and makes the government's procedures for stripping an individual's citizenship stringent. In a 2017 precedent, the Court held that it is not enough to prove that a naturalized citizen lied; it must also be proven that the lie affected an essential basis for obtaining citizenship.

Han Gyeong-u, Hankyung.com reporter case@hankyung.com