The Plan to REVOKE U.S. Citizenship

0:00 We have current US citizens that could be losing their citizenship. They went through the whole naturalization process, but it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter how many years they've been in this country. Doesn't even matter if they served in the military, but it's for specific reasons. Could you or someone you know be impacted by this? Why is it happening? Last month, the Department of Justice issued a memo that's causing concern. They're talking about a process called dnaturalization. So what does that mean? It's the process by which the government revokes the citizenship of a naturalized American. Meaning somebody who was not born on American soil. They were not born a citizen, but they went through the process to become a US citizen. This is

0:47 not the same thing as deporting illegal immigrants back to their source country. This is actually getting rid of US citizens. Assistant Attorney General Brett Schemate wrote, "The civil division shall prioritize and maximally pursue dennaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence." That's a strong directive and it has some people worried. Now, denaturalization is not new in our country. We saw it quite a bit in the 1940s and the 1950s during the Great Red Scare. We were denaturalizing about 22,000 people a year at the height of it. And this is because they were accused of having past

1:32 ties to the Communist Party, attending left-wing political meetings, being affiliated with socialist or labor movements were all targeted for denaturalization. That was a pretty huge deal, especially considering the American population was much lower back then. But then 1967 came along and the Supreme Court had a ruling which said denaturalization created two levels of citizenship and violated democratic principles. After that, the number dropped to just a handful annually. Fast forward to today and the Trump administration is using it in a big way. In fact, they're expanding on who they can target with this power. And it's important to understand that they're going to use civil litigation. They're

2:17 not using criminal. So with criminal, you have an attorney provided to you if you cannot afford one. With civil, there is no guarantee of that. You will not be provided an attorney. You can either afford one or not. Also, the government doesn't have to prove the beyond a reasonable doubt portion of it. Instead, the the bar is set much lower. That makes it easier and faster for the government to win. A university law professor said that using civil litigation for dennaturalization violates due process and the 14th amendment which guarantees equal protection under the law. She argues that this creates a second class of US citizen. So you have one class the individuals that were born here and the

3:03 second class are the individuals that came from a foreign country but they went through the naturalization process and they would in theory always be at risk. But on the other side, you have some people that support this decision, like the Heritage Foundation. Big surprise there. They say nothing prevents that alien from hiring their own lawyer to represent them. They are not entitled to have the government pay for their lawyer. He argues that denaturalization protects us from criminals, from terrorists and predators. This was used against a man recently named Duke. So allegedly Duke was exchanging some child sexual abuse material and he was caught. Now Duke also served in the military. So the way that they proceeded with his case is

3:50 they were saying that during his application period he lied because in the application it talks about criminal actions, criminal misdeeds. And this was the time where he was exchanging this material. He should have listed it in the application. He didn't. So they voided his application and in order to apply for US citizenship, he had to revoke his other citizenship, right? So I think it was UK, it was with the United Kingdom. So he gave up that citizenship and now he's an individual that has no citizenship. So what's going to happen to him? Now I understand that the crime was heinous and most people can agree this man belongs in prison. Also, the DOJ's memo gives US attorneys broad discretion to decide who to target. It lists crimes like national security violations, fraud against the

4:37 government, like the PPP scams, but then it says right here, it says any other cases they deem sufficiently important. That is very vague language. Critics are saying it gives the government almost unlimited power to go after anyone they want. So, who would be at risk? Well, right now, as we're talking, there's about 25 million Americans who are naturalized. That's one out of every 13. One person out of every 13, they're naturalized US citizens. They could potentially be targeted. Now, the DOJ's criteria, it mentions serious crime, but it's the vague language that we highlighted earlier that is what's drawing concern. Like maybe there's some

5:22 sort of hypothetical situation that later this year or next year we could see people losing their citizenship for something that they post on social media perhaps. Maybe or maybe they're too involved in the political system. They're expressing their views. They say something negative against the current administration. Maybe now they're being flagged. That hasn't happened yet. But people, you don't have to you don't have to have a great imagination to see something like that potentially happening in the future. So that takes us to the question about family. What happens to the family of the individual that loses their citizenship? Do they lose theirs as well because the only reason that they had it was because of their parent? Well, right now, as long

6:08 as you're born on US soil, you have citizenship. But the administration wants to change this. Even though it's the 14th amendment that guarantees us that right, they're still challenging it. It challenges it under two main categories. One, children born in the US to undocumented immigrants or to parents who obtain citizenship fraudulently. This fight is still taking place in the courts right now. But what's also happening at the same time is the Trump administration is building a national citizenship database. It's a data system that tracks all naturalized citizens. So, combine that with the plan to end birthright citizenship. And what we could be seeing here is a sweeping effort to redefine what it means to be

6:55 an American citizen. Critics like Laura from Temple University warned this is a slippery slope. She says citizenship is not supposed to be something that you can continuously open up for some people and you can't for others. But I don't want to be too one-sided on this issue. So, let's look at the other side. Let's look at it from the perspective of people who support this decision. First, it's seen as protecting the integrity of the naturalization process. It targets serious criminals. It deters immigration fraud and it boosts political messaging. It's hard to argue that if you lied, if you deliberately lied in your application to become a citizen that it should not be voided. Obviously, it should be voided. In any other

7:41 application process, if you're lying and they find out about it, it's voided. You know, look, just take college admissions or security clearances, loans and mortgages, or legal contracts. Not only is the contract or agreement voided, but you could be looking at some jail time or some sort of civil penalties you have to pay. So, lying on applications is never tolerated. And I think when it comes to this situation, people are really focusing in on that vague statement, that catch-all statement. Nobody wants to be rounded up for the wrong reasons, right? So that's why a lot of people that I know that are naturalized, and I know quite a few of them, they're concerned when they hear things like this. But let's say you are unfairly targeted for whatever reason.

8:27 Now you have a case where they're trying to dnaturalize you. What should you do? Well, you should get an immigration attorney immediately. Understand the grounds for your dennaturalization. Collect evidence of your good character and track all correspondence. Also, understand if you do get denaturalized, it does not mean that immediately you get deported. You do not get deported the same day or the next day. And there are ways where you can fight back. You can fight back and win in some situations. So, I wouldn't get completely discouraged. Now, if you're in a position right now where you're more focused on your next paycheck, maybe you're looking for a better job, the job you have right now is not cutting it, you need to get paid more,

9:13 you need better benefits, you might be alarmed to find out the unemployment rate because it's not 4%, it's not 4.2% 2% for functional unemployment, meaning that you've stopped looking for a job, or maybe you can't find a full-time job, so you have to settle for a part-time job. If you fall under one of those categories, and there's a couple more categories, but if we're looking at people like that, in reality, the unemployment rate is actually around 24%. One in four people are actually unemployed in this country. And if you want to find out more information about that and what can we do to solve it, then check this video out next. Stay updated by signing up to the free newsletter down below. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you in the next one.