The Justice Department has initiated a sweeping effort to revoke the citizenship of naturalized immigrants who allegedly secured their status through fraud or by concealing a criminal past.
Officials announced a dozen denaturalization cases Friday targeting immigrants from around the world.
They included a Catholic priest from Colombia who sexually abused a child, several men connected with al Qaeda and al-Shabab, a gun trafficker, and a man from Colombia who became a U.S. ambassador even as he was spying for Cuba.
To strip people of citizenship, the government must prove that they concealed their criminal activities or their true identities to the point that, had they been known, they would not have been granted citizenship in the first place.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche teased the push Wednesday in an interview with CBS. He said a lot of those who received citizenship should have been blocked.
“If you’re going to come and become a citizen in this country, but you’re going to do it by fraud, you’re going to do it in a way that’s illegal, you should be worried,” Mr. Blanche told the network.
From 1990 to 2017, an average of 11 cases were filed per year in the U.S., and they were among the worst of the worst, such as Nazis or those involved with war crimes in Bosnia or Chile.
Denaturalization filings surged to an average of 42 per year during the first Trump administration before declining to 16 per year under the Biden administration, according to data compiled by Hofstra University professor Irina Manta.
The cases announced Friday were stunning.
Victor Manuel Rocha, a Colombian native, acted as a spy for Cuba’s intelligence service as early as 1973, even after he naturalized in 1978. He went on to serve as director of inter-American affairs at the National Security Council, where he had purview over Cuba, and later as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia under President Clinton.
Rocha, 75, is serving a 15-year sentence on his conviction and is not expected to be released for another decade. Jason A. Reding Quinones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said that punishment is insufficient.
“This civil denaturalization case is about finishing the job,” he said. “A person who secretly serves communist Cuba should not keep the privilege of United States citizenship, even while in prison.”
Khalid Ouazzani, a 48-year-old native of Morocco, was naturalized in 2006 and made the standard pledge of allegiance to the Constitution, even though authorities say he was already working with al Qaeda, including assisting in a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.
That, the government says, proves he lied about his attachment to the Constitution.
Baboucarr Mboob, 58, from Gambia, took part in an extrajudicial execution of fellow military officers, which qualifies as a war crime. Authorities say he concealed that from the U.S. when he naturalized in 2011, but admitted it in testimony to Gambia’s reconciliation commission.
Oscar Alberto Pelaez, 75, from Colombia, was a priest in California when he sexually abused multiple children from 1998 to 2000. The clergyman then lied to the U.S. during his naturalization process, telling the government in 1999 and 2001 that he had no unknown criminal behavior in his past.
The Justice Department said the concealment of his sexual abuse and his lack of “good moral character” would have disqualified him from citizenship had it been known at the time.
Adeyeye Ariyo Akambi, 65, from Nigeria, was deported from the U.S. in 2000 but managed to return under a different identity and worked his way to U.S. citizenship under that false name.
“The disturbing criminal histories confirm these individuals should have never received the privilege of U.S. citizenship,” said Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the total number of cases filed, to clarify that Oscar Alberto Pelaez was serving as a priest in the U.S. and that Victor Manuel Rocha was a native of Colombia.
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