“The Department of Justice may institute civil proceedings to revoke a person’s United States citizenship if an individual either ‘illegally procured’ naturalization or procured naturalization by ‘concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.’ 8 USC § 1451(a). The benefits of civil denaturalization include the government’s ability to revoke the citizenship of individuals who engaged in the commission of war crimes, extrajudicial killings, or other serious human rights abuses; to remove naturalized criminals, gang members, or, indeed, any individuals convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the United States; and to prevent convicted terrorists from returning to US soil or traveling internationally on a US passport. At a fundamental level, it also supports the overall integrity of the naturalization program by ensuring that those who unlawfully procured citizenship, including those who obtained it through fraud or concealment of material information, do not maintain the benefits of the unlawful procurement,” says a June 11th Department of Justice memo picked up on Monday by the Guardian. The memo then lists what a neutral observer might consider to be reasonable grounds for revocation of citizenship “war crimes, extrajudicial killings, or other serious human rights abuses” and “naturalized criminals, gang members, or, indeed, any individuals convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the US”.

Except for the ninth item: “Cases referred by a United States Attorney’s Office or in connection with pending criminal charges, if those charges do not fit within one of the other priorities,” emphasis added on pending because that sure sounds like a mere accusation can prompt denaturalization.

And then there’s the ending: “These categories are intended to guide the Civil Division in prioritizing which cases to pursue; however, these categories do not limit the Civil Division from pursuing any particular case, nor are they listed in a particular order of importance. Further, the Civil Division retains the discretion to pursue cases outside of these categories as it determines appropriate. The assignment of denaturalization cases may be made across sections or units based on experience, subject-matter expertise, and the overall needs of the Civil Division,” which also sure sounds like they can bring a denaturalization case on whoever they want, subject to their “discretion.”

Again, denaturalization isn’t deportation. It’s considerably harder to strip citizenship once given than it is to toss an undocumented El Salvadoran dishwasher in the gulag and ship him home. Judges are unlikely to want to suffer patently horseshit, pretextual cases to ruin people’s lives at the whims of the regime. On the other hand it would seem that a feature, not bug of this new “prioritization” is that denaturalization is a civil proceeding and there’s no constitutional right to representation in civil courts, which is probably going to end with a lot of no contests from people who can’t afford legal help. Of course plenty of advocacy groups will step up but the more cases they have to handle the thinner they’ll be spread. Which again would be a feature, not bug, for the Trump Reich.