Amanda Frost: The revival of denaturalisation under the Trump administration

In "The revival of denaturalisation under the Trump administration," law professor Amanda Frost takes a look at the impacts of President Trump's renewed focus on denaturalization.  Her frightening conclusion

"The Trump administration’s expansion of denaturalisation furthers its broader agenda to discourage would-be immigrants from coming to the United States and encourage those already in the United States to leave. Denaturalisation is in accord with other policies that constrain legal immigration to the United States, such as the travel ban that prevented visa-holders from coming to the United States, restrictions on H-1B visa holders, and denying green cards to legal immigrants who have received government benefits. Like these other policies, denaturalisation contributes to the Trump administration’s message that all immigrants are suspect, regardless of their legal status, their criminal history, and whether they are now U.S. citizens.

The result is that all immigrants live in fear that their legal right to remain in the United States can be revoked at any time. As journalist and naturalised citizen Masha Gessen wrote for the New Yorker, the denaturalisation campaign has eroded the `assumption of permanence' that she and twenty million other naturalised Americans had once enjoyed. Although naturalised citizens were once considered equal to native-born citizens, she concludes `we are second-class citizens' now."

KJ