Denaturalization on the rise
The DOJ won a district court order revoking Melchor Munoz’s U.S. citizenship after drug convictions and false statements, and social reports flagged a separate Nigerian national’s citizenship revocation for fraud — a renewed enforcement focus on denaturalization. The twin items underscore DOJ’s active posture on citizenship rescission tied to criminality and misrepresentation. (justice.gov, x.com)
The Northern District of Florida issued its order on March 19, 2026 after a two‑day denaturalization trial held in September 2025, and the opinion records that Munoz was naturalized on September 8, 2009 and entered a guilty plea in 2012. (justice.gov) The court credited Munoz’s statements from his 2012 guilty plea and an April 2013 proffer that he began trafficking in late 2008, explicitly finding his trial testimony evasive and “not credible” and concluding the government met the clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence standard. (justice.gov) The written findings itemize quantities and conduct: Munoz distributed about 80 pounds of marijuana on roughly 60 occasions between 2008 and 2010, kept an estimated 400–500 pounds of marijuana and retained gallon zip‑lock bags of methamphetamine and multiple blocks of cocaine, and the court ordered surrender of his certificate of naturalization, U.S. passports, and a permanent injunction against claiming citizenship benefits. (justice.gov) On March 18, 2026 the DOJ filed a civil denaturalization complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland (Baltimore) against Emmanuel Oluwatosin Kazeem, identifying him as the alleged mastermind of a multimillion‑dollar identity‑theft and fraudulent tax‑refund scheme. (justice.gov) The complaint states Kazeem was convicted in 2017 on 19 counts (mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy) and sentenced to 15 years—an unusually long sentence the filing notes was commuted in 2024—and it alleges a pre‑naturalization sham marriage that would have precluded lawful naturalization. (justice.gov) DOJ filings include operational detail: agents seized roughly 150 prepaid debit cards, about $50,000 in money orders, more than 50 electronic devices, and the complaint alleges the conspirators possessed stolen PII for over 259,000 victims and that Kazeem purchased more than 91,000 identities from a hacker. (justice.gov) Both actions arrived against the backdrop of a Civil Division enforcement memorandum signed June 11, 2025 by Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate that instructed Civil Division attorneys to prioritize denaturalization cases involving major fraud, gang membership, and national‑security concerns. (justice.gov)
