The Department of Justice announced Friday that it is seeking to denaturalize 12 naturalized American citizens accused of crimes ranging from terrorism support and murder to marriage fraud, firearms trafficking, and child sexual abuse. The cases, filed in federal courts across nine states and Washington, D.C., mark the latest and most detailed batch of denaturalization actions under the Trump administration's push to hold accountable those who obtained citizenship through deception.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche framed the effort as a warning to anyone who lied their way into the country, and a promise that more cases are coming.

"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."

Blanche told CBS News that the DOJ is casting a wide net. He said the department is "not limiting ourselves to anybody in particular," adding that "there are a lot of individuals who are citizens who shouldn't be." He indicated the public should expect additional denaturalization announcements "in the coming days and weeks."

Terrorism, war crimes, and murder

The allegations against the 12 individuals read like a catalog of the worst failures of the immigration vetting system. Several cases involve direct ties to designated terrorist organizations.

Khalid Ouazzani, a 48-year-old immigrant from Morocco, naturalized in 2006. Within a year, he was sending tens of thousands of dollars in fraudulent money to Al-Qaeda. By 2008, he had taken an oath dedicating his life to the terrorist organization. He provided support to Al-Qaeda alongside two men later convicted of attempting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. Ouazzani himself was convicted in 2010, four years after the United States granted him citizenship.

Salah Osman Ahmed, 43, from Somalia, secured citizenship in 2007. After obtaining it, he traveled back to Somalia and joined al-Shabaab, killing Ethiopians as part of his mission with the terrorist group. He was convicted in 2009.

Then there is Ali Yousif Ahmed, 48, from Iraq. He entered the United States in 2009 by claiming that he and his family had been attacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists. He naturalized in 2015. But in 2019, Iraqi officials asked the federal government to extradite him for the alleged killing of two police officers, and accused him of being not a victim of Al-Qaeda, but a leader in the organization.

The administration's broader immigration enforcement campaign has moved on multiple legal and operational fronts simultaneously, from deportation flights to court battles over executive authority.

War crimes concealed for decades

Baboucarr Mboob, 58, a native of The Gambia, served as a military police officer in the Gambian army. On November 11, 1994, he participated with fifteen other soldiers in the fatal shooting of six officers. His commanding officer believed the officers were plotting a counter-coup against then-President Yahya Jammeh. Mboob entered the United States in 2002 and naturalized in 2011, concealing his involvement in the killings throughout the entire immigration and naturalization process.

On April 9, 2019, Mboob admitted before The Gambian Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparations Commission to shooting six fellow officers. The United States is now seeking to revoke his certificate of naturalization.

As Fox News reported, denaturalization was historically rare. It increased during Trump's first term, dropped under Biden, and has returned as a priority under the current administration. Blanche said anyone who "intentionally concealed their criminal histories or misrepresented themselves during the naturalization process will face the fullest extent of the law."

Child abuse, identity fraud, and sham marriages

Oscar Alberto Pelaez, a 75-year-old Roman Catholic priest from Colombia, pleaded guilty in 2002 to sexually abusing a child from 1998 to 2000. The DOJ is now seeking to strip his citizenship.

Abdallah Osman Sheikh, 28, a resident of Fairdale, Kentucky, originally from Kenya, naturalized based on his military service in the U.S. Marines. But in July 2019, before he naturalized, he possessed indecent digital images of two minors and posted an indecent image of one of them to social media. He later received an other-than-honorable discharge for misconduct after failing to serve honorably for five years. The DOJ cited both 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a) and 8 U.S.C. § 1440(c) as grounds for revoking his citizenship.

The cases extend well beyond violent crime. Abduvosit Razikov, 46, from Uzbekistan, allegedly paid an American citizen in 2005 to enter a sham marriage so he could obtain a green card. He also allegedly paid another American to marry his actual romantic partner from Uzbekistan. After divorcing his sham-marriage wife in 2010 and securing citizenship in 2012, he married yet another Uzbek woman in another sham marriage to help her get a green card.

The DOJ's denaturalization push fits into a broader administration effort to restore immigration enforcement that Democrats have resisted at nearly every turn.

Firearms trafficking and investor fraud

Kevin Robin Suarez, 31, from Bolivia, ran a firearms trafficking conspiracy that moved guns from South Florida to Bolivia and other Latin American countries. Beginning in May 2016, months before his January 2017 naturalization, and continuing for ten months afterward, Suarez and his sister solicited straw purchasers to buy firearms from federally licensed dealers. Those firearms were provided to his father and often sent to drug trafficking organizations in Brazil, Paraguay, and Peru. He pleaded guilty in February 2020 to conspiracy to cause false statements to be made to federally licensed firearms dealers, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 and 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(1)(A).

Debashis Ghosh, 62, from India, conspired to defraud investors of $2.5 million intended for construction of an aircraft maintenance facility, a scheme he continued after naturalizing. In his 2012 naturalization application and interview, he claimed he had never committed a crime or offense for which he had not been arrested. The denaturalization complaint alleges grounds tied to moral turpitude, unlawful acts, false testimony, and willful misrepresentation.

False identities used to dodge removal orders

Two of the twelve cases involve individuals who were previously removed from the country, then re-entered under entirely different identities.

Pin He, 53, from China, was ordered removed under the name Chun Di He in 1992. The very next year, he applied for an immigration benefit under a different identity, and it was granted. He obtained permanent residence in 2007 and naturalized in 2013 as Pin He, never disclosing the prior removal order. The government is now seeking to revoke his certificate of naturalization.

George Oyakhire, 66, born in Nigeria, first entered the United States on October 18, 1986, using a visa issued in his true name, George Ofuan Oyakhire. On September 2, 1988, he obtained temporary resident status using the false name "Oliver Bennett Oyakhire" and a false date of birth. He adjusted to lawful permanent resident status under that false identity on December 1, 1990. He filed a naturalization application under the false name on September 12, 1995, was approved on March 22, 1996, and became a naturalized citizen on April 22, 1996, all under an identity that was not his.

Adeyeye Ariyo Akambi, 65, also from Nigeria, was removed from the United States in 2000 under a different identity. He then changed his identity, obtained permanent residency, and subsequently secured citizenship while concealing the prior removal.

The denaturalization cases were filed in courts across Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., reflecting how widely the accused individuals had dispersed across the country. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, citizenship can be revoked if naturalization was illegally procured or obtained through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation, as Newsmax noted in its coverage.

Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said the DOJ "continues to file denaturalization actions at record speeds to restore integrity in our naturalization process."

The pace of the administration's enforcement actions has placed enormous pressure on the agencies carrying them out. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons was hospitalized twice amid the grueling operational tempo of the deportation mission.

Meanwhile, the DOJ has also asked the Supreme Court to restore the president's authority to end Temporary Protected Status for certain migrant populations, another front in the same fight over who gets to stay and on what terms.

The real question

What remains unanswered is how many more cases like these are sitting in the system. Blanche suggested the number is significant. The twelve cases announced Friday span terrorism, murder, war crimes, child abuse, fraud, and serial identity deception, committed by people who swore an oath to this country and lied to get the chance.

Citizenship is the most valuable thing America offers. If the process that grants it cannot distinguish an Al-Qaeda operative from a refugee, the process is broken, and the people who exploited it should not get to keep the prize.