Denaturalization

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kostik

Registered Users (C)
Now that I am a citizen I have a question, what could be the reasons for citizenship to be revoked and how the process for that would work? Just curious...
 
If you lied during the naturalization or immigration process or were ineligible, then your naturalization was invalid and they could later determine that you were never a U.S. citizen at all. If you join a Communist Party or a totalitarian or terrorist organization within 5 years of naturalizing, that is considered evidence you lied about attachment to the U.S. constitution.

Otherwise, your citizenship is protected by the constitution and you cannot lose it under any circumstances unless you personally intend to. This generally can only happen if you apply renounce it, or express in clear terms that you want to lose it.
 
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I was curious more about the process....how would government/court initiate this process? where would they get the information about something like a lie or joining the party?
 
Yes, they would need to initiate a court proceeding. Not sure how they find out in general. But in some cases in the news, this happened to ex-Nazis who hid their full activities during the Holocaust and War, and were later found out by anti-Nazi activists. This is a naturalization lying issue because there are questions on immigration and naturalization forms that ask about participation in the Nazi party. (Of course, if they had told the truth, they would also not have been naturalized, and probably prosecuted; but that's another issue.) I have the feeling that this kind of thing mostly happens when someone is already being investigated for wrongdoing.
 
In the past people have lost US citizenship for minor reasons such as moving abroad within a few years after naturalization. The courts have struck down those and now denaturalization requires a much higher burden and must go through the courts. Now denaturalization much more difficult and rare.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_denaturalized_former_citizens_of_the_United_States
Some of those were denaturalized for reasons that would not work now, due to court rulings since then.
 
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