Scanning immigrants’ old fingerprints, U.S. threatens to strip thousands of citizenship
Article subtitle:
Violators will be referred to federal courts where they can be stripped of citizenship and potentially deported
Article CAIRCO note:
Violating immigration law has serious consequences
Article publisher:
Denver Post
Article date:
14 June 2018
Article category:
National News
Medium
Article Body:
The Trump administration is analyzing decades-old fingerprints in an unprecedented effort to rescind American citizenship from immigrants who may have lied or falsified information on their naturalization forms.
Revoking citizenship, a process known as denaturalization, has long been treated as a rare and relatively drastic measure by immigration authorities, reserved for foreigners who commit egregious crimes, acts of fraud, or pose a threat to national security.
But under a new policy memo issued by Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency is investigating thousands of old fingerprint records and files to determine whether foreigners made false or fraudulent statements in their attempts to obtain legal residency in the United States....
According to the latest USCIS data, 2,536 naturalization cases have prompted an in-depth review so far, and of those, 95 cases have been referred to the Justice Department. Those numbers are expected to rise as additional fingerprints are digitized by ICE, but only an immigration judge – not USCIS – has the authority to revoke citizenship....