| As Denaturalization Lawsuits Surge, Their Basis Lacks Transparency | ||
| (21 Aug 2026)
Denaturalization remains an ongoing Department of Justice (DoJ) civil enforcement priority. In July
2026 at least 50 denaturalization complaints were filed in 23 states, an all-time high. This brought
the total during the first seven months of 2026 to at least 105 denaturalization suits filed this
year. Seven of these states had not seen any denaturalization suits filed previously in records
stretching back to 2008. Yet despite this surge in denaturalization suits, the government has released
very little information about the underlying basis for these suits and current rules prevent public
access to almost all of these court filings.
While DoJ claimed in two separate press releases that it is filing a record number of denaturalization suits, it was nevertheless highly selective about which suits it chose to make public. Additionally, the U.S. courts severely restrict public access to court actions seeking to strip individuals of their citizenship. A court filed complaint is largely the sole means of systematically monitoring these actions, without which the public has little means to check that a press release fairly and fully describes the rationale for the government’s action. Due to these access barriers, TRAC launched a project to obtain copies of unavailable denaturalization complaints directly from the federal judicial district where they were filed. A series of letters listing the cases in which complaints were sought were sent to the court clerk in 37 separate federal judicial districts. As more fully described in this report, the courts’ responses to TRAC’s requests, including the process required, varied widely from one court to the next. This effort is still ongoing as some courts have not yet provided copies of the complaint or advised that they wouldn’t be able to send them. Even for those complaints that were ultimately obtained by TRAC, obtaining them was only completed after a considerable investment of both time and financial expense that should not be necessary for the public to gain access to these public records. The process of identifying which complaints were within the jurisdiction of each district and then preparing letters to each of these courts was a significant administrative undertaking that would have otherwise been unnecessary in the absence of current public records access restrictions. The full report provides extensive additional details regarding the 50 suits that were filed in July 2026, the historical background and current rationale for the access barriers to these public records, and the disparity and types of responses that courts provided when TRAC requested copies of the complaints for these denaturalization suits.
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Copyright 2026