The Justice Department is pursuing an immigration enforcement policy that has not been used much by past administrations as part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to deport those in the country illegally.
Attorney General Todd Blanche laid out the details of the new aggressive policy in a speech at the Justice Department on Wednesday following the arrest of several foreigners involved in marriage fraud to obtain citizenship.
Federal prosecutors have unsealed a two-count indictment charging 11 people in an alleged marriage fraud scheme that authorities say operated for more than a decade and involved more than 1,000 sham marriages.
According to the indictment, the defendants are accused of arranging fraudulent marriages to help foreign nationals, most of them citizens of the People’s Republic of China, obtain legal immigration status in the United States.
Prosecutors allege that some participants paid as much as $100,000 for a single fraudulent marriage as part of the scheme.
“This Department of Justice is rooting out fraud everywhere — including in our immigration system,” said Blanche. “The individuals who were arrested today allegedly orchestrated elaborate schemes to illegally obtain citizenship for foreign nationals through sham marriages.
“Schemes like this are a deliberate affront to the United States and our laws and will not be tolerated under the Trump Administration,” he said.
“We’ve directed the U.S. attorney offices around the country, and the Criminal Division here at main Justice, to work with DHS to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of birth tourism schemes,” Blanche continued.
“We’ve also directed the civil division to prioritize the denaturalization of naturalized citizens who have obtained citizenship through fraud,” he went on.
The DOJ’s denaturalization push could have real-world consequences for a sitting U.S. congresswoman.
Vice President JD Vance stated unequivocally in an interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson in March that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) committed fraud to enter the United States and that she is a central figure in the mounting fraud among her Somali community that is being investigated and prosecuted in Minneapolis.
“Today, for the first time, we got 100% on the record confirmation that Rep. Ilhan Omar committed immigration fraud,” Johnson wrote on the X platform that included a clip from an interview with Rob Schmitt, a Newsmax TV host.
“Lying on your immigration forms is an immediate denaturalization. Vice President JD Vance says DHS is exploring enforcement. Ilhan needs to be deported,” Johnson stated further.
Blanche vowed in May when he was still acting AG that the Justice Department would continue to advance the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda, including policies aimed at expanding deportations and strengthening immigration-related prosecutions.
Blanche also said the department will place a greater emphasis on denaturalization cases, which involve legal efforts to revoke the citizenship of naturalized Americans under specific circumstances permitted by federal law.
“We are on track to surpass the number of denaturalization filings the Biden administration submitted in four years. We’re going to pass that, I think, in about a week,” he told a receptive audience of border-security agents and business contractors during a speech at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix.
“This is another way that we’re able to deal with border security, is going after these folks who came into this country … and we’re saying, you cannot stay here. You have to go,” he added.
“We’re trying to protect the integrity of the naturalization process.”