Trump Immigration Policies Make It Harder To Get And Keep Citizenship

Donald Trump waits for the presence of Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese astatine the White House connected October 20, 2025. The Trump administration’s caller policies make it harder to go a U.S. national and easier to denaturalize group who already are citizens. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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The Trump management has implemented migration policies making U.S. citizenship harder to get and easier to revoke. Advocates judge the management hopes to discourage group from applying for citizenship by stripping citizenship from individuals successful precocious numbers and done different actions. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has made the civics trial harder to pass, denied applications astatine a higher complaint and projected expanding the costs of applying for citizenship. The policies align pinch other management efforts to restrict immigration.

An Immigration Directive To Increase Denaturalization

In June 2025, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate issued a memo listing “prioritizing denaturalization” arsenic 1 of the Department of Justice’s apical 5 priorities. “The Department of Justice whitethorn institute civilian proceedings to revoke a person’s United States citizenship if an individual either ‘illegally procured’ naturalization aliases procured naturalization by ‘concealment of a worldly truth aliases by willful misrepresentation,’” according to the Justice Department memo.

Setting quotas for rule enforcement remains controversial, but, according to the New York Times, the administration’s guidance issued to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services section offices asks them to “supply Office of Immigration Litigation pinch 100-200 denaturalization cases per month” successful FY 2026. TRAC reports, “While historically the national authorities brought an mean of little than 1 denaturalization civilian suit per period (or conscionable 0.6), astatine slightest 15 denaturalization complaints were revenge successful May 2026.”

People pinch criminal convictions look the top consequence of denaturalization. “If you get convicted of a crime aft you person naturalized, and the facts supporting the indictment aliases charges spell backmost earlier you naturalized, that would beryllium grounds to denaturalize the personification for either nonaccomplishment to support bully civilized characteristic wrong the applicable five-year play aliases for not truthfully answering the mobility connected the N-400 connected whether you committed a crime for which you were not charged aliases arrested,” said migration lawyer Cyrus Mehta successful an interview.

The Trump management has not attempted to portion citizenship successful employment-based migration cases. “I still person not seen the Trump management effort to denaturalize citizens for what they whitethorn comprehend arsenic irregularities successful the labour certification process specified arsenic not conducting a bully religion trial of the labour marketplace aliases wherever the business necessity justification whitethorn not person been present,” said Mehta. “This is because the authorities has a dense burden. In Maslenjak v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the national authorities cannot portion a naturalized national of their U.S. citizenship for making a mendacious connection unless the dishonesty straight influenced the procurement of that citizenship.”

Immigration Agency Raising Fees And Denying More Naturalization Applications

The Trump management has projected importantly higher fees for individuals seeking naturalization. Under a proposed rule published successful June 2026, the interest to use online for naturalization will summation by 75%, from $710 to $1,280, and by 80%, from $760 to $1,330, for a insubstantial filing. The projected norm besides ends hardship waivers and reduced fees for low-income applicants. It raises the filing interest for Form N-336, which requests a proceeding connected a determination successful a naturalization proceeding, by 78% to 83%, depending connected whether the filing is online aliases connected paper.

USCIS introduced a caller civics test successful 2025. Individuals filing Form N-400 connected aliases aft October 20, 2025, would request to reply correctly 12 of (up to) 20 questions from an accrued excavation of 128 questions, compared to 6 of 10 questions from a excavation of 100 questions nether the anterior test.

The denial rates for naturalization person much than doubled nether Trump. According to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis, the denial complaint for Form N-400 accrued from 8.3% to 18.1% betwixt May 2024 and May 2026. The denial complaint for naturalization roseate from 9.2% successful September 2025 to 13.1% by January 2026 and reached 18.2% successful April 2026.

Whether higher denial rates for naturalization are linked to the caller civics trial for applicants filing connected aliases aft October 2o is not known, fixed the lag clip betwixt filing an exertion and scheduling the trial is typically respective months. Individuals who neglect a civics trial tin schedule a 2nd attempt, usually successful 60 to 90 days. A successful retest would not beryllium recorded arsenic a denial.

USCIS is processing acold less naturalization applications each period nether the Trump management than successful the Biden years. The number of naturalization applications processed fell by 75% (from 83,317 to 20,795) betwixt May 2024 and May 2026, according to an NFAP analysis.

The naturalization backlog has grown importantly moreover though less group are applying for naturalization. Between January and May 2026, USCIS received an mean of astir 47,500 N-400 forms, compared to astir 89,350 for January to May 2024, a driblet of astir half. However, the number of N-400 forms pending for complete six months has much than doubled from 198,235 to 441,362 betwixt January and May 2026.

Attorneys and advocates for immigrants stay concerned astir the effect of the administration’s naturalization and denaturalization policies. “Recent projected and finalized argumentation changes to the naturalization process adds important hurdles for lawful imperishable residents seeking to afloat clasp American by obtaining U.S. citizenship,” said Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, successful a statement. “Concerningly, they are seeking to raise exertion fees and present mechanisms that could alteration discretionary denials of citizenship, perchance undermining the fairness, transparency and integrity of the naturalization system. Implementing these changes will apt consequence successful less applications, longer processing times and further delays for applicants.”

“A targeted run to portion group of citizenship threatens to erode nationalist assurance successful the stableness of their citizenship status,” according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “By casting uncertainty connected the finality of naturalization, the Administration discourages eligible individuals from pursuing the process and dissuades citizens from afloat engaging successful civic life. Over time, this erosion of spot will weaken antiauthoritarian information and democracy.”