Key Findings This report provides a comprehensive review of citizenship and its documentation in the United States from a human rights perspective. It demonstrates the relationships between policies and practices that have not been analysed systematically in relation to one another. Deprivation of nationality through denaturalization, denial and revocation of passports on the basis of non-nationality, and threats to the sanctity of jus soli citizenship in the United States must be examined together for a complete understanding of the operation and politics of citizenship law in the country. The report also provides an international and comparative analysis to show how the same intersection of laws, policies, and practices has resulted in human rights abuses in other countries. The report also shows that U.S. citizenship law has not and does not currently reflect the vision of equality and freedom espoused in the Constitution. In fact, there are significant gaps in the protections afforded to Americans, some of whom, more than others, are at risk of losing citizenship or are unable to acquire proof of their citizenship, often because of innate characteristics like race, national origin, and religion, or a combination thereof. Finally and perhaps most importantly, the report highlights the relationship between destabilizing and divisive political rhetoric, such as the themes espoused by President Trump and his administration, and systemic vulnerabilities in the security of citizenship. Denaturalization The Trump administration’s practices illuminate a combination of known weaknesses in the law and emerging areas of concern. To better understand how the denaturalization statutes are operating in practice, the Justice Initiative reviewed all denaturalization cases filed in 2017 and 2018, performing a mixed quantitative and qualitative analysis (see the Description of Research section, below). The results of this analysis revealed several key findings. In comparison to previous administrations, denaturalizations increased significantly during the Trump administration’s first two years, with nearly three times as many civil denaturalizations filed (29.5 per year) than the average (12 per year) over the previous eight administrations.6 In March 2019, the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, which files civil denaturalization cases, issued a FY2020 budget plan that cites a “staggering” increase in referrals in 2019 and projects an “ever-increasing” denaturalization caseload.7 The report cites 54 referrals “in the first two months of FY 2019 alone,” projecting 324 cases in FY 2019 based on this rate, “a 125% increase over FY 2018 . . . on top of a 148% increase in FY 2018.”8 Based on interviews and available information, it also appears there was an increase in criminal denaturalization cases filed during 2017 and 2018. 10 UNMAKING AMERICANS