terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. But above and beyond that, the administration is now targeting naturalized citizens with the aim of revoking their U.S. citizenship. The administration openly acknowledges its “ever-increasing” denaturalization practice.159 In its FY 2020 budget plan, issued in March 2019, the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, which handles civil denaturalization cases, cites a “staggering” increase in denaturalization referrals: In FY 2017, [the District Court Section of the Civil Division’s Office of Immigration Litigation, or OIL-DCS] received 58 referrals and filed 18 cases. In FY 2018, the Unit received 144 referrals and filed 48 cases. In the first two months of FY 2019 alone, the Unit received 54 referrals – nearly as many as they received in all of FY 2017. If the referral rate remains constant, the Unit will receive 324 cases for FY 2019, a 125% increase over FY 2018. This is on top of a 148% increase in FY 2018. Having reached maximum capacity, the Unit cannot file cases for the majority of their referrals now, and the projected increase over FY 2019 and FY 2020 is staggering. Furthermore, a DHS initiative, Operation Janus, identified approximately 315,000 cases where some fingerprint data was missing from the centralized digital fingerprint repository. Among those cases, some individuals may have sought to circumvent criminal record and other background checks in the naturalization process. These cases are the result of an ongoing collaboration between DHS and DOJ to investigate and pursue denaturalization proceedings against those who fraudulently obtained citizenship. In response to Operation Janus, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is increasing their dedicated staff from 13 FTEs [full-time employees] to 70, and increasing the number of referrals to 360 annually, with an ultimate goal of referring at least 1,600 cases to OIL-DCS for prosecution as part of the operation.160 Naturalization is a crucial tool for the integration of immigrant communities and a fundamental facet of the U.S. immigration system. Few legal and administrative procedures are more important. However, a lack of clearly understood and properly functioning procedures is a source of abuse and prolonged political disenfranchisement in many countries, both currently and throughout modern history. The history of denaturalization in the United States since the 1990s shows increasingly racialized and criminalized narratives about who can become an American. In the U.S. today, views of immigration and citizenship are bound up with political strategies built around nativism and racial division found in the rhetoric of the current administration. Some Americans seem to have abandoned the idea that immigrants are a legitimate and vital part of our country, to be treated with respect and dignity, and that this country’s approach to them reflects the quality and character of our democracy. II. Denaturalization: A Radical Measure in the Hands of Zealots 43