How Did We Get Here? History and Bureaucracy of Denaturalization To fully comprehend the threat posed by the expansion of the scope and policy aims of denaturalization, it is necessary to first examine how this measure has been deployed throughout American history. This section will briefly trace the use of denaturalization in the 20th century, before looking in greater detail at more recent denaturalization efforts embodied by Operation Janus and Operation Second Look. The statutory authority to denaturalize citizens was first codified in the Naturalization Act of 1906, giving U.S. Attorneys the authority to initiate proceeding to cancel a “certificate of citizenship on the ground of fraud or on the ground that such certificate of citizenship was illegally procured.”233 The 1906 Act was amended by the Nationality Act of 1940,234 though statutory language permitting naturalization cancellation was left largely intact, and remained so when the current statutes (8 USC § 1451; 18 USC § 1425) were enacted in 1952. When the 1906 Act was adopted, women could not vote.235 Naturalization law in effect at the time only allowed “free white persons” and people of African descent to naturalize, which led to litigation in illegal procurement cases based on racial classifications, ultimately barring Indian-born men from naturalizing because they would not be understood as “white” to the “common man.”236 In 1907, another newly enacted law provided for automatic loss of U.S. citizenship when a woman married a foreigner.237 As legal scholars Cassandra Burke Robertson and Irina D. Manta note, “[w]hen these requirements were brought into denaturalization proceedings, both women and racial minorities risked losing their citizenship.”238 Early 20th Century: Centralizing Denaturalization Power The 1906 Naturalization Act passed amidst fears that there was “widespread [voter] fraud and abuse,” perpetuated by individuals who had procured citizenship through fraud.239 To combat this supposed fraud, § 15 of the 1906 Act authorized U.S. district attorneys to institute proceedings “in any court having jurisdiction to naturalize aliens for the purpose of setting aside and canceling the certificate of citizenship on the ground of fraud or on the ground that such certificate of citizenship was illegally procured.”240 Though not statutorily required, the practice was for district attorneys to institute denaturalization proceedings prior to revocation. This legislative history was crucial to early courts’ assessment of the constitutionality of the Naturalization Act. In the decades that followed, courts interpreted § 15 narrowly, avoiding its application to situations where it had no relation to voter fraud or abuse.241 The act did not provide a mechanism for deportation following revocation of naturalization. Indeed, § 15 of the 1906 Act only permitted the “setting aside and cancel[ation]” of an individual’s certificate of citizenship.242 Following the passage of the 1906 Naturalization Act, II. Denaturalization: A Radical Measure in the Hands of Zealots 59