It turns out, passing the citizenship test may not be enough to gain and keep citizenship in this country.
Attorney General Pam Bondi just gave an order to U.S. Attorneys to look to revoke the citizenship of any naturalized citizen who is causing problems.
This is a direct response to the naturalized citizens who have become agitators on college campuses and perhaps also to the shocking Democratic Party primary election results in New York City.
Zohran Mamdani is a Shia Muslim who is running for mayor in New York City, having just triumphed in the Democratic Party primary race there.
He has some rather radical ideas on how he will try to run New York City if he wins.
He more or less wants to make everything free, including transportation, childcare services, and even have city-owned grocery stores.
He does not believe billionaires should exist, and he has announced a plan to buy homes as they go up for sale to create communes around the city.
During recent pro-Palestine protests, we found out that some of those leading the unrest were either naturalized citizens or individuals hoping to become citizens.
One of those was Mohsen Mahdawi, an organizer for these events, who was picked up by authorities while at his citizenship interview.
During his release hearing, Judge Geoffrey Crawford slammed the Trump administration, stating, “This is not the first time that the nation has seen chilling action by the government intended to shut down debate.”
Now, I am all for debate, but Jewish students on this campus were being blocked from going to classes and allegedly threatened, so that is not debate.
I have to be honest... I don’t understand why people want citizenship in this country if they hate everything about it. There is only one reason to go down that path, and that would be in the hopes of changing the country from the inside out.
Trump and Bondi are trying to prevent that, sending out an order penned by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate that read, "The benefits of civil denaturalization include the government’s ability to revoke the citizenship of individuals who engaged in the commission of war crimes, extrajudicial killings, or other serious human rights abuses; to remove naturalized criminals, gang members, or, indeed, any individuals convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the United States; and to prevent convicted terrorists from returning to U.S. soil or traveling internationally on a U.S. passport.”
The directive continued, "The Department of Justice may institute civil proceedings to revoke a person’s United States citizenship if an individual either ‘illegally procured’ naturalization or procured naturalization by ‘concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.’"
I can guarantee you this order will be fought and litigated, but it will raise some very relevant issues before the court. Do we want people in this country who are only seeking citizenship to create unrest? Where do you draw the line? I believe those questions will be answered soon enough.