Bob Ferguson ATTORNEY GENERAL OF WASHINGTON PO Box 40100 • Olympia WA 98504-0100 • (360) 753-6200
July 2, 2020
Attorney General William Barr U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001
Joseph H. Hunt Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001
Dear Attorney General Barr and Assistant Attorney General Hunt:
We write to express our concern about the creation of a Denaturalization Section within the Office of Immigration Litigation at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).1 We are aware of the history of denaturalization work by DOJ, but are alarmed at the lack of transparency as to the purported impetus for directing additional resources toward stripping individuals of citizenship. This lack of transparency has stoked fear in immigrant communities. We request that you provide clarity regarding why the Denaturalization Section was created, explain who DOJ has in mind when it says it will seek to denaturalize “other fraudsters,” and make public any and all guidance developed for or utilized by the Section to ensure denaturalization is only pursued in appropriate circumstances.
Citizenship is “essential to the realization of basic human rights.”2 Naturalized citizens enjoy all of the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship, including the right to vote in federal, state, and local elections, the right and responsibility of jury service, the right to travel with a U.S. passport, and legal protection from deportation proceedings. The United States has over 21 million naturalized citizens3 and 49% of immigrants in Washington State are naturalized U.S.
1 U.S. Department of Justice, “The Department of Justice Creates Section Dedicated to Denaturalization Cases,” February 26, 2020, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-creates-section-dedicated- denaturalization-cases (last accessed July 1, 2020). 2 Open Society Justice Initiative, “Unmaking Americans: Insecure Citizenship in the United States,” September 2019, p.6, https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/e05c542e-0db4-40cc-a3ed-2d73abcfd37f/unmaking- americans-insecure-citizenship-in-the-united-states-report-20190916.pdf (last accessed July 1, 2020). 3 Zong, J., Batalova, J. & Burrows, M., “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States,” Migration Policy Inst., Feb. 8, 2018, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently- requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states-7 (last accessed July 1, 2020). Attorney General of Washington July 2, 2020 Page 2
citizens.4 This new initiative could have devastating consequences for our constituents, our states, and our communities if it is misused as a tool to threaten communities of color or religious minorities with the loss of citizenship. In a 2019 report, the Open Society Justice Initiative found that “forty-nine percent of all civil denaturalization cases filed target citizens whose country of origin is a ‘special interest country,’ an evolving list compiled by the U.S. government that includes India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, among others.”5
We are highly concerned about repeated actions by the federal government that threaten the safety of immigrant communities, particularly immigrants of color, from its decision to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program to its issuance of the Public Charge Rule. Expanding denaturalization efforts is consistent with this pattern. We are concerned that, without clear policies in place, federal officials in this proposed denaturalization section will disproportionately pursue expanded denaturalization authority in communities of color already targeted repeatedly by the current Administration. We urge you to publicly take immediate steps to prevent this from occurring.
We request that the DOJ immediately disclose publicly any internal guidance or other documents and memoranda governing DOJ staff’s denaturalization work, including policies DOJ has put into place to ensure that this new program will not be used as a tool to advance purely political and anti-immigrant policy goals. We call on DOJ to take clear, transparent steps to reassure the public, and vulnerable immigrant communities in particular, that the extraordinary step of denaturalization is being reserved for the most serious cases: terrorists and other national security threats, war criminals, human rights violators, and sex offenders.6 This transparency is essential to provide a measure of stability and certainty to immigrant communities.
Sincerely,
Bob Ferguson William Tong Washington State Attorney General Connecticut Attorney General
4 American Immigration Council, “Immigrants in Washington,” 2020, p. 1, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/immigrants_in_washington.pdf (last accessed July 1, 2020). 5 Open Society Justice Initiative, “Unmaking Americans: Insecure Citizenship in the United States,” September 2019, p.11, https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/e05c542e-0db4-40cc-a3ed- 2d73abcfd37f/unmaking-americans-insecure-citizenship-in-the-united-states-report-20190916.pdf (last accessed July 1, 2020). 6 U.S. Department of Justice, “The Department of Justice Creates Section Dedicated to Denaturalization Cases,” February 26, 2020, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-creates-section-dedicated- denaturalization-cases (last accessed July 1, 2020). Attorney General of Washington July 2, 2020 Page 3
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