Violent Attacks On Americans Spur Trump Admin To Kick Denaturalization Efforts Into High Gear

President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up efforts to denaturalize U.S. citizens who obtained their citizenship unlawfully.

Olaolukitan Adon Abel, naturalized under President Joe Biden’s administration years before he went on a killing spree, is just one such case.

Abel, 26, was born in the United Kingdom and became a naturalized United States citizen in 2022. On Monday, Abel allegedly fatally shot two women, including Homeland Security employee Lauren Bullis, while she was walking her dog in DeKalb County, Georgia.

Abel also allegedly shot a homeless man in the attack.

The alleged killer has a lengthy rap sheet that includes previous convictions for sexual battery, battery against a police officer, obstruction, assault with a deadly weapon, and vandalism, according to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

The latest attack is just one of several in recent months carried out by naturalized American citizens.

The Trump administration has already commenced a massive push to denaturalize more foreign-born United States citizens and is already on track to surpass the number of such cases submitted during the entire Biden administration, according to Justice Department data obtained by The Daily Wire.

“Since President Trump took office, [U.S.] Citizenship and Immigration Services] has implemented measures to ensure individuals with criminal histories and who otherwise lack good moral character do not attain citizenship,” Mullin said Tuesday after the latest attack.

It began with President Donald Trump’s “war on fraud” with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) “prioritizing those who’ve unlawfully obtained U.S. citizenship — especially under the previous administration” for denaturalization.

As part of the effort, USCIS personnel were instructed to bring forward “100-200 denaturalization cases per month,” according to The New York Times.

In the entire four years of the Biden administration, federal authorities filed 24 such cases and secured 54 denaturalizations, the DOJ said. The Trump administration has already secured 15 denaturalization orders and filed 22 cases since Inauguration Day.

Last month, the Justice Department secured the denaturalization of Ukrainian-born man Vladimir Volgaev after he failed to disclose his “involvement” in a smuggling ring in which he shipped “over a thousand firearms components … to foreign markets” during his citizenship application process.

Immigration experts have warned that denaturalization is difficult to secure, even in several recent cases where the naturalized citizen had committed a terror act or other egregious crimes.

Last month, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh — an ex-National Guard soldier previously convicted of terrorism charges — opened fire at Old Dominion University, killing a decorated service member. Jalloh was born in Sierra Leone and later became a naturalized American citizen before his alleged crimes.

But because he committed crimes after obtaining American citizenship, there doesn’t appear to be a case for denaturalization.

“Even though the United States wants to denaturalize somebody because they engaged in an act of terrorism and murdered people in this country, the way that you would effectuate a denaturalization is if you discover a fraud that was not disclosed in furtherance of their immigration journey,” Immigration lawyer Matthew Kolken recently told The Daily Wire.

There are roughly 26 million naturalized citizens living in the United States, according to the Census Bureau. Between October 2023 and September 2024, USCIS swore in more than 800,000 new citizens, according to the agency.