“Only The Beginning”: US Moves To Strip Citizenship Of Three Nigerians

Three Nigerians are among 25 naturalised Americans whose citizenship the United States Department of Justice is now moving to strip in federal courts, the largest single wave of denaturalisation filings the department says it has ever undertaken.

The complaints, filed in various US district courts between July 20 and August 3, 2026, were announced by the Justice Department in a statement issued on Monday, August 3, and carrying press release number 26-879. The department said the individuals named are natives of 17 countries and are accused of securing US citizenship through fraud, concealment or other unlawful conduct, including hiding violent crimes, sexual offences against children and fraudulent identities. An earlier version of the announcement listed 24 people before the department updated it to 25.

With three names on the list, Nigeria accounts for the single largest country share in the batch, ahead of Pakistan, Mexico, Colombia, Ghana and El Salvador, which have two each. The remaining countries, among them Moldova, India, Liberia, Jamaica, Taiwan, Honduras, Cameroon, Jordan, Cuba, Haiti, Sweden and Peru, have one apiece.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche framed the filings as the opening phase of a wider campaign. “U.S. citizenship is one of our nation’s highest privileges, and it must be obtained lawfully and honestly,” he said in the statement. “Today’s filings represent the largest coordinated denaturalization effort in Department history, but they are only the beginning. The Justice Department will continue to use every tool available to protect the integrity of the naturalization process and the safety of the American people.”

Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the department’s Civil Division added: “Today marks the largest denaturalization surge in recorded history. Every one of these individuals committed crimes incompatible with U.S. citizenship. We are moving at record speed to denaturalize those who sought to deceive the federal government and abuse the naturalization process.”

According to the department’s account of the filings, Jonathan Omorogieva Obasohan, 56, is the subject of a five count complaint lodged in the District of Massachusetts on July 21. The government alleges he had already been ordered deported under the name Tinosa Joe Aigbedion before he obtained permanent residence and later naturalised under a different name, and that he disclosed neither the earlier identity nor the outstanding deportation order during his naturalisation proceedings.

Yetunde Folake Olaniyi, 56, also known as Folake Rosemary Thomas, faces a seven count complaint filed in the District of Maryland on July 31. The department alleges she was ordered removed from the United States, did not report for her scheduled removal flight, assumed a second identity and entered a marriage with a US citizen that it describes as a sham, while still married to a Nigerian citizen. It said she naturalised three years after obtaining a green card through that marriage, and was convicted in federal court of passport fraud in 2014 after fingerprint checks matched her to her original identity.

Vivian Chike Obichere, 72, who the department said naturalised in 2013, is the subject of an action filed in the Northern District of California on July 30. The government alleges she stated during her naturalisation that she had never committed an unarrested crime, had used only one alias, had not travelled outside the country in the relevant period and had never misled a US official, but later pleaded guilty to false application and use of a passport and admitted concealing that she had applied for and used a passport bearing another person’s identity.

The Justice Department stated plainly at the foot of its release that “the claims made in the complaints are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.” None of the three has been shown by the department to have entered a plea in the civil matters, and the cases remain pending before the respective district courts.

Denaturalisation is governed by Section 340 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1451, which allows a federal court to revoke naturalisation and cancel the certificate where citizenship was illegally procured or obtained by concealment of a material fact or wilful misrepresentation. Because these are civil rather than criminal proceedings, there is no statute of limitations and no right to court appointed counsel, a distinction repeatedly noted in public legal commentary since 2025, including in analysis published by the Congressional Research Service and the Niskanen Center.

The numbers show how sharply the picture has shifted. The Justice Department said it has filed 123 civil denaturalisation complaints since January 20, 2025, which it describes as the most in recorded history. By comparison, published legal analyses have put the average at roughly 11 cases a year between 1990 and 2017, while the Congressional Research Service noted that just over 130 cases were reported filed across the entire 2017 to 2025 period. On that measure, filings in the past 18 months alone come close to matching the previous eight years combined.

The policy trail is well documented. A Denaturalisation Section was created within the Office of Immigration Litigation in February 2020, was stood down under the Biden administration, which issued a 2021 executive order directing that such powers not be used excessively or inappropriately, and has effectively been revived. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 20, 2025 directing that adequate resources be devoted to offences described in 8 U.S.C. § 1451. On June 11, 2025, Shumate issued a memorandum on his first day in office naming denaturalisation among the Civil Division’s top five enforcement priorities and instructing attorneys to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence,” setting out 10 categories of priority targets.

Nigeria is Africa’s largest source of migrants to the United States. Department of Homeland Security figures compiled by the Office of Homeland Security Statistics show that 47,819 Nigerians naturalised between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, drawn from Form N400 filings and USCIS case records. Annual figures rose from 8,930 in fiscal 2020, a year in which oath ceremonies were suspended for about 11 weeks during the COVID 19 shutdown, to 10,921 in 2021, a record 14,438 in 2022, and 13,530 in 2023. Total US naturalisations stood at 878,460 in 2023, against 969,000 in 2022 and 814,000 in 2021. African born nationals accounted for 11 per cent of all US naturalisations in 2022 and 2023, the highest share on record.

Census based estimates tell a similar story of growth. The Migration Policy Institute, using the 2024 American Community Survey, reported that the Nigerian born population in the United States grew by 143 per cent between 2010 and 2024, an increase of about 313,000 people, and that 67 per cent of Nigerian immigrants hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, the highest rate among major sub Saharan African groups.

The filings also arrive at a strained moment in Nigeria and US relations. Nigeria was placed under a partial visa suspension by Presidential Proclamation 10998, signed on December 16, 2025 and effective from January 1, 2026, covering immigrant visas as well as B1/B2 visitor and F, M and J student and exchange categories. The proclamation expanded an earlier June 2025 measure and brought the restricted list to 39 countries. The White House cited a Nigerian B1/B2 overstay rate of 5.56 per cent and an F, M and J rate of 11.90 per cent. That followed the July 2025 reduction of most Nigerian non immigrant visas to three months single entry, the introduction of a 250 dollar visa integrity fee, and Nigeria’s designation as a Country of Particular Concern, which the Nigerian government rejected, saying the country’s security crisis is more complex than the characterisation allows.

Elements of that framework are contested. A federal district court found on June 5, 2026 that the processing pause affecting nationals of the 39 listed countries was unlawful as it applied to USCIS petitions, though the consular visa suspensions were not disturbed and an appeal remains possible.

What follows now is a matter for the courts. Each of the three Nigerian defendants will be required to answer in a separate district, and the government carries a demanding burden of proof in denaturalisation actions. Department practice, as summarised by the Congressional Research Service, holds that civil denaturalisation is generally pursued where removal from the United States is the eventual objective, which means an adverse judgment would ordinarily be a first step rather than a final one. On the department’s own statement of intent, more filings should be expected.