The U.S. Justice Department filed 40 lawsuits between August 21 and October 2, 2026 to strip naturalized citizens of their status, opening a broad legal push across 19 federal judicial districts. The people named in those cases, including Yusmary Shirley Duran Mejia, still keep their citizenship while the disputes move through court.
That is why the filings are drawing attention now. They were presented over a short span in 2026 and were framed as the largest denaturalization wave during the Trump administration, with allegations ranging from immigration fraud and false identities to fraudulent marriages, sexual crimes, homicide, tax fraud and espionage. For readers searching naturalization, the central question is not just how many cases were filed, but who is actually affected while the government tries to prove its case.
Mejia’s case shows how the government is building that push. She entered the United States in 2007 and naturalized in 2018, then was accused of conspiracy to commit money laundering one year later and was convicted in 2020. The government says she hid material information and lied during naturalization, which is the legal basis it is using to argue that citizenship should be revoked.
Other cases point to the same pattern. Garza, named in a suit in the Southern District of Texas, entered illegally, used Gerardo Vázquez’s identity to obtain and keep a Texas driver’s license, and was arrested several times on drug-related charges while doing so. He applied for naturalization in 2010, the government says he concealed that identity use and his record, and he later pleaded guilty in 2013 to false testimony under oath in a naturalization proceeding.
Ramiro Escot Esparza faces a separate suit in the Central District of California after the government said he hid multiple acts of sexual abuse against a minor during his 2009 naturalization interview. He had become a permanent resident in 1990 and applied for citizenship in 2008. Months after obtaining citizenship, he pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual abuse of a minor, a sequence that gives the case its force in court even as the legal standard remains the same: the government must prove the alleged concealment mattered to the naturalization decision.
Marrero-Pando’s case in the Middle District of Georgia follows a similar line. He is accused of hiding aggravated sodomy against a man with special needs, later pleaded guilty in June 2022 and admitted he forced the victim to perform sexual acts in May 2020. In his October 2020 naturalization interview, he said under oath that he had never committed a crime for which he had been arrested. José Ramiro Montiel Carrasco, in the Middle District of Florida, is also accused of failing to disclose sexual abuse of a minor and incest before becoming a citizen, then being convicted in Florida after naturalization.
The government is asking federal courts to undo citizenship for people it says obtained it through concealment or fraud. What it has not yet won is the citizenship itself: all 40 remain citizens while the cases are pending, and the final answer will come only from the courts that now have to decide whether the old lies were enough to erase the new status.
