A Chicago man who has been a naturalized US citizen for 15 years faces being stripped of his citizenship and deported, according to a legal filing reviewed by Newsweek.
The complaint, filed in Illinois court on October 7, alleges that Emmanuel Tayo Akinkunmi, who was born in Nigeria, “procured his naturalization unlawfully” and that he had “willfully misrepresented and concealed material facts in applying to naturalize.”
The US government said Akinkunmi took the Oath of Allegiance and was admitted as a citizen on June 8, 2011.
The Allegations
Before that, under a different identity — allegedly Ezekiel Aremu Adetayo — he abandoned his green-card status in 1993. He was subsequently ordered excluded from the US, and the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the decision in 1997.
The government alleges that he then applied for a new green card under the name Akinkunmi, claimed he had used no other names, and denied having previously been excluded. That application was approved in 2000.
Then, when applying for citizenship in 2010, he allegedly again denied using another identity and denied having been ordered excluded or deported. The complaint alleges that Akinkunmi “was never lawfully admitted to the United States as a permanent resident” and that he sought admission and other benefits by “fraud” or “willfully misrepresenting a material fact.”
Akinkunmi did not have a listed attorney as of reporting on Monday morning.
The Broader Crackdown
The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration launched what US Attorney General Todd Blanche called the “largest denaturalization effort in modern history.”
As of early October, the Trump administration launched an effort to strip 40 naturalized Americans of their US citizenship. The Justice Department said they obtained citizenship illegally or fraudulently. The cases span a range of alleged misconduct, from fraudulent marriages to immigration and identity fraud. The defendants vary in age from 26 to 76 and are from 20 countries.
“Every single one of these individuals lied their way into US citizenship,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said in a news release.
The Legal Standard
Naturalized US citizenship can be revoked by a federal court if the government establishes that it was illegally obtained or procured through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.
Denaturalization is a lengthy and complicated procedure that has rarely been used by prior administrations. Between 1990 and 2017, the federal government initiated an average of around 11 denaturalization cases annually, per the Brennan Center for Justice. In Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, that figure rose to roughly 25 cases each year.
The US Supreme Court has in the past imposed limits on the government’s power to revoke citizenship. The 2017 case Maslenjak v. United States held that an illegal act during the naturalization process must have played a role in obtaining citizenship. Any denaturalization cases are likely to trigger legal challenges
The Bottom Line
A Chicago man who has been a US citizen for 15 years faces denaturalization over allegations he used a different identity and concealed a prior exclusion order. The case is part of the Trump administration’s expanded denaturalization effort, which has targeted 40 naturalized citizens. The government must prove the alleged fraud played a role in obtaining citizenship.
My Opinion
The government says Emmanuel Akinkunmi lied. Maybe he did. The allegations are serious, and if proven, they are exactly the kind of fraud the denaturalization process was designed to address. No one should be able to obtain citizenship through deception.
But there is a difference between pursuing fraud and waging a campaign of terror against naturalized citizens. The Trump administration has openly announced the “largest denaturalization effort in modern history.” Between 1990 and 2017, the government averaged about 11 denaturalization cases a year. Now it is targeting 40 people at once, ranging in age from 26 to 76, from 20 countries. That is not a law enforcement strategy. That is a message.
The message is this: your citizenship is conditional. It can be taken away. If you naturalized, you are not safe. And if the government decides to look hard enough at your application, it will find something — a name you used, a form you filled out wrong, a detail you forgot. The Supreme Court has said the government must prove the fraud played a role in obtaining citizenship. But that standard is only as strong as the judges who enforce it.
