Trump's DOJ Has Begun Stripping Americans of Citizenship

DOJ lawyers prosecuting a journalist won't write things down for fear of being held to them, Trump officials gutted teen pregnancy prevention, and the DOE killed its only civil rights enforcement tool

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Trump’s DOJ has begun moving to strip citizenship from 10 naturalized Americans, and a top official promises “many more complaints are coming.” Justice Department lawyers prosecuting a journalist admitted they won’t put things in writing for fear it could be used against them in court. The administration canceled most teen pregnancy prevention grants and now demands programs teach girls to safeguard their fertility. And the Education Department just eliminated the only proactive federal mechanism for catching civil rights violations.

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Trump’s DOJ Has Started Revoking Citizenship

Citizenship in America now works like a gym membership: you think you signed up for life, but there’s a clause that lets management cancel you decades later.

Trump’s Justice Department has quietly begun moves to strip 10 naturalized Americans of their citizenship, in cases filed over the past month across the country. Denaturalization has long existed in US law, but it was a rarely used tool reserved for war criminals and egregious fraudsters. Trump-era officials have openly vowed to turn it into a routine enforcement weapon.

The 10 men named are accused of concealing serious criminal histories when they applied for residence or citizenship. Six are from Mexico. The others are from Cuba, Pakistan, Peru, and Poland. All are accused, not convicted.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche framed it as restoring integrity. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said fraud during naturalization forfeits your citizenship entirely.

Then Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said the quiet part into a microphone: “We’ve only scratched the surface, many more complaints are coming.” That likely means a pipeline of investigations built on data-matching old immigration files against criminal databases.

In other words, the government is planning to reopen decisions it made decades ago. Finally, a government program with great long-term follow-up.

DOJ Admits It’s Afraid to Put Things in Writing

Apparently the Department of Justice operates on the same communication policy as your worst ex: “I’m not putting that in a text.”

The DOJ is prosecuting two journalists over their coverage of an anti-ICE protest at Cities Church in Minnesota in January. One of them, Georgia Ellyse Fort, is charged with three felonies, including a hate crime.

Fort’s defense counsel accuses the government of spying on her. A judge already barred prosecutors from using toll records and cell phone simulators that captured Fort’s phone activity.

A Homeland Security Investigations agent, Timothy Gerber, allegedly used customs summonses to gather information about Fort. Prosecutors won’t say whether the government is still using them. They described the cell phone data taken from Fort’s phone but wouldn’t hand over the data itself.

Then came the letter. Fort’s lawyers referenced a call with DOJ lawyer Ned Hedley, in which they got the indication that the government does not intend to respond in writing, out of concern that what it represents “could be put before the Court and/or otherwise used against it.”

Documenting conversations is a basic requirement of the legal profession. Then again, so is not spying on journalists.

The DOJ won’t put its own words in writing. We will. That’s what your subscription pays for. Become a paid subscriber today.

Trump Admin. Cut Teen Pregnancy Prevention for Fertility

The administration worried about America’s falling birthrate has found a solution: gut the programs that lowered the teen birthrate by 65 percent.

The Trump administration abruptly canceled 53 of 67 grants in a 16-year-old, $100 million federal initiative to reduce teen pregnancies. Fact Forward, a South Carolina nonprofit, lost its $1.6 million grant effective immediately.

The termination letters accused programs of promoting content that “encourages, normalizes or promotes sexual activity for minors.” Directors say the government simply distorted their material. Fact Forward’s Dr. Rena Dixon said the lessons cited had never been used, and a flagged video was of one teen telling another that having sex was “a big no-no!”

The grants had required organizations to use courses from a federally approved list, shown by research to be age-appropriate. Healthy Futures of Texas won renewal less than a year ago after a rigorous review. Those same materials are now the stated reason for termination.

The new 89-page application demands programs teach abstinence as the only means of prevention, stress marriage and procreation, and instruct young people how to “safeguard their fertility.” Boys’ modules should address managing “spontaneous arousal.”

The teenage birthrate has dropped more than 65 percent since the program began, to 11.7 births per 1,000. Problem unsolved.

DOE Kills ‘Burdensome’ 1979 Civil Rights Policy

The Education Department has zero unresolved discrimination cases this year, in the same way you have zero cavities if you stop going to the dentist.

The Education Department has eliminated a civil rights enforcement measure meant to root out discrimination in career and technical education, calling the requirements “burdensome.” Under the 1979 Methods of Administration program states had to conduct anti-discrimination compliance reviews of programs receiving federal funding. That requirement is now gone.

The administration argues the disparities that once justified it, including segregation, “no longer exist” to the degree they did. States can still run the reviews voluntarily, if they feel like it.

The context matters. The Office for Civil Rights has narrowed its priorities to Trump’s, launching dozens of investigations into accommodations for transgender students, and alleged discrimination against White and Asian students.

In 2025, the same office resolved zero cases alleging sexual harassment, sexual violence, racial harassment, or discriminatory school discipline. The civil rights unit is now being transferred to the Justice Department.

But sure, tell me more about how trans kids in bathrooms are the real threat to women.

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