Top immigration official warns naturalization fraudsters could be stripped of citizenship

Operation Twin Shield in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota flagged more than 1,000 cases suspected of being fraudulent, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told Just the News.

Published: October 12, 2025 10:53pm

After a joint operation by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) found “mass patterns” of marriage and other immigration fraud in Minneapolis, the agency’s director says denaturalization and prosecutions are on the table. 

Operation Twin Shield, which was conducted by USCIS in coordination with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the FBI in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, flagged over 1,000 cases suspected of involving “fraud or ineligibility indicators,” the agency shared in an after-action announcement. 

The agency reviewed applications for immigration benefits, including marriage and family-based petitions, employment authorizations, and certain parole-related requests, the agency said. Of the cases reviewed, the agency found "evidence of fraud, non-compliance, or public safety or national security concerns” in 275 cases.

Widespread fraud in immigration landscape

“So we went, and our plan was to start getting some resources together to go after marriage fraud. What we did over the course of about two weeks—it was a joint operation with us and ICE, CBP, DEA, FBI, all were involved—we were able to find mass patterns of not only marriage fraud, naturalization fraud, we found fraud within the OPT, the optional practical training process, [and] we found it within H-1Bs,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. 

“Now we're taking all that information back. We're going through it, seeing what applications need to be reopened, what benefits need to be denied. And I'm working with the US Attorney out there to start sending a couple cases for prosecution, hopefully, many cases for prosecution,” Edlow added. 

The director said that a denaturalization process is possible for certain cases if they meet the criteria. 

“[We] do have processes both for civil and criminal denaturalization. It's something that's on the books, so we can do it. There are some criteria that have to be met in terms of what was the fraud? Was the fraud part of their scheme to ultimately get naturalization? Was it committed before or after they got naturalization? So there's a lot of different factors that play a role here,” said Edlow. 

Denaturalization requires Federal court authorization

“But, nothing is off the table right now. And for any case where we have found fraud indicators, we are looking at what applications need to be either denied or reopened and re-examined, and what ultimately needs to be prosecuted, including denaturalization, if appropriate,” the director continued. 

Federal law provides that denaturalization can only result from a court order in either a civil proceeding or after a criminal conviction. According to the USCIS, denaturalization requires a high burden of proof. For a civil revocation, “the burden of proof is clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence which does not leave the issue in doubt.” For a criminal revocation, “the burden of proof is the same as for every other criminal case, proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

The agency refers cases for revocation of naturalization if there is sufficient evidence for one of two grounds for the revocation: “illegal procurement of naturalization” or “concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.” 

Operation Twin Shield was carried out in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region of Minnesota from Sept. 19 to Sept. 28 targeting those 1,000 cases the USCIS had identified as bearing the markers of possible fraud. During that time, agents with USCIS and its partners conducted “more than 900” site visits and in-person interviews. 

The agency said the operation was the first time the agency carried out fraud enforcement actions on such a scale in one geographical area. Edlow told Just the News that USCIS chose Minneapolis because the agency “knew it was a hot bed for fraud activity,” and for “marriage fraud” in particular. 

Minneapolis a hot-spot for immigration fraud

Though officials did not point to a specific immigrant group, Minneapolis and its twin city, St. Paul, has been the destination for a large number of Somali immigrants and refugees since a civil war ravaged the country in the 1990s. Somalis are now the fastest growing group among Minnesota’s foreign-born population. 

According to The Minnesota Compass, as of 2023, there are at least 82,436 Somalis in the state, with approximately 20% of whom are roughly in a military age group. The community's median income is $38,264 per annum, and almost 40% live below the poverty line.

The community has made significant strides in integrating into the state's culture. In 2023, Nadia Mohamed became Minnesota’s first Somali-American Mayor, representing St. Louis Park. Perhaps the most famous Somali in Minnesota politics is Ilhan Omar, the controversial Representative who carved out a role as a prominent member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and "The Squad," and has championed efforts to defund the police, abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and support migrants currently in detention centers, among other progressive causes.

Examples of fraud on display

The agency provided the details of several cases to illustrate the kinds of fraud the targeted operation uncovered. In one case, an “alien” admitted to agents that he fabricated a death certificate from Kenya for $100 in order to falsely claim that a marriage had been terminated. However, the agency discovered that the spouse is still alive, living in Minneapolis, and is the mother of his five children. 

In another case, the “son of a known or suspected terrorist” overstayed his visa in the United States and was previously found to have engaged in marriage fraud.  

In the third case, one admitted to officers that she had committed marriage fraud only a few hours after swearing that her marriage was true during an interview at the Minneapolis office. 

“This is a small sample of the immigration fraud that USCIS officers across the nation combat every single day,” the agency said in a press release after the conclusion of the operation. 

Edlow told Just the News that Operation Twin Shield is only the beginning of targeted efforts to detect and prosecute immigration fraud across the country. Minneapolis was chosen as the first target for the known prevalence in fraud cases, but the director said that he “expects it to hit many, many cities,” over the course of the next year and a half. 

“Minneapolis was our first operation, but it's not, by any means, our last,” said Edlow. “We've already picked out a couple other cities that we want to focus on, and we're looking at ways that we can expand this across the country.”

Denaturalization proceedings are not new, but the renewed focus on national security and immigration has reignited the issue.

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