Oppose the SCAM Act & Any Expansion of Denaturalization Authority

As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the Stop Citizenship Abuse and Misrepresentation (SCAM) Act and any legislation that expands the grounds for denaturalization beyond the narrow scope of current law. Historically, denaturalization has been used sparingly and only in the most extreme circumstances—primarily against Nazi war criminals and terrorist funders. This restraint reflects a fundamental principle: citizenship, once granted, should not be lightly revoked. The narrow application of denaturalization over decades demonstrates that our legal system has functioned effectively without expansive denaturalization authority. We should not abandon this proven approach. The DOJ's June 2025 memo directing denaturalization as a top priority includes a sweeping catchall category: "Any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue." This language is dangerously vague and grants executive officials virtually unlimited discretion to strip citizenship from naturalized Americans. No citizen should live under the threat that government bureaucrats may retroactively decide their citizenship was "sufficiently important" to revoke. This invites arbitrary enforcement and undermines the rule of law. Most conduct the SCAM Act targets—fraud, crimes, human trafficking, and violent offenses—is already comprehensively addressed through our criminal justice system. Denaturalization represents a parallel punishment mechanism that bypasses the protections of criminal procedure, jury trials, and the reasonable doubt standard. When the government seeks to punish conduct, it should do so through established criminal channels with full constitutional protections, not through denaturalization proceedings that treat citizens differently based on their immigration history. Stripping citizenship from naturalized Americans for conduct already punishable through criminal law represents an intolerable erosion of fundamental constitutional rights. It creates a two-tiered citizenship system where naturalized Americans lack the security of natural-born citizens. I urge you to reject the SCAM Act and preserve denaturalization as the narrow remedy it has historically been.