(New York) Rudolph Giuliani sees a good eye the denaturalization and expulsion of Zohran Mamdani, winner of the Democratic primary for the election at the town hall of New York.
“I think this is a very responsible request and that the government should examine it given the nature of the words it makes,” said the former mayor of New York during the episode of the episode Benny Johnson Show broadcast on June 27.
Photo Haiyun Jiang, Archives The New York Times
Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001, last November
Denaturalization is the process by which a naturalized citizen is withdrawn from his nationality for various reasons. Born in Uganda 33 years ago, Zohran Mamdani was naturalized American in 2018. He arrived in New York with his parents of Indian origin at the age of 7.
The denaturalization procedure is also about to become a political weapon for Donald Trump and his allies.
During the Benny Johnson show, Rudolph Giuliani was invited to comment on a request made by the Republican representative of Tennessee Andy Ogles. In a letter dated June 26, the latter asked the General Prosecutor of the United States, Pam Bondi, to open an investigation to determine if Zohran Mamdani should be the subject of a denaturalization procedure.
Photo Ken Cedeno, Reuters archives
The General Prosecutor of the United States, Pam Bondi, in the company of President Donald Trump on June 27
He founded his request by citing in particular the words of a song written and interpreted by the socialist democratic candidate when he was a rapper. The song contains the lyrics “release the five of the Holy Land/My friends”, allusion to five former leaders of a Muslim charitable association installed in Texas – the Holy Land Foundation.
The latter were sentenced in 2009, after criticized procedures to prison sentences from 15 to 65 years for “sending $ 12 million to Hamas”.
Donald Trump also called into question the status of Zohran Mamdani, the same day of the commentary by Rudolph Giuliani, recently appointed to an advisory committee of the Department of Internal Security.
“Many people say he is here illegally. We are going to examine everything, “he said, while promising to stop the one he describes as” communist “if he was trying to prevent immigration service agents (ICE) from doing their job in New York.
New federal directive
On the same day, a journalist asked the president if he could expel Elon Musk, who was then defeated One Big Beautiful Bill And promised to create a new party in its adoption by the congress.
“We will have to examine that,” replied the tenant of the White House.
Born in South Africa and American naturalized in 2002, Elon Musk did not respond directly to the threat of Donald Trump, unlike Zohran Mamdani.
Photo Angela Weiss, Archives Agency France-Presse
Zohran Mamdani
The President of the United States has just threatened to have me arrested, to fall off from my citizenship, to place myself in a detention camp and to express myself. Not because I have broken a law, but because I refuse to let the Ice terrorize our city.
Zohran Mamdani, in a press release
These allusions to the denaturalization of Zohran Mamdani or Elon Musk may not be followed up. But, coincidence or not, they take place just a few days after the dissemination of a new directive of the Department of Justice concerning this procedure.
“The civil division (from the Department of Justice) must give priority and continue the denturalization procedures as much as possible in all cases authorized by law and supported by evidence”, can be read in the directive.
The note specifies that the priority must be given to cases where “an individual has either” illegally obtained “naturalization, or obtained naturalization by” concealment of a material fact or by deliberate declaration “”.
It also targets any naturalized citizen who “represents a potential threat to national security”.
“Incompatible with our democratic system”
The Trump administration is obviously not the first to launch proceedings of denaturalization against individuals who falsified their documents or hidden their criminal past to obtain American citizenship. The Obama administration notably set up a program called “Operation Janus” which operated the databases, including fingerprints, to identify people who obtained citizenship by fraudulent means.
But some lawyers fear politicization of the denaturalization procedure under the Trump II administration. According to them, Trump’s statements, Giuliani and Ogles about Zohran Mamdani send a clear message to the approximately 20 million naturalized American citizens: administration criticisms are likely to be the subject of an investigation that can lead to denaturalization procedure.
According to Cassandra Burke Robertson, law professor at Case Western University, the link between the denaturalization procedure and the policy is “much narrower than in the past”.
“And for me, it’s very worrying,” she said in an interview. Because attacking people for political reasons is really an effort to stifle dissent. It is incompatible with our democratic system. We want people to participate in the political process, we want them to vote, we want them to express their disagreement with the government. This is the reason why the United States has fought for its independence. »»
The Trump administration would not be the first to politicize denaturalization procedures. From 1906 to 1967, these served as a “tool to rid the American population of” undesirable “, wrote the historian Patrick Weil in a book published in 2012 and titled The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic.
Have been among these “undesirable” the fascists and the communists, among others.
However, a judgment of the Supreme Court ended this practice in 1967, absolutely guaranteeing the legal security of any person born or naturalized in the United States, except in cases of fraud or crimes against humanity.
This is perhaps another guarantee to which the Trump administration might want to tackle in the context of its project to purge the United States of all those which it considers “undesirable”.