For good reasons, it is difficult to denaturalize a U.S. citizen and even harder to expatriate one. As this week’s “Long Read” documents, Congress has provided for only a handful of circumstances in which the executive branch is empowered to pursue such a move; and the Supreme Court has recognized meaningful constitutional limits (and an entitlement to meaningful judicial review) even in those cases. As we’re seeing so often with the current administration, there may well be a legal avenue for at least some of what it appears to want to accomplish, but that legal avenue has too much, you know, law, interposing both substantive limits and procedural requirements between the President and his policy preferences......

Historically, and for good reasons, it has been exceptionally difficult for the government to involuntarily revoke an American’s citizenship. 8 U.S.C. § 1481 identifies seven classes of activities that can subject citizens to a loss of citizenship:

(1) obtaining naturalization in a foreign state upon his own application or upon an application filed by a duly authorized agent, after having attained the age of eighteen years; or

(2) taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after having attained the age of eighteen years; or

(3) entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state if (A) such armed forces are engaged in hostilities against the United States, or (B) such persons serve as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer; or

(4)(A) accepting, serving in, or performing the duties of any office, post, or employment under the government of a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after attaining the age of eighteen years if he has or acquires the nationality of such foreign state; or (B) accepting, serving in, or performing the duties of any office, post, or employment under the government of a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after attaining the age of eighteen years for which office, post, or employment an oath, affirmation, or declaration of allegiance is required; or

(5) making a formal renunciation of nationality before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in a foreign state, in such form as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State; or

(6) making in the United States a formal written renunciation of nationality in such form as may be prescribed by, and before such officer as may be designated by, the Attorney General, whenever the United States shall be in a state of war and the Attorney General shall approve such renunciation as not contrary to the interests of national defense; or

(7) committing any act of treason against, or attempting by force to overthrow, or bearing arms against, the United States, violating or conspiring to violate any of the provisions of section 2383 of title 18, or willfully performing any act in violation of section 2385 of title 18, or violating section 2384 of title 18 by engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, if and when he is convicted thereof by a court martial or by a court of competent jurisdiction.

As should be clear from this list, most of the circumstances involve behavior in which an individual has manifested a specific and voluntary desire to surrender their citizenship—and not when citizenship has been revoked as a punishment. And even for subsection (a)(7), the one part that doesn’t seem to require that on its face, the statute today includes an umbrella condition—that loss of citizenship depends upon whether the individual “voluntarily perform[ed] any of the [specified] acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality.”......

Section 1481 applies to all U.S. citizens. For naturalized citizens (i.e., those who become citizens after birth), there’s one additional basis for revoking citizenship—and that’s if and only if their citizenship was “illegally procured or . . . procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” Here, too, the statute (and, almost certainly, the Constitution) requires notice and meaningful judicial review before an American’s citizenship can be stripped. As 8 U.S.C. § 1451(b) mandates,

The party to whom was granted the naturalization alleged to have been illegally procured or procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation shall, in any such proceedings under subsection (a) of this section, have sixty days’ personal notice, unless waived by such party, in which to make answers to the petition of the United States . . . .

Of course, the government can pursue denaturalization on broader grounds than it can pursue expatriation—since the Constitution doesn’t create a substantive right to naturalization in the same way it does for birthright citizenship. But the key is that here, too, the Supreme Court has regularly insisted not only on meaningful judicial review of denaturalization proceedings, but on construing the relevant statutes narrowly—including, most recently, in 2017. (For much more on the complexities of denaturalization, see this fantastic February 2020 “Practice Advisory” from the National Lawyers Guild and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.)

In other words, although denaturalization is potentially available in more cases than expatriation, it still requires meaningful, individualized judicial review—review that holds the government to a significant burden in providing that an individual wrongfully obtained their citizenship, and not just that they engaged in questionable behavior thereafter. There is, simply, no easy, fast path to revoking any American’s citizenship without their consent—and there hasn’t been for decades. That may not stop the current administration from trying it anyway, or from removing citizens unlawfully and then resisting the legal consequences. But it’s important to be clear on what the actual legal authority for such maneuvers would be. Here, there isn’t any.

A lot of you may be mystified as to why DOJ’s withholding of the Epstein files so upsets Trump’s base.

It’s very simple.

👉 Roughly a third of MAGA Republicans qualify as QAnon believers.

👉 QAnon teaches that government, media, and financial elites are Satanists who sex-traffic children.

The Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) has stopped publishing data on the demographic situation in Russia.

May’s statistics were published in July. But, according to sources from Kyiv Post, from now on statistics on mortality, birth rates, the number of marriages and divorces, as well as data on migration in Russia, will be provided under signature and not disclosed. Kyiv Post decided to investigate.

Population decline
The closure on data release was first noted by demographer and sociologist Alexei Raksha – a former employee of Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat). Raksha began to voice concerns about the worsening demographic situation on social media, shortly after which he was declared a “foreign agent” and deprived of the ability to lecture, teach, and publish books and academic articles......

But even including artificially inflated figures for the occupied territories, the overall statistics across Russia remain extremely grim.

2024 saw a record decline in Russia’s population. A 3.5% increase in mortality combined with a drop in birth rates led to record demographic losses – there were 600,000 more deaths than births – a 20% increase on 2023......

These figures echo those of Russian outlet Mediazona, which identified more than 120,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine based on open-source information: obituaries, social media posts, official bulletins, etc. Mediazona suggested that the real number is significantly higher, as many bodies are unidentifiable, many have not been recovered, and the media do not report many funerals (especially of convicts).

US Secretary Marco Rubio said July 10 that Russia lost 100,000 dead just in the last six months.

“This is an attempt to hide loss data that is not published openly, but can be inferred from demographic statistics. The Kremlin has a direct interest in this. They didn’t notice it at first, but such data reveals not only losses, but also the country’s military potential,” Russian sociologist and journalist Igor Yakovenko said.

The Department of Justice sued Los Angeles last week over the city’s so-called sanctuary laws, rules that preserve its right not to participate in the sweeping federal campaign to ramp up immigration enforcement.

Only weeks after federal immigration raids set off chaos in a small area of downtown LA, the federal government claims that the city’s policies, which prohibit police officers from affirmatively assisting in immigration enforcement, amount to active obstruction of federal law.

Last Monday’s challenge follows at least six other federal lawsuits against states and cities with sanctuary practices. Additional lawsuits seem likely, as the Department of Homeland Security has not let up on its rhetoric about local opposition to its policies and published a list of some 400 supposed sanctuaries that appears designed to guide federal efforts to browbeat cities into submission. Some local governments dispute their designations as “sanctuary jurisdictions.” DHS withdrew the list following local police agency opposition.

These lawsuits and other actions — such as threats to freeze federal funding from sanctuary cities or to prosecute their officials — clearly violate the 10th Amendment, which provides that powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the states as independent sovereigns in our system of federalism. While states may choose to help enforce federal law, the U.S. government cannot “commandeer” their resources by demanding participation or by threatening to prosecute or withhold funds from states that opt out. The same goes for cities, which are legally considered subordinate parts of their states.

The lawsuits are an attempt to punish existing sanctuary jurisdictions and dissuade others from joining them. Sanctuary laws vary across cities and states, but they typically involve the jurisdiction withholding active assistance from federal immigration enforcement. These laws may prohibit the initial collection of immigration status information, limit the sharing of identity information with federal agencies, or direct jail personnel to decline requests to detain immigrants simply so immigration agents may pick them up.

No sanctuary laws authorize city or state officers to actively obstruct federal enforcement, and many have exceptions that allow sharing of information about certain serious crimes. Moreover, as experts across the ideological spectrum have noted, immigration sanctuary laws can promote safety, enhance community engagement with police, and foster economic development.

Two days after catastrophic floods roared through Central Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The lack of responsiveness happened because the agency had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters.

The agency laid off the contractors on July 5 after their contracts expired and were not extended, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who has instituted a new requirement that she personally approve expenses over $100,000, did not renew the contracts until Thursday, five days after the contracts expired. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

The details on the unanswered calls on July 6, which have not been previously reported, come as FEMA faces intense scrutiny over its response to the floods in Texas that have killed more than 120 people. The agency, which President Trump has called for eliminating, has been slow to activate certain teams that coordinate response and search-and-rescue efforts......

The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.

Some FEMA officials grew frustrated by the lapse in contracts and that it was taking days for Ms. Noem to act, according to the person briefed on the matter and the documents. “We still do not have a decision, waiver or signature from the DHS Secretary,” a FEMA official wrote in a July 8 email to colleagues......

Democratic lawmakers raised concern on Friday that Ms. Noem’s insistence on approving expenses over $100,000 had also delayed FEMA’s deployment of search-and-rescue teams to Texas. In a letter to David Richardson, FEMA’s acting administrator, the Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wrote that Ms. Noem did not authorize the deployment of those teams until July 7, three days after the flooding began.

But in Texas, Republicans are in danger of creating a so-called dummymander, whereby an attempt to draw more seats for one party accidentally benefits the other. Texas’ congressional map already heavily favors the GOP, so any changes to further benefit the party would have to walk a careful line. Adding Republican voters to blue districts to reduce Democrats’ margins means taking those same voters out of the red districts where they reside. The result is more competitive districts across the board — ones Democrats hope to take advantage of as they harness anti-Trump energy in the midterms.

“They are playing a little bit of roulette with these maps,” said Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas). “In a wave election like what we have a potential opportunity for in ‘26 I think it makes these Republicans very vulnerable.”

Texas has 38 House seats, with 25 held by Republicans. Members of the state’s Democratic delegation huddled with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as the redistricting talk ramped up, with follow-up meetings planned.

Jeffries warned in a statement Wednesday that an aggressive map could “result in making several incumbent House Republicans vulnerable to fierce general election challenges.”

“Republicans are cutting off their nose to spite their face,” he added.....

Democrats are almost certain to sue over whatever new maps are created in both Ohio and Texas, said John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

“I imagine we will have a lot to say about the map they create and the legalities of it,” he said Thursday.

Nearly six months into his tenure as the White House’s “border czar,” Tom Homan has made a great many controversial public comments, about everything from due process to prosecuting news organizations to his curious focus on Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

But we’re often reminded that his rhetorical record is still growing.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3ltoyyfr5vt2m
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1943671875961287024

In his latest Fox News appearance, Homan said: “Look, people need to understand, ICE officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them. They just need totality of the circumstances, right? They just go through the observation, get our typical facts — based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.”

NBC News reported earlier this year about concerns related to racial profiling as part of the Trump’s administration immigration raids, and hearing the White House border czar talk about ICE agents being able to detain people based on “their physical appearance” will likely make those concerns worse.

What's more, Homan's on-air comments sparked quick pushback from Capitol Hill. Rep. Daniel Goldman said via Bluesky that the border czar's assessment was "patently false."

The New York Democrat added, "DHS has authority to question and search people coming into the country at points of entry. But ICE may not detain and question anyone without reasonable suspicion — and certainly not based on their physical appearance alone. This lawlessness must stop."