NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FEDERAL LAWYERS
How serious is naturalization fraud
|Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group – a second-generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek, who has many, many years of experience handling federal criminal defense cases. We’ve represented thousands of clients since 1976, with over 50 years of combined experience across our team. You might know us from the Netflix series about one of Todd’s clients, Anna Delvey, or from our work on the Ghislaine Maxwell juror misconduct case. Our criminal defense lawyers have been interviewed by major news outlets, like the NY Post, Newsweek, and Bloomberg.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably worried about naturalization fraud charges – and you should be. The federal government takes this seriously. They always have, but in 2025 the Department of Justice made denaturalization one of their top five enforcement priorities. That means more prosecutions, longer sentences, and aggressive pursuit of cases that would’ve been ignored five years ago.
Prison Time Is Real and Getting Longer
Naturalization fraud falls under 18 U.S.C. § 1425, and the statute alone should scare you. Standard cases – fraud with no terrorism or drug trafficking connection – carry up to 10 years in federal prison for first or second offenses, 15 years for subsequent offenses. That’s just the baseline.
If your fraud involved drug trafficking in any way, you’re looking at 20 years. Terrorism-related cases go up to 25 years. And here’s what defendants don’t realize until it’s too late – federal prosecutors are creative about connecting your fraud to these aggravating factors. You lied about a marijuana arrest from 2010? They might argue that’s drug-trafficking-related fraud and push for the 20-year maximum.
Recent sentences show the government isn’t playing around. Robert Davis got six months in October 2024. Herbert Leonel Diaz received eight months the same year. These were relatively minor cases. When serious criminal history is involved – especially sex crimes or violence – judges hand down years, not months.
The DOJ Changed Everything in June 2025
On June 11, 2025, the Department of Justice issued an internal memo that fundamentally shifted denaturalization enforcement. The Civil Division now treats denaturalization as one of its top five priorities. Before this memo, the government focused primarily on war criminals, terrorists, and major human rights violators.
Now they’re casting a much wider net. The expanded categories include anyone who committed fraud against individuals or the government – Paycheck Protection Program fraud, Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud. They’re going after people who furthered gang or cartel interests. They’re pursuing financial fraudsters who never committed a violent crime in their lives.
This isn’t hypothetical. Between 1990 and 2017, the DOJ filed an average of 11 denaturalization cases per year. During Trump’s first term that jumped to 42 per year. Under Biden it dropped to 16 per year. With this June 2025 memo, we’re seeing enforcement ramp up again – and the categories are broader than ever before.
You Lose Everything, Not Just Citizenship
Denaturalization means the court strips your U.S. citizenship and you revert to whatever immigration status you held before naturalizing. For most people, that’s lawful permanent resident status. But that’s not where it ends.
The same conduct that got your citizenship revoked – the fraud, the concealed criminal history, the material misrepresentation – is almost always grounds for deportation. So you lose citizenship, then ICE starts removal proceedings. You’re deported to a country you might not have lived in for 20 or 30 years.
And you can’t come back. Naturalization fraud creates a permanent bar to reentry in most cases. Your U.S. citizen spouse can’t sponsor you. Your U.S. citizen children can’t help you. You’re done.
This happens through two paths. Criminal convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 1425 require the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you knowingly procured naturalization through fraud. That’s a high burden, but if they meet it, denaturalization is mandatory.
Civil denaturalization proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a) use a lower standard – preponderance of the evidence. The government just needs to show you “illegally procured” citizenship or got it through “concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” Civil cases are faster and easier for prosecutors to win.
What Actually Counts as Fraud
People think naturalization fraud means fake documents or assumed identities. Sometimes it does. But most cases involve omissions and half-truths on Form N-400.
You failed to disclose an arrest even though the charges were dismissed. That’s fraud. You said you’ve never committed a crime when you shoplifted as a teenager and got probation. That’s fraud. You answered “no” to the question about gang membership because you stopped associating with gang members five years before applying. That might still be fraud if you were involved during the statutory period for good moral character.
Carlos Fabian Velez of San Antonio got denaturalized in 2025 because he denied prior criminal activity on his naturalization application despite evidence of child pornography offenses since 2014. He didn’t submit fake birth certificates or forge documents – he just lied about his criminal history. That was enough.
The government also prosecutes fraud based on sham marriages, false claims of residence, and manufactured evidence of English proficiency or civics knowledge. If you paid someone to take your naturalization test, that’s fraud. If you married a U.S. citizen solely to get a green card and then naturalized based on that marriage, that’s fraud – even if the marriage lasted years and you had children together.
Federal Sentencing Guidelines Make This Worse
The base offense level for naturalization fraud under the sentencing guidelines isn’t particularly high, but enhancements pile up fast. If you used a false identity, add levels. If you produced fraudulent documents, add more levels. If the fraud involved more than minimal planning – which it almost always does because naturalization takes months or years – add levels for sophisticated means.
Criminal history matters enormously. If you concealed prior convictions and those convictions give you criminal history points, your guideline range shoots up. A defendant with a Category III criminal history faces dramatically more time than someone with no record, even for identical naturalization fraud.
Acceptance of responsibility can knock off three levels if you plead guilty early and don’t minimize your conduct. But you can’t get acceptance of responsibility if you lied to probation during the presentence investigation or if you testified falsely at trial. Many defendants hurt themselves by continuing to lie even after they’re caught.
The sentencing guidelines are advisory after United States v. Booker, but judges still use them as a starting point. If your guideline range is 37 to 46 months, you might get a variance down to 24 months if you have strong mitigation. But you’re not walking away with probation in a serious fraud case – those days are over.
Why We Can Actually Help
At Spodek Law Group, we’ve defended clients against federal fraud charges that other law firms said were unwinnable. Our managing partner, Todd Spodek, is a second-generation criminal defense attorney who worked for his father’s law firm as a child – he’s been around federal courtrooms his entire life.
We have former federal prosecutors on our team. They know how the government builds these cases because they used to build them. They understand which evidence USCIS and ICE investigators prioritize, how prosecutors decide between criminal charges and civil denaturalization, and what defenses actually work in front of immigration judges and federal district court judges.
Naturalization fraud cases require immigration law expertise and federal criminal defense expertise. You need lawyers who can challenge the underlying fraud allegations while simultaneously fighting the criminal charges and potential denaturalization. Most firms can’t do both. We do this every day.
Unlike other law firms who worry about their relationships with prosecutors, we owe loyalty only to you. We’re not trying to maintain a friendly reputation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office at your expense. If your case needs to go to trial, we go to trial. If cooperation and a plea agreement make sense, we negotiate aggressively to get you the shortest possible sentence and the best possible immigration outcome.
We’re available 24/7 because we know federal criminal charges don’t wait for business hours. When ICE arrests you or when you get a target letter from a federal prosecutor, you need a lawyer immediately – not next week when someone returns from vacation.
Our digital portal allows us to represent clients coast-to-coast, which matters in naturalization fraud cases because these prosecutions happen in whichever district you naturalized or wherever the fraud allegedly occurred. We can appear in federal courts nationwide.
Many of the cases we’re famous for handling – like representing Anna Delvey against fraud charges or the Ghislaine Maxwell juror in his misconduct case – are cases that others said couldn’t be won. We don’t take every case. We only work with clients we can truly help. If we’re choosing to work with you, it’s because we think we can make a positive impact on your life, your family’s future, and your freedom.