Tennessee Republican Representative Andy Ogles has proposed a sweeping Remigration Act that would expand the US government’s power to revoke citizenship and legal immigration status. He announced the measure after radical Muslim candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won three Democratic congressional primaries.
‘After the events of yet another eye-opening New York election, it’s become clear that mass deportations must be coupled with robust denaturalizations,’ the Tennessee Republican wrote on X. He concluded: ‘Deport. Denaturalize. Remigrate.’
Ogles’ office subsequently released a 15-page discussion draft, which has not yet been assigned an HR number. Its central provision would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to denaturalize anyone convicted within ten years of becoming a citizen of an aggravated felony, government-benefits fraud, material support for a designated terrorist organization, or certain other federal offences.
Those stripped of citizenship would be treated as aliens without lawful status and placed in removal proceedings. The rule would apply to people naturalized before, on, or after the Act’s enactment, while responsibility for initial denaturalization decisions would be transferred from the federal courts to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The proposal would also restrict birthright citizenship for children born after the Act’s enactment. Automatic citizenship would generally be limited to children with at least one parent who is a US citizen or national, a permanent resident, or a lawfully present active-duty service member. This would also affect some children of temporary workers, students, and other lawful non-permanent residents.
‘The proposal would also restrict birthright citizenship for children born after the Act’s enactment’
A new DHS task force would review every asylum grant, refugee admission, and related adjustment of status approved between 20 January 2021 and 20 January 2025. Officials could terminate status if the original evidence was unreliable, procedures were violated, conditions in the home country had changed, or the recipient was otherwise ineligible.
The bill would additionally permit the revocation of visas, green cards, and other immigration benefits held by certain nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen who entered the US during the previous decade. Green card holders who received means-tested public benefits during the preceding five years could lose permanent residence, while temporary migrants convicted of specified serious crimes would lose their status.
Another section would make non-citizens deportable for publicly espousing an undefined ‘anti-American belief or affiliation’ deemed to threaten national security or public safety. The draft would also introduce a standardized English-language test and require denaturalized parents to leave with their children, including US-born children, unless another US-citizen parent retained custody.
The proposal comes amid a wider immigration crackdown during US President Donald Trump’s second presidency and amid an increasing pattern of elections decided by voters with an immigration background. Republicans have long argued that mass immigration gradually strengthens the Democratic electorate and that this is the reason behind the Democrats’ push for open-border policies and an eased naturalization process.
The clearest example cited in support of that argument is the electoral victory of Mamdani, himself a Uganda-born naturalized Muslim. Mamdani performed exceptionally strongly in immigrant-heavy constituencies during last year’s mayoral election. A pre-election survey gave him 62 per cent support among foreign-born registered voters, compared with 32 per cent among US-born respondents. In the Democratic primary, he defeated Andrew Cuomo by 6.9 percentage points in majority-foreign-born neighbourhoods, which accounted for 11.4 per cent of votes cast. Later exit polls gave him 87.2 per cent support among South Asian voters and 81 per cent among residents who had lived in New York for fewer than ten years.
Besides Mamdani, the recent New York primary victories also sparked concern among Republicans. The most controversial winner was Muslim democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier, a co-founder of the pro-Palestinian Columbia University Apartheid Divest group, who narrowly unseated Representative Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th Congressional District. Espaillat was the first formerly undocumented immigrant elected to Congress. Chevalier has declared that ‘all deportation is wrong’.
‘Mamdani performed exceptionally strongly in immigrant-heavy constituencies during last year’s mayoral election’
Mamdani-backed Palestinian–American Muslim activist Aber Kawas also won a state Senate primary. Kawas helped launch the ‘Not On Our Dime’ campaign targeting New York organizations that finance Israeli institutions and drew criticism for remarks placing the 9/11 attacks within a broader history of capitalism, racism, colonialism, and US foreign policy.
The proposed Remigration Act would, however, likely face major constitutional challenges. Supreme Court precedent protects lawfully acquired citizenship against involuntary revocation, while the Fourteenth Amendment provides strong protections for birthright citizenship. The ‘anti-American belief’ provision could also face challenges on free-speech and vagueness grounds, while requiring US-citizen children to leave the country would raise due-process and custody concerns.
The proposal must pass both chambers of Congress and receive presidential approval before becoming law.
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