DOJ says US citizenship is not a cheap status as it revokes citizenship from three felons.

Ukrainian arms smuggler Vladimir Volgaev, Cuban woman Cabrera Diaz and Lebanese man Alec Nasreddin Kassir. All three of them had US citizenship until they no longer had to, because the Donald Trump administration detected traces of their crime and denaturalized them, revoking their US citizenship, making it clear that obtaining US citizenship does not make a person immune from punitive actions and citizenship can be revoked. Attorney General Pamela Bondy said, “US citizenship is a sacred privilege – not a cheap status that can be obtained dishonestly.” “These actions reflect the Justice Department’s ongoing efforts to strip citizenship from people who conceal crimes or defraud the American people during the immigration process.”

Ukrainian arms smuggler Vladimir Volgaev

Since 2011, Volgaev was involved in the procurement, packaging and smuggling of gun components to individuals in Ukraine and Italy. On September 30, 2025, the Department of Justice filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, seeking Volgaev’s denaturalization based on his crimes and his failure to disclose them during the naturalization process.On March 23, the court ordered Volgaev’s US citizenship revoked. The court held that Volgaev had committed unlawful acts during the period before his naturalization, which required him to show good moral character, thus making him ineligible for naturalization. Additionally, the court found that Volgaev gave false testimony about his criminal background and acquired his US citizenship by knowingly misrepresenting these facts.

Cuban woman Cabrera Diaz

Mireles Cabrera Diaz, a native of Cuba and resident of Hialeah, Florida, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2017. He committed health care fraud between 2011 and 2014 before being naturalized. She admitted that she and her co-conspirators paid bribes to patient recruiters to refer fraudulent prescriptions to the pharmacy where she worked.The U.S. District Court held that Cabrera Díaz obtained his naturalization illegally. Among the requirements for naturalization, Cabrera Diaz was required to show that she was a person of good moral character during the “statutory period” from five years before she applied for naturalization until she took the oath of citizenship. The court concluded that she could not establish the good moral character required for naturalization because she had conspired to commit health care fraud.

Lebanese criminal Alec Nasreddin Kassir

Kassir committed marriage fraud because he claimed he was living with a U.S. citizen spouse during the three years immediately prior to filing his naturalization application in March 2010. On November 14, 2018, she pleaded guilty to passport fraud in the Southern District of Florida. In his criminal proceedings, Kassir admitted that he obtained his US passport through fraudulent procurement of his naturalization. He acknowledged that he was not living in a marital relationship or even in the same state with his alleged US citizen spouse; Rather, but they separated in 2009 and Kassir moved to Florida. Kasir’s immigration fraud was exposed during an investigation into the smuggling of counterfeit goods after he was naturalized, for which he was convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering.