Can America Strip Citizenship From Sex Offenders, And Should It?
A 69-year-old Colombian-born priest sits in prison serving a 22-year sentence. He groomed a child from the age of 11, used his position in the church to access the boy, and then, when the time came to naturalize as an American citizen, he lied about all of it. Fernando Cristancho is now one of more than 400 people the Trump administration is moving to strip of citizenship — the largest denaturalization push in American history.
The instinct, confronting a case like his, is to ask: what took so long?
The policy, however, is built around cases like his, and is more complicated than the cases themselves. Understanding the difference matters, not to protect men like Cristancho, but to understand what this campaign will actually accomplish, who it will reach, and what it may cost.
