I mean, I as an average person thought about this tactic, I’m sure some project 2025 people also though about it. I mean, denaturalization have to go through courts, destroying naturalization records could just be an executive order. I mean, they don’t even need to destroy it, just order the records to be “relocated for security purposes” then “oopsie, they got caught on fire during transport”. Once thats done, any of the citizens copies would get dismissed as fake and mass deportations could proceed…
I hope I’m just being a “doomer”, and pray it doesn’t happen.
Edit: I already have photos of my certificate of citizenship, but still… if they just start burning records, they can just dismiss my copy as fake. 😖
I’m not sure at that point that they would care. Why do all that when they can just deport people and block them at the points of entry. They could deport a citizen, turn off their passport, and if they show back up detain them for fraudulent ID documents and then either deport them again or send them to the concentration camp for “hard cases”.
Burning the naturalization documents assumes they even care about courts and bring people in front of them.
That said it would be a massive risk. If they didn’t do about a hundred things right the first time they’d end up quickly removed from office by a mob, escorted by the very NG troops sent to stop them. Americans care about citizenship, but that goes both ways. Removing that without due process would lead to activism and if that’s not disrupted properly they get the bad ending. If they fail to secure the capital, it ends badly. If they fail to secure congress, it ends badly. If they fail to ensure wins in the 2026 and 2028 elections, it ends badly. (and not holding those elections also ends badly, like a civil war at best)
So they’ll most likely continue to use the path they used in Trump’s first term. They’ll challenge naturalization documents in court. The good news is courts are slow and dockets fill up fast. There’s only so much they can do with that.
But executive orders are legal until a judge strikes it down… so… 👀
that doesn’t sound good… 😖
I know, that’s why I was talking about the political consequences of doing stuff. I fully expect there will be illegally fast deportations for anyone they believe is undocumented. Citizens and green card holders need to keep their documents and copies of their documents accessible in case they get swept up in that, (It’s happened before). But actually going after citizens and green card holders as the objective, without due process, creates a lot of problems for them. And they have 13 million undocumented people to work through with a system capable of doing 2 million in a 4 year period right now. It’s entirely possible they just never get to the next part of their list.