You might think that when you are a US citizen, you cannot have that status taken away. You would be wrong, it turns out. And behind that fact is a long and often ugly history.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump said that he would “absolutely” denaturalize American citizens if he could. It comes after a wave of harsh rhetoric directed toward immigrants after the tragic shooting of two National Guard members last week.

Yes, the words that the president says have been discounted. But there’s policy behind the rhetorical provocation.

Denaturalization is the process of stripping citizenship from someone who obtained it illegally, such as by not meeting the requirements or by committing fraud or lying during the application process. At first, government interpreted that standard loosely, leading to years of abuse.

As my colleagues Faiza Patel, Margy O’Herron, and Kendall Verhovek explain:

As Weil puts it, a process that was intended to redress fraud and illegality in the naturalization process became used to “expel from the body politic ‘un-American’ citizens.” But even during wartime, the Supreme Court responded, limiting its use.

Throughout the 20th century, the court issued several rulings setting a high bar for denaturalization. In 1943, the court struck down a move to denaturalize Russian-born William Schneiderman over ties to the Communist Party, requiring a “heavy burden” for rescinding citizenship. And in 1946, the court warned against the use of denaturalization as a “ready instrument for political persecutions.” It’s why in recent decades, denaturalization attempts have been appropriately rare... until now.

Over the summer, Trump directed Justice Department lawyers to “maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings.” At the time, a spokesperson said that “denaturalization proceedings will only be pursued as permitted by law and supported by evidence against individuals who illegally procured or misrepresented facts in the naturalization process.” Trump’s parameters seem to be much broader. In his Thanksgiving Truth Social post, he said he would “denaturalize migrants........

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