A federal judge in the Southern District of Texas has revoked citizenship for a Mexican immigrant as part of a larger denaturalization effort by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a recent post, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate drew attention to the denaturalization of Francisco Javier Montano.
The announcement from the DOJ stated that while Montano was originally present in the U.S. legally, he “failed to divulge that he had sexually abused a child during the mandatory five-year good moral character period prior to the naturalization process.”
Montano was convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual assault and four counts of indecency with a child by a Texas state court.
“As Montano should not have been naturalized, the United States filed a complaint on June 30 in the Southern District of Texas to revoke his illegally-obtained citizenship,” according to the DOJ.
The Department of Justice is also seeking the denaturalization of Murtaza Ali, a native of Pakistan who was naturalized in 2009 under the alias “Muhammad Iqbal.” The fraudulent activity was discovered after fingerprints submitted under the alias matched Ali’s.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas has charged Ali with making false material statements.
In 2014, Ali pleaded guilty to filing three separate applications for immigration benefits using three different identities. A four-count denaturalization charge was filed against him by the United States in July 2026.
In its July announcement, the Department of Justice reported the federal government was filing denaturalization actions against a total of ten individuals across eight states. The criminals are from Cuba, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, and Poland.
“These ten criminal aliens – including child sex abusers, a $900,000 Medicare fraudster, and a cocaine trafficker – lied their way into U.S. citizenship,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
“Each of these individuals lacked the good moral character required by law and procured citizenship through willful misrepresentations and concealment of their crimes.”
According to The Texas Immigration Data Portal, almost 6 million individuals in Texas are immigrants, equating to roughly 20 percent of the current population. An estimated 2 million of those individuals are in the state illegally.
“We refuse to give a free pass to criminals who cheated their way into American citizenship,” said Shumate as quoted in the DOJ announcement. “Under [Trump’s] administration, if you defrauded the naturalization process, you will face the full force of the Justice Department.”
