MSNBC Legal Analyst Dumps Cold Water On Panic Over Trump Admin Focus On Denaturalization

MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos on Sunday pushed back on concerns over President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice’s (DOJ) prioritization of denaturalizing citizens.

The DOJ issued a June 12 memo saying the Trump administration is focusing on stripping citizenship from certain naturalized citizens. Cevallos, on “The Weekend: Primetime,” said it is premature to fret about the memo as it is not the Trump administration that determines whether a citizen is denaturalized. (RELATED: Blue States Try To Keep Illegals’ Medicaid Data Hidden From Trump Admin)

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“I don’t know yet that we should say that all naturalized citizens should fear that they’re both covered by the memo and can be removed under the federal statute, because ultimately it is not the administration that decides,” Cevallos said. “It is a federal district judge. Now, we can get into a whole discussion about how the Trump administration is really good at finding district judges or districts in which they will have more favorable outcomes.”

“But guess what? Other administrations do the same thing. Other litigants do the same thing,” he continued. “Everybody judge shops to some degree. But there is a backstop, and hopefully and presumably it is a federal district judge, or maybe an immigration judge, depending on the procedure.”

However, Cevallos’ comments failed to assuage political commentator and naturalized citizen Leigh McGowan.

“This idea of everybody judge shopping is just crazy to me, because not everybody completely overturns the Constitution over and over and over again. Like, as someone who’s in this position, I don’t think citizenship should be conditional or contingent on something,” McGowan replied. “I don’t think you need to have committed a crime. The last two things on his memo are like, ‘or something that we deem unamerican.’ Right? Like, that could be anything. That could be speaking against the president.”