The Justice Department announced Thursday that it had secured the denaturalization of two people who were convicted of lying on their U.S. citizenship application about their criminal history.

The decisions come as the Trump administration boosts its efforts to denaturalize migrants who conceal crimes on their applications to become U.S. citizens.

“American citizenship is a sacred privilege – not a cheap status that can be obtained dishonestly,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “These actions reflect this Department of Justice's ongoing efforts to strip citizenship from people who conceal crimes or defraud the American people during the immigration process.” 

The department says Ukrainian migrant Vladimir Volgaev concealed and misrepresented his involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle more than a thousand firearms components out of the United States. 

Volgaev began helping with the operation to purchase, package and smuggle firearm components to individuals in Ukraine and Italy in 2011 but failed to disclose it when he became a U.S. citizen in 2016. He was convicted in 2020 of smuggling goods from the U.S. and theft of government money or property.

 “The United States provided Volgaev with safety, housing, and citizenship, and he returned those gains with malice, including by defrauding one of the federal agencies that provided him benefits," Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said.

In the other denaturalization case, a Florida resident's citizenship was revoked after she admitted to conspiring to commit health care fraud in 2019. Cuban migrant Mirelys Cabrera Diaz was awarded U.S. citizenship in 2017, but she committed the crimes between 2011 and 2014. 

She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 29 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of over $6 million, the Justice Department also said.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.