Sponsoring a Relative for Immigration? USCIS May Revisit How You Became a Citizen
Posted on October 23, 2026
For most naturalized U.S. citizens, denaturalization – or the process by which the US Government takes away citizenship - should not be a reason to lose sleep. Becoming a naturalized citizen does not mean that USCIS is routinely reopening the person’s old immigration file looking for reasons to take citizenship away. But a newly issued USCIS policy alert creates an important caveat: when a naturalized citizen comes back before USCIS to obtain an immigration benefit for somebody else, the agency may take another look at how that person became a citizen in the first place.
On September 14, 2026, USCIS issued Policy Alert PA-2026-13, “Revocation of Naturalization Referrals,” revising Volume 12, Part L of the USCIS Policy Manual. One sentence in the policy alert is particularly significant. USCIS expressly “affirms that for any pending or future filed petition or application associated with a U.S. citizen, USCIS determines whether the petitioner lawfully obtained citizenship.” In other words, when a naturalized citizen files an immigrant petition for a spouse (CR1/IR1), child (CR2/IR2), parent (IR5), or sibling (F4), the case is not necessarily limited to determining whether the beneficiary qualifies for immigration. USCIS may also revisit the petitioner’s own immigration and naturalization history.
That does not mean that filing an I-130 automatically launches a denaturalization investigation. For the overwhelming majority of naturalized citizens who obtained permanent residence and citizenship lawfully, there should be nothing problematic for USCIS to uncover. But the new guidance creates an additional point of scrutiny. A family petition may bring an old A-file back before an officer, and information in that file can potentially raise questions about whether the petitioner was actually eligible for permanent residence or naturalization, or whether material information was concealed or misrepresented during the process. The policy alert itself states that naturalization may be revoked when it was “procured illegally” or obtained through “willful misrepresentation or concealment of a material fact.” It also emphasizes that the update does not create new substantive grounds for denaturalization; rather, it reorganizes and clarifies how USCIS identifies and prioritizes potential cases.
The potential scale of this policy is striking. USCIS reported that more than 2.19 million I-130 Petitions for Alien Relative were pending at the end of fiscal year 2024 alone. Against that enormous volume of family immigration filings, the September 2026 policy means that potentially millions of cases can involve not only an examination of the intending immigrant, but also a renewed look at the U.S. citizen petitioner when citizenship is relevant to eligibility. Naturalized citizens generally have little reason to fear that USCIS will suddenly appear at their door and reopen a decades-old naturalization case. But when they submit to USCIS an I-130 petition to sponsor a family member, their own immigration history may once again be dredged up and scrutinized. For anyone whose history contains a questionable marriage, conflicting statements, an undisclosed incident, an identity issue, or another potential problem predating naturalization or permanent residence, reviewing that history before filing a new immigration petition may now be more important than ever. Feel free to contact us to consult on your individual case.