Posts tagged “IR2”

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.