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The Department of Justice of the United States announced this Monday that it has filed denaturalization actions against 17 naturalized citizens in several federal courts across the country, which it describes as the largest effort of its kind in the history of the federal government.
Among the 17 affected are two women of Cuban origin: Leidys Delmas Garcia, 54 years old, and Milagros Marileisis Acosta Torres, 40 years old.
Delmas was convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud in the healthcare system.
According to the Department of Justice, she and her co-conspirators established and operated 30 physical therapy clinics in Florida that fraudulently billed the insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield approximately $36,728,595 for services that were not medically necessary or were never provided.
During his naturalization interview, Delmas declared under penalty of perjury that he had not committed any crimes for which he had not been arrested and that he had never provided false information to government officials. Both statements were false.
The case has direct precedents: in December 2022, the FBI arrested nine residents of Florida —including Delmas Garcia and his daughter Arisleidys Fernández Delmas— accused of orchestrating the same $37 million healthcare fraud scheme.
Acosta, for his part, was involved in a conspiracy to defraud a tribal casino in Florida.
Her husband and other accomplices stole millions of dollars from the casino by creating fake credit vouchers.
Acosta then participated in financial transactions with those funds to disguise their illicit origin and evade the reporting requirements imposed by federal and state law.
In his naturalization application and interview, he falsely claimed that he had not committed any crimes.
This action is part of the unprecedented escalation of the denaturalization campaign by the Trump administration. Between 1990 and 2017, the Department of Justice filed an average of only 11 denaturalization lawsuits per year.
Last month, the government had already announced cases against a dozen naturalized citizens, in what was then described as the largest escalation in decades.
This is not the first time that a Cuban woman has lost her citizenship in this context.
On March 24, 2026, a federal court revoked the citizenship of Mirelys Cabrera Díaz, a resident of Hialeah, for defrauding Medicare of more than six million dollars.
If the 17 affected individuals are denaturalized, they revert to their previous immigration status—generally permanent residents—and lose all the benefits of citizenship, including protection against deportation.
The immigration lawyer Willy Allen III explained in April that only fraud committed during the immigration process can lead to the revocation of citizenship.
The acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was emphatic: "U.S. citizenship is a privilege, and under the strong leadership of President Trump, this Department of Justice upholds a zero-tolerance policy for the abuse of this process."
The Department of Justice clarified that the accusations contained in the lawsuits are allegations and that there is no determination of liability yet.
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