A Cuban who obtained U.S. citizenship in 2015 lost her naturalization after a federal court in Florida determined that she had concealed her involvement in a money laundering conspiracy when she applied to become a citizen of the United States.
This involves Milagros Marileisis Acosta Torres, whose citizenship was revoked on October 14 by the Federal Court for the Southern District of Florida, according to a statement from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) released on Wednesday.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office for the Southern District of Florida released the case this Thursday on X and explained that the woman had lied during her naturalization interview by denying that she had committed offenses for which she had not been arrested.
Federal authorities indicated that, before becoming a U.S. citizen, Acosta was involved in a conspiracy to defraud a Florida tribal casino through an operation that allowed millions of dollars to be siphoned off.
According to the Department of Justice, her husband and several accomplices stole money from the establishment by creating fake credit vouchers.
Acosta later participated in various financial transactions aimed at concealing the fraudulent origin of the money and evading the reporting requirements set by federal and state laws.
The problem for his citizenship arose from the answers he provided during the 2015 naturalization process.
In her application and during the interview with the immigration authorities, the Cuban stated that she had never committed a crime or offense for which she had not been arrested.
However, that response was false, according to the Department of Justice, because by then they had already participated in a conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The authorities stated that concealing that criminal behavior hindered a proper assessment of his eligibility for U.S. citizenship.
The events also resulted in a criminal process. In 2020, Acosta was sentenced by a federal court in Southern Florida to six months in prison and ordered to pay nearly 150,000 dollars in restitution.
Years after that conviction, the federal government took steps to revoke the citizenship he had obtained before his criminal case was resolved.
The Department of Justice filed the denaturalization petition on June 8, 2026.
On October 13, the parties jointly submitted a request for the court to issue a consent judgment revoking naturalization. The next day, the judge issued the ruling that annulled his U.S. citizenship.
In this way, the process shifted from a government demand to an effective judicial decision. It is not merely a request to revoke citizenship, but rather a revocation that has already been ordered by the court.
The Department of Justice did not indicate in its statement that Acosta had been arrested again or deported to Cuba following the sentence.
The loss of U.S. citizenship and potential deportation are separate processes. The revocation of naturalization can lead to new immigration actions, but it does not automatically mean that the person has been expelled from the country.
The case was announced alongside that of Vivian Chike Obichere, a woman originally from Nigeria whose citizenship was also revoked for concealing information during her naturalization process.
Both decisions were presented by the administration of Donald Trump as part of its policy to intensify legal proceedings against individuals who obtained U.S. citizenship through false statements or concealment of criminal activities.
"Achieving denaturalization is the final step to revoke citizenship from those who conceal crimes or defraud the American people," stated Brett A. Shumate, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice.
The official stated that the administration will continue its campaign of denaturalization to protect, as he expressed, the value of American citizenship.
Federal law allows for the revocation of naturalization when a court determines that it was obtained illegally, through the concealment of relevant information or deliberate false statements.
However, committing a crime after becoming naturalized does not, by itself, result in the automatic loss of citizenship.
In these proceedings, it is essential to determine whether the person was eligible when they obtained naturalization and whether they concealed information that could have affected that decision.
The Acosta case had already been publicly identified months earlier. On June 8, the Department of Justice announced actions to revoke the citizenship of 17 naturalized individuals, including two women of Cuban origin.
One of them was Acosta. The other, Leidys Delmas García, had been sentenced for her involvement in a healthcare fraud scheme in Florida that involved dozens of physical therapy clinics and fraudulent claims totaling millions of dollars.
In March of this year, another federal court in Florida revoked the citizenship of Mirelys Cabrera Díaz, a Cuban resident in Hialeah who was convicted of masterminding a multi-million dollar fraud scheme against the Medicare program.
Cabrera had obtained citizenship in 2017, although he had previously participated in criminal activities that, according to the court ruling, prevented him from meeting the requirements for naturalization.
Most recently, on October 5, the Department of Justice reported that it had filed lawsuits to revoke the citizenship of another 40 naturalized individuals, including two Cubans.
The legal actions were filed between August 21 and October 2, and included Javier Marrero Pando and Lázaro Eduardo Trujillo Vitón, whose cases were related to offenses that, according to the authorities, had not been adequately disclosed during their immigration proceedings.
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