Jinchao Wei became a US citizen in May 2022 through military service. While serving aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, he passed photographs, technical manuals and other sensitive naval information to a Chinese intelligence officer in exchange for more than US$12,000.
Wei is now among 40 foreign-born Americans facing proceedings to revoke their citizenship. On October 5, 2026, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the proceedings, which the Justice Department described as its largest batch of such filings under the Trump administration.
The legal issue is whether each person obtained citizenship illegally through willful misrepresentation or concealment of material facts. The Immigration and Nationality Act permits revocation on that basis.
The department alleges that the defendants lied about, or left out, criminal histories when applying for citizenship. The group includes people from China, Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Venezuela, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Mexico, and the cases involve allegations ranging from acting as an agent of the Chinese government and voluntary manslaughter to sexual offences and fraud.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said: “Today's announcement marks the largest denaturalization effort in modern history.”
Wei was convicted of espionage and export offences in August 2025. He was sentenced in January to 200 months in prison, or 16 years and eight months. The government filed its denaturalisation case against him on September 30 in the Southern District of California.
Another defendant, Ping Li, was sentenced to four years in prison in November 2024 for conspiring to act as an agent of China without notifying the US attorney general.
Li admitted working at the direction of China's Ministry of State Security from at least 2012. He supplied information about Chinese dissidents, pro-democracy advocates and Falun Gong practitioners, along with information from his telecommunications and information technology employers. The case against him was filed on October 1 in the Middle District of Florida.
Javier Marrero-Pando, who is 60 and Cuban-born, is also among those targeted. In May 2020 in Georgia, he forced a man with special needs to perform sexual acts against his will.
In October 2020, Marrero-Pando allegedly told his naturalisation interviewer under oath that he had never committed a crime for which he had not been arrested. He pleaded guilty to aggravated sodomy in June 2022 and received a life sentence with all but 15 years suspended.
The government has made denaturalisation a larger part of its immigration enforcement programme. Under previous administrations, federal authorities pursued an average of 15 denaturalization cases a year. In April, the Trump administration identified 384 foreign-born Americans as targets for denaturalization, and in June 2026 the Justice Department brought actions against 17 people over allegations that included sexual abuse of minors, financial fraud and unlicensed distribution of prescription drugs.
Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said: “Every single one of these individuals lied their way into U.S. citizenship.”
He said the administration would continue “to pursue the largest denaturalization effort in department history to restore trust and integrity in U.S. citizenship.”
Federal courts will decide whether the evidence establishes illegal procurement in each complaint. A successful case would remove the rights and privileges associated with US citizenship.
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