Trump: Nigerian Woman Loses US Citizenship 13 Years After Obtaining It
- A US federal court revoked the citizenship of Nigerian-born Vivian Chike Obichere on October 13, 2026, after finding she lied during her naturalisation process
- Court records revealed that Obichere's deception stretched back to 1992, when she fraudulently used another person's identity to obtain a US passport
- The US Department of Justice described the denaturalisation as part of a wider historic campaign against citizenship fraud under the Trump administration
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A Nigerian-born woman who became a US citizen in 2013 had her citizenship revoked after a federal court determined she had built her American life on decades of identity theft and deception.
The US Department of Justice announced on October 21, 2026, that the US District Court for the Northern District of California had entered a denaturalisation order against Vivian Chike Obichere on October 13, 2026.
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The court found she had concealed critical information and lied under oath during her naturalisation proceedings.
Obichere's Decades of Identity Deception
Court records show that Obichere's fraudulent conduct began in 1992, when she assumed the name, social security number, birthplace, and date of birth of a real American citizen identified only as "C.C.O." to unlawfully obtain a US passport. She renewed that same fraudulent passport a decade later, in 2002.
By 2003, Obichere had obtained lawful permanent residency under her actual identity. However, in 2012, she simultaneously attempted to renew the fraudulent passport under the alias C.C.O. while applying for naturalisation using her real name.
During her naturalisation interview, she testified under oath that she had never gone by the name C.C.O., a claim she knew to be false.
Despite the ongoing fraud, she was granted US citizenship in 2013. Two years later, in 2015, a court in the same Northern District of California convicted her of making false statements in the application and use of a passport. She admitted during those proceedings to having deceived the US government on multiple occasions.
DOJ Frames Case as Part of Broader Crackdown
The Justice Department filed a formal denaturalisation complaint against Obichere on July 30, 2026. Both parties submitted a joint motion for a consent judgment on October 7, and the court issued the revocation order six days later.
Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the DOJ's Civil Division linked the case to a government-wide effort to safeguard the integrity of American citizenship.
"Securing denaturalisation is the final step to strip citizenship from those who conceal crimes or defraud the American people," Shumate said. "This administration will continue its historic denaturalisation campaign to protect the value of U.S. citizenship."
The DOJ also announced a separate denaturalisation on October 14, 2026, involving Milagros Marileisis Acosta Torres, a Cuban national whose citizenship was revoked by a Florida federal court after she was found to have hidden her role in a money laundering conspiracy. She had been convicted in 2020 and ordered to pay nearly $150,000 in restitution.
The Obichere case comes amid a broader immigration enforcement push under President Donald Trump, whose administration has cancelled more than 300,000 visas since returning to office in January 2025, a figure the State Department described as the fastest revocation rate of any administration in US history.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
