Angry Instagram posts claim that ICE snatched people from their citizenship hearings or the final stage before being sworn in as citizens, but these stories intentionally misrepresent the facts. They want people to believe that ICE did something nefarious, prevented applicants from completing a legal process, or restricted or violated their rights. In reality, ICE actions are legal and easily explained. The media simply refuses to print the truth and explain what is actually happening.
USCIS is explicit: “You are not a U.S. citizen until you take the Oath of Allegiance at a naturalization ceremony.”
Even if an N-400 application was approved, the applicant passed the civics and English test, and is standing in line with a flag in hand, that person is still only an applicant. Legally, the government can cancel the ceremony, reopen the case, and deny it after additional review.
The claim that these individuals were “minutes away from being citizens” may feel emotionally true to the applicants, but it is legally misleading. If someone can be pulled and stopped, it means the process was never finalized. And these cases are extremely rare. Most arrests do not occur at final citizenship hearings. They happen at immigration court hearings for people facing deportation and at USCIS benefit interviews, including green card and naturalization cases.
When someone appears in immigration court and their case is dismissed or they receive a final removal order, they are legally subject to removal. The key difference between administrations is enforcement of that order. Previous administrations often released people on an honor system to self-report for deportation or leave voluntarily. The Trump administration executes removal orders immediately by having ICE agents present to take custody.
The case of Kasper Eriksen of Denmark is a classic example. DHS reported that he failed to show up for his immigration hearing on April 2, 2019, and that he had already received a final order of removal from an immigration judge.
Eriksen missed the deadline to file Form I-751 in 2015 to remove the conditions on his green card. He then failed to appear for his immigration court hearing in 2019, which resulted in a final deportation order that same year. Despite this, he applied for citizenship in 2024, and in 2025 ICE simply executed the existing removal order when he appeared for his naturalization interview.
ICE enforced a six-year-old removal order issued by an immigration judge. The man had been legally deportable since 2019. USCIS processes citizenship applications separately and does not always catch outstanding removal orders until the interview stage. But liberals falsely claimed that he was arrested and deported while he was “in the process” of applying for citizenship.
Another category of people being arrested at court are those who are already out of status. In the case of Hanne Daguman of Norway, her husband told the media that she had first been in the country on a student visa, which expired, and then received a work visa. Before that visa expired, they married. But a work visa is not a residency permit, and once it ended, she was out of status.
She overstayed her visa, became unlawfully present, and then applied for status adjustment through marriage after she was already in the country illegally. She was arrested at the USCIS interview because she was currently unlawfully present.
When someone applies for an immigration benefit such as a green card, work permit, visa extension, or change of status while they are not eligible for that benefit or while they are out of status, USCIS can coordinate with ICE to arrest them. This practice has existed since at least 2018.
Green card and visa holders whose status has been revoked due to criminal convictions will also face arrest and deportation. Green card holders become deportable if they are convicted of certain crimes, including aggravated felonies, crimes of moral turpitude committed within five years of admission with a potential one-year sentence, drug offenses, multiple DUIs or DUIs with aggravating factors such as a child in the car or an injury, domestic violence offenses, and firearms offenses.
In practice, what happens is simple. A person commits a crime and is convicted. Their green card or visa status becomes revocable, meaning they are now deportable. Many do not realize their status has been compromised.
They show up for a routine immigration check-in, a reporting appointment, an immigration court hearing, or a USCIS interview. At that appointment, they learn their status has already been revoked or is in the process of being revoked, and ICE arrests them on the spot and places them in removal proceedings.
One example is Fabian Schmidt, a German engineer and green card holder who was detained after flying back to the United States on a decade-old misdemeanor drug and DUI charge. Another case is Ma Yang, who had lived in the United States since she was eight months old and was deported to Laos after a marijuana trafficking conviction.
These individuals arrive at their hearing or check-in believing their status is intact, only to find that their criminal conviction triggered deportability grounds under INA § 237, their green card has been or is being revoked, they are now unlawfully present, and they will be arrested and placed in removal proceedings.
The bottom line is that being “in the process” or “one step away” or “attempting to do it the legal way” is not the same as having status and does not guarantee status. Once someone is out of status, filing paperwork and trying to obtain status does not protect them, because they are already out of status. The media keeps claiming that ICE snatched people from courthouses, which is technically true, but those individuals had no legal status and were already subject to deportation.