The James M. Fitzgerald U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building in Anchorage, home of the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, where Brian Steven Smith was convicted of unlawfully obtaining citizenship. Photo: U.S. General Services Administration (public domain).
A federal judge has convicted Brian Steven Smith of lying his way to U.S. citizenship. His naturalization will be canceled, but not until he is sentenced in February.
The Brian Smith citizenship case ended in a conviction on Oct. 21, when a federal judge in Anchorage found the South African-born man guilty on both counts of unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship under 18 U.S.C. 1425(a) and (b), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska announced. Smith, already serving 226 years in state prison for the murders of two Alaska Native women, answered “No” on his 2019 naturalization application to questions about killing, harming or sexually assaulting anyone and about crimes he had committed without being arrested. Because the conviction came in criminal court, the law makes revocation of his citizenship mandatory, with no separate civil lawsuit.
That mandatory step is what reaches beyond one notorious defendant. Under 8 U.S.C. 1451(e), a court that convicts someone under section 1425 of knowingly procuring naturalization contrary to law must revoke the naturalization and cancel the certificate. Most denaturalization cases instead go through a civil complaint under section 1451(a). This verdict, and two civil judgments the Justice Department announced the same day, show both routes at work.
Smith is still a citizen for now. The Justice Department said denaturalization follows sentencing, which is set for Feb. 18, 2027, before U.S. District Judge Aaron Christian Peterson. Alaska’s News Source reported that the revocation order takes effect about 10 days after final judgment is entered and that Smith keeps his appellate rights. The department put the maximum penalty at 20 years in prison; U.S. Attorney Michael J. Heyman told the station the statute allows 10 years on each count, or 20 if the terms run consecutively.
Losing citizenship will not put him on a plane. Heyman told the station that Smith must serve his state sentence, and then any federal term, before he could face deportation, which makes removal to South Africa largely theoretical. The defense called an expert on false confessions who described Smith’s police interrogation as coercive; the judge rejected that argument, the station reported.
The trial, which opened Oct. 19 and was previewed here when it began, turned on the Form N-400 question about crimes a person committed but was never arrested for. Smith signed his answers between June and September 2019, and a state jury convicted him of 14 charges in February 2024. Under the Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Maslenjak v. United States, prosecutors still had to show the lie played some role in his getting citizenship. Concealed murders, which on their own would defeat the good moral character an applicant must show, are the kind of fact that clears that bar.
The civil route moved quietly the same week. The Justice Department’s Civil Division said on Oct. 21 that federal courts had revoked the citizenship of two people by consent. In the Northern District of California, a judge entered an order on Oct. 13 against Vivian Chike Obichere, a Nigerian native convicted in 2015 of making a false statement in a passport application, less than three months after the government sued. In the Southern District of Florida, a judge revoked the citizenship of Milagros Marileisis Acosta Torres, a Cuban native, on Oct. 14, one day after the parties filed a joint motion. CBS News reported that, according to the department, she naturalized in 2015 despite having taken part in a money laundering conspiracy tied to a casino fraud; she was convicted in 2020 and sentenced to six months in prison. “This administration will continue its historic denaturalization campaign to protect the value of U.S. citizenship,” said Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate.
The trade-offs differ. A criminal case needs proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the person acted knowingly, and a section 1425 prosecution generally must be brought within 10 years under 18 U.S.C. 3291; Smith was indicted in April 2024, less than five years after naturalizing. A civil case has no limitations period and requires clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence. Consent judgments skip trial altogether, which is likely to make them the quickest option when the underlying conviction is already on the record.
Both routes start from the same place: an answer on the naturalization application that the government can later prove was false and that mattered. The same thread runs through the California voting prosecutions built on N-400 answers, the Durham County case where a conviction made revocation automatic and the civil suit against a former H-1B worker over an alleged sham job. The open question is whether prosecutors lean more on the criminal statute, where a guilty verdict ends the citizenship question without a second case, or keep relying on civil filings and consent deals that avoid a trial.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice.
Sources: U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Alaska, “South African National Convicted of Unlawfully Obtaining U.S. Citizenship” (Oct. 21, 2026); Alaska’s News Source, “Convicted killer Brian Smith found guilty of unlawfully obtaining US citizenship” (Oct. 21, 2026); U.S. Department of Justice, release on the Obichere and Acosta Torres denaturalization judgments (Oct. 21, 2026); CBS News Miami on the Acosta Torres judgment; U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Alaska, indictment announcement (April 19, 2024); 8 U.S.C. 1451; 18 U.S.C. 1425; 18 U.S.C. 3291; Maslenjak v. United States, 582 U.S. 335 (2017).
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