The Daily Fuckup

The Justice Department said Friday, July 24, that a federal grand jury in Idaho had returned an indictment the previous week against Miran Kostic, 66, of Boise. Prosecutors say the Bosnia and Herzegovina national lied in his citizenship application and in interviews with federal investigators by hiding his role in the abuse of prisoners and failing to disclose war-crimes charges filed against him in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The case is a criminal charge over alleged fraud in the naturalization process, not a denaturalization action.

That announcement came four days after the department said it had filed denaturalization actions in federal courts against 10 naturalized citizens over the prior 30 days. In the July 20 release, DOJ said the cases involved allegations including child sexual abuse, health care and wire fraud, immigration fraud, and conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute. The department also described the effort as its "largest denaturalization effort ever," a characterization that comes from DOJ itself.

The two releases deal with different points in the citizenship process. The Idaho case targets conduct allegedly committed before citizenship was granted. The denaturalization filings seek to cancel citizenship that has already been conferred. In both instances, the department is accusing people of lying or concealing material facts to obtain or keep status it says they were not entitled to have.