DOJ to strip US citizenship of jailed Pakistani-born doctor convicted of grooming minor

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is moving to strip the citizenship of a Pakistani-born doctor jailed for sexually exploiting a young girl.A denaturalisation case against Hassan Sherjil Khan was filed on Thursday. He is a former doctor who has been in prison since 2016, reports the New York Post. “Naturalization and US citizenship will not protect sexual predators from the consequences of their horrific acts,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said in a statement.They added: “If you fail to disclose serious crimes while seeking naturalization, the government will discover your lies and revoke your ill-gotten US citizenship.”Khan is now 38 and applied for US citizenship in August 2012. Court records state that just months earlier he had travelled from New York to London, where he engaged in sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl he had allegedly been grooming since she was 11. Prosecutors said he knew the victim was a minor and repeatedly forced her into sending explicit images and participating in sexual acts over live video.He was arrested in September 2015, two years after becoming a US citizen, and later pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor. In 2016, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.At the sentencing, the victim spoke about the long-term harm caused by the abuse, saying it left her dealing with depression, hallucinations and anorexia. She also said she had self-harmed, fallen behind in school and been reduced to “a shadow of the person that I could have been.”The DOJ claims Khan should never have been granted citizenship because he “willfully misrepresented and concealed the criminal conduct” he was engaged in during the naturalisation process. Prosecutors also say he failed to meet the “good moral character” requirement.The case comes amid Trump administration pushing denaturalisation efforts. A memo issued last June said authorities would “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings” against individuals convicted o f serious offences, including sex crimes.According to officials, around 384 such cases have been filed in recent years, a sharp rise compared with previous decades. Between 1990 and 2018, only 305 cases were brought.“The Department of Justice is laser-focused on rooting out criminal aliens defrauding the naturalization process,” DOJ spokesman Matthew Tragesser said.