They were found guilty of ‘crimes involving moral turpitude,’ making them ineligible for naturalization.
A federal judge in California revoked the U.S. citizenship of a Chinese couple on March 30, after they pleaded guilty to trying to steal U.S. trade secrets for China.
Husband and wife Yu Zhou and Li Chen pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Naturalization requires “good moral character,” and U.S. District Court Judge James Simmons Jr. found the couple had committed crimes of moral turpitude and were thus prohibited from naturalization.
This is part of the Justice Department’s ongoing initiative to “prioritize denaturalization” and file to revoke citizenship of criminals, as outlined in a June 2025 memo.
“Gaining citizenship after committing serious crimes against the American people is an unacceptable abuse of our immigration system,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi stated. “These latest denaturalizations illustrate this Department of Justice’s focus on ensuring that citizenship remains a privilege to obtain, not a right to abuse.”
Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, which is spearheading the denaturalization initiative, said that “naturalization is not a right.”
“It’s a privilege given by the generous people of this nation. When the generosity of America’s immigration process is abused, our system works to correct such abuse. Full stop.”
According to the Justice Department, Chen entered the United States as a Chinese citizen in 2007 on a H1-B Specialty occupation visa sponsored by the Nationwide Children’s Hospital. In 2011, Chen was approved for a work visa as an alien of extraordinary ability and obtained a permanent resident status. She became a naturalized citizen in 2016.
Zhou entered the United States in 2008 on the same visa by the same sponsor, and also obtained permanent resident status in 2011. He naturalized in 2017, according to the Justice Department.
Both were arrested in 2019 and charged with stealing medical trade secrets from Nationwide Children’s Hospital during their decade-long employment as research scientists in separate research labs with the hospital.
