Justice Department Files Civil Complaint to Denaturalize Convicted Former U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha

The Justice Department filed a civil denaturalization complaint against Manuel Rocha on Thursday. S. citizenship, which he obtained in 1978.

Rocha was arrested in 2023. He later pleaded guilty to the charges against him and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

U.S. U.S. citizen. Rocha aided the Cuban government for four decades.

U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia in the early 2000s and briefly served as chargé d’affaires to Argentina under the Clinton administration. Havana instructed Rocha to lead a normal life and act like a right-wing person, according to his indictment.

U.S. The enemy to an undercover agent. “Victor Manuel Rocha was not a low-level operative. He was a former United States Ambassador and senior government official who admitted he secretly served the Cuban regime for decades,” US Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida said in a statement.

“This civil denaturalization case is about finishing the job,” Quiñones added. S. “Under no circumstances should an agent of a foreign adversary be permitted to hold the title of American citizen,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said.

U.S. During the first Trump administration there was an average of 42 denaturalization cases a year, according to a study by Hofstra University law professor Irina Manta. For context the Biden administration averaged 16 a year between 1990 and 2017.

The DOJ had filed about 11 denaturalization cases per year on average.