A 72-year-old Liberian-born Durham man has lost his U.S. citizenship and been ordered to leave the country after admitting he lied about child-sex crimes to become a naturalized American. Cyril Domaquik Clemens was sentenced to time served for naturalization fraud, and the judge presiding over his case also stripped him of the citizenship he obtained in 2021.
U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan revoked Clemens's naturalized citizenship and ordered him removed from the United States, according to the seed reporting from The News & Observer. The same reporting states Clemens pleaded guilty to naturalization fraud and was sentenced after admitting he lied during the citizenship process. Separately, a Justice Department announcement says a federal judge sentenced Clemens to time served for naturalization fraud on September 17, revoked his naturalized citizenship and judicially ordered him removed from the United States.
Court records cited in the case say Clemens denied on his naturalization application and during his USCIS interview that he had ever tried to force someone into sexual conduct or had committed a crime for which he had not been arrested, per the article's sourcing. Prosecutors said he made those false statements during the naturalization process, and he was later arrested on naturalization fraud charges after becoming a citizen. An indictment reviewed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Clemens knowingly attempted to procure naturalization contrary to law by making a false statement under oath and under penalty of perjury during that interview.
Guilty Plea in State Court Came Years Before Federal Charges
Before the federal case ever reached him, Clemens had already pleaded guilty in Durham County Superior Court to three counts of indecent liberties with a child, entering that plea on April 3, 2023, according to a report from Yahoo News. A state judge sentenced him to between one year and four months and two years and five months in prison and ordered him to register as a sex offender, the outlet's report states.
According to the Department of Justice, Clemens admitted to sexually molesting a girl for eleven years beginning when she was four years old. Immigration officials were unaware of his crimes before granting him citizenship, per the release cited in the same report. Prosecutors say he was arrested on the federal naturalization fraud charges in 2025, more than a year after his state guilty plea.
Case Tied to Broader Federal Crackdown
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigated the federal case as part of Operation False Haven, an ongoing initiative described by the Justice Department as designed to identify and prosecute people who fraudulently obtained U.S. immigration benefits after committing serious crimes. The department has previously described the effort as aggressively targeting child molesters who used naturalization to hide their pasts, as seen in a separate North Carolina case in which a man named Rizhkov was judicially denaturalized after allegedly making materially false statements to obtain citizenship.
Clemens's case follows a string of similar actions nationwide. The Justice Department has announced denaturalization actions against dozens of individuals accused of serious offenses, including a filing against 40 people it called its largest single-period action under the Trump administration, and a separate announcement targeting 17 naturalized sex offenders, fraudsters and drug dealers. In Florida, a Peruvian-born registered sex offender likewise had his citizenship revoked and his Certificate of Naturalization canceled after authorities said he obtained it by fraud.
Clemens was ordered to leave the country at his own expense following the federal sentencing, according to the reporting. The case was reported locally by Durham government reporter Kristen Johnson for The News & Observer.
