President Donald Trump's administration said Tuesday it was auditing immigration cases involving U.S. citizens of Somali origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship.

"Under U.S. law, if an individual procures ‍citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization," Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that was first reported ⁠by Fox News and reposted by the White House on social media.

Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. According to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, about ​11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017.

Since taking office in January, Trump, a Republican, has pursued a hard-line immigration policy involving an aggressive deportation drive, revocations of visas and green cards, ‍and screening of social media posts and past speeches of immigrants.

Human rights groups widely condemn ⁠Trump's policies, saying they curb rights such as due process and free speech. Trump and his allies say the policies aim to improve domestic security.

Federal officials in recent weeks have portrayed Minnesota's Somali community as a hot spot for fraud involving millions of federal dollars intended for social services.

⁠Immigrant rights advocates say the administration is ​using the fraud investigations as an ⁠excuse to target Somali immigrants more broadly.

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Sunday the bureau has "surged" investigative resources ‍and personnel to Minnesota in the latest instance of the Trump administration's fraud investigations that have targeted the state's Somali ‌immigrants.

The Department of Health and Human Services separately said on Tuesday it has frozen all child care payments to Minnesota. It said that going forward all payments from ⁠the department's Administration ​for Children and Families nationwide "will ‍require a justification and a receipt or photo evidence before we send money to a state."

In response, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said that his ‍state government has "spent years cracking down on fraudsters" and that Trump was "politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans."