The Supreme Court seems ready to impose limits on when the government can strip an immigrant of U.S. citizenship for lying during the naturalization process.

Wednesday’s lively argument included a sharp rebuke of a Justice Department lawyer by the court’s longest-serving justice.

The Trump administration contends that even minor lies about driving too fast or omitting childhood nicknames can lead to loss of citizenship.

Justice Anthony Kennedy tells lawyer Robert Parker that his argument “is demeaning the priceless value of citizenship.”

Chief Justice John Roberts says the government’s reading of immigration law could lead to “prosecutorial abuse.”

The court is considering the case of an ethnic Serb from Bosnia who was stripped of U.S. citizenship for lying about the circumstances that brought her to the United States.

(AP)