Can A Non Naturalized US Citizen Have His Citizenship Revoked?

Factual Questions
1

Obviously if you’re a naturalized citizen of the USA, you can have that citizenship revoked, for various reasons, but can they revoke your citizenship if you were born a citizen.

Let’s say you were born in Chicago, and both your parents were born in Chicago and both their grandparents were born in Chicago.

OK so you have a long history of being in the USA and there is no question of anyone not being a citizen.

Can the US government just revoke your citizenship.

I do realize they can legally take away some of your rights, as a citizen, such as your right to vote, but can they take away your citizenship and leave you stateless?

2

Can a naturalized US citizen have his citizenship revoked? IIRC the oath taken for naturalized US citizenship requires one to renounce all foreign citizenships (and the only reason people can remain dual citizens is because other countries don’t take that renouncement seriously) so as far as the US is concern, a naturalized citizen would end up just as stateless as a native-born one if their citizenship was revoked.

3

A natural-born US citizen can lose his citizenship for becoming a citizen of another country and for serving in the army of a foreign country. Whether these rules have ever been enforced, I don’t know.

4

a) A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality—
(1) obtaining naturalization in a foreign state upon his own application or upon an application filed by a duly authorized agent, after having attained the age of eighteen years; or
(2) taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after having attained the age of eighteen years; or
(3) entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state if
(A) such armed forces are engaged in hostilities against the United States, or
(B) such persons serve as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer; or
(4)
(A) accepting, serving in, or performing the duties of any office, post, or employment under the government of a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after attaining the age of eighteen years if he has or acquires the nationality of such foreign state; or
(B) accepting, serving in, or performing the duties of any office, post, or employment under the government of a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after attaining the age of eighteen years for which office, post, or employment an oath, affirmation, or declaration of allegiance is required; or (5) making a formal renunciation of nationality before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in a foreign state, in such form as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State; or
(6) making in the United States a formal written renunciation of nationality in such form as may be prescribed by, and before such officer as may be designated by, the Attorney General, whenever the United States shall be in a state of war and the Attorney General shall approve such renunciation as not contrary to the interests of national defense; or
(7) committing any act of treason against, or attempting by force to overthrow, or bearing arms against, the United States, violating or conspiring to violate any of the provisions of section 2383 of title 18, or willfully performing any act in violation of section 2385 of title 18, or violating section 2384 of title 18 by engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, if and when he is convicted thereof by a court martial or by a court of competent jurisdiction.

8 USC § 1481 - Loss of nationality by native-born or naturalized citizen

5

Thanks for the cite. The use of the word “shall” instead of “may” in the first sentence makes it pretty much mandatory, I guess.

6

Wouldn’t this clause give an out to pretty much anyone though? Couldn’t one say, “Yes, I voluntarily joined the Canadian army as it assaulted and captured the lush sugar maple fields of northern Maine, but I did it as part of an elaborate performance art piece, and didn’t intend to relinquish US nationality,” and have an out?

It seems like having an “intention of relinquishing United States nationality” means that an outright revocation (i.e. one done unilaterally by the government) is impossible. It’s like the US citizen must want to leave and the government is just catching up if he does one of those acts.

7

Actually “may” would be more accurate to the reality of how this gets applied in the real world. While accepting citizenship in another country could technically by implication, be interpreted to be a clear demonstration of the desire to relinquish US citizenship, it isn’t necessarily the case.

Mainly though there just isn’t any protocol between countries to compare notes on who has been accepted as a citizen to make sure they revoke their citizenship in their country of origin. A US citizen might move to Italy, marry an Italian, apply for citizenship, and be granted Italian citizenship. At that point nobody in the US State Department would be aware of this happening. There is no obligation on their part to formally relinquish their US citizenship with the US when accepting another citizenship. There is no obligation on the Italian government to notify anyone they have welcomed a new citizen, and there is no obligation on the US government’s part to check with each country daily about any US citizens who have applied for nationality over there. Some day this person might get divorced, decide they want to go ‘home’ and make the argument, if one were necessary, that it is the land where they were born and they have a right to return.

There are plenty of US citizens that hold multiple citizenship with other countries due to marriages, parents, etc. but have no intention or desire to relinquish their natural born US citizenship. So, if pressed on it by the State Department they would say “No, I never meant to stop being a US citizen. That is where I was born. Duh.”, and that’s that. It might create some ripples with their citizenship in the new country, where they probably had to swear off loyalty to any other country, but that won’t affect their US citizenship, and again that would only be so if there were some protocol in place for their new country to be notified about it, which there isn’t.

From a few quick searches, multiple-citizenship is fairly common, fears are frequently expressed on forums about loss of US citizenship as a result and the resounding answer seems to be there have been very few, if any, cases of the government revoking citizenship from a natural-born citizen who ultimately did not want it to be revoked and fought it.

It is frequently argued that even people who *did *want their citizenship revoked and petitioned the State Department, going through the specific procedure and loads of red tape in order to officially renounce their US citizenship, were still able to come back later by saying basically “Whoops. I know what I said, but this is the country of my birth. You can’t deny me citizenship even though I said I wanted you to at one time”.

8

The “with the intention of relenquishing” language was added in 1986 to bring the statute in line with some SCOTUS opinions. Prior to those opinions, simply committing those acts was enough to get your citizenship revoked, but the Supremes ruled that there must be some intent to relenquish shown.

So you could claim that you didn’t intend to relinquish your citizenship, but there’s a problem: SCOTUS also said that your intent to relenquish can be inferred from your actions, and federal courts have consistently said that taking up arms against the U.S. is excellent evidence of your intent to relinquish. Moreover, the second part of the statute above that I omitted for fear of boring the reader establishes that the government’s burden of proof in establishing that intent is a preponderance of the evidence standard, pretty low as legal standards go. The long and short of it is that if you take up arms against the U.S. your citizenship isn’t automatically revoked, but it’s not too long a walk to do so.

9

Whaaa? So SCOTUS said:

  1. Committing these acts is not enough, you must show an intent to relinquish
  2. By committing these acts, your intent to relinquish can be inferred.

So, their opinion did what, exactly?

10

Right this business of intention is crucial. Once upon a time, loss of citizenship upon swearing an oath to a foreign country was automatic. Until the courts ruled that if it does without intention to renounce US citizenship, then the citizenship could not be taken away. I guess the current SCOTUS could throw out that decision if it cam to them, but my guess is that only INS has the standing to do so and they have other fish to fry. In any case, I don’t think they would apply it retroactively (that is to me).

11

It sounds more like

  1. Committing these acts is not enough, you must show an intent to relinquish
  2. By committing some of these acts, your intent to relinquish can be inferred.

And attacking under a foreign flag is one of them for which intent can be inferred, but simply obtaining foreign naturalization is not.

12

As I think about it, how would treason charges ever stick under this law? Take John Walker Lindh, for example. Wouldn’t it follow that when he signed up for the Taliban he renounced his U.S. citizenship, and therefore owes no loyalty?

Any person accused of treason could say that. “Yes, under law, I conspired with the Canadians in their assault, conquest, raping, pillaging, and enslavement of the population near and on the American Falls in Niagara Falls, New York, and by doing so I renounced my U.S. Citizenship. I was therefore not a citizen and owed no allegiance to the United States anymore. I move for dismissal.”

13

For historical interest only, but up through the early 20th century a woman could have her natural-born citizenship revoked if she married a foreign (and especially Asian) man.

ETA: Of course, in your title you were only asking about “his” citizenship, so forgive the hijack. :wink:

14

Even if you really really want to relinquish it, the state department doesn’t make it easy. Here’s an essay on what a US born, now Japanese citizen Academic had to do to lose his US citizenship:

http://www.debito.org/deamericanize.html

15

To further the OP, what happens if one revokes, voluntarily or otherwise, citizenship? Are you deported? To where? Can you be doomed to life at sea a la Phillip Nolan? (from the short story “Man Without a Country”? Or are you just denied the normal rights of citizenship? Voting, etc.

16

Right, pretty much. One of the SCOTUS opinions was Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U.S. 252 (1980) (text of opinion). While in college in Mexico, Terrazas had signed a document reaffirming his Mexican citizenship that contained a statement renouncing his U.S. citizenship as required by Mexican law. When he tried to get his citizenship reinstated in court, the U.S. argued that under the law as it existed at the time, Terrazas provided irrebuttable proof that he intended to renounce his citizenship simply by committing the expatriating act, i.e. signing the document. Terrazas argued that simply committing the act wasn’t enough, that there must be some evidence that by committing the act he intended to renounce his citizenship, and he further argued that he didn’t understand that he was doing so by signing. SCOTUS ruled that Terrazas was correct, that there must be some intent to renounce citizenship in addition to the overt act, but also ruled that the evidence showed by a preponderance of the evidence Terrazas knew exactly what he was doing. If the evidence had shown that Terrazas didn’t actually intend to renounce his U.S. citizenship when he signed and didn’t realize that he was doing so, the outcome might have been different.

17

There was a popular Taiwan legislator recently who (prior to being elected) had been a naturalized US citizen. She claims thought that by taking an oath of office for a foreign government, her US citizenship would automatically be invalidated. She thought wrong, much to her detriment.

18

It’s hard to imagine this happening again today. I think Terraza’s case was a victory for him in the Supreme Court. It was when they sent it back down to the regular courts to make a new ruling with the SCOTUS guidance in mind, the court upheld the revocation of his citizenship anyway.

He seems to have been railroaded by a stubborn court, but in this situation one could simply argue that they were under duress, they feared they would be discriminated against in the new country if they weren’t a citizen, they feared financial losses due to property or business codes that required citizenship, they simply didn’t understand what they were doing with no explanation, or any such reason - as long as they are clear that they never intended to give up their US citizenship that pretty much is considered the answer to the legal question of their intent regardless of other circumstances. But none of that would be necessary today.

Since 1990 the official State Department policy has been to presume that a citizen always intends to retain their citizenship unless they go out of their way to declare otherwise directly and through an official process. Accepting nationality in another country and/or making a routine oath of allegiance and/or accepting non-policy level government work in another country are expressly listed in the policy as examples of occasions when the citizen’s intent is to be presumed that they wish to retain their US citizenship.

19

You are correct - the Supreme Court didn’t rule itself on Terrazas’s citizenship, but sent it back down for a lower court ruling on the matter. You are also very kind not to point out more directly that I misstated that. :slight_smile:

20

Apparently so, because this is precisely what my best friend did. Well, not the invasion part.

Born in New Jersey, an American citizen by birth and son of Americans, he moved to Canada as a child. He wanted to join the Army, so he did. He also became a Canadian citizen (after joining the army, fascinating enough.)

He wrote a letter to the State Department stating he wanted to do these things but remain a U.S. citizen. He still has a letter from the U.S. Satte Department stating, unequivocally, that he remained a U.S. citizen. In 2000, he moved to California to take a job there and his citizenship was not challenged.