# Cancellation of Citizenship **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 22, 2012, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512 "2012-10-22T12:49:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![oyster11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f6c823/32.png) [@oyster11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oyster11)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/1 "2012-10-22T12:49:13Z")
Let’s say an American obtained Australian citizenship, and this citizenship got cancelled by the Australian authority. The US does not recognize dual-citizenship, so he already lost it when he obtained the Australian one. What now? He doesn’t have either citizenship any more. And where does he get deported to? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/2 "2012-10-22T12:53:13Z")
This situation can’t arise for a number of reasons. You don’t automatically lose US citizenship when you gain another one, you have to actually go through a process of renouncing US citizenship. Second, Australia wouldn’t cancel your citizenship for any reason if you didn’t have another citizenship, Even then why would they “cancel” it, you have to also renounce Australian citizenship. You can lose pemanent resident status or a resident visa (eg for some criminal offences), but citizenship is for life once granted and doesn’t get taken away unless you renounce it. > **[Immigration and citizenship Website](https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/?tilegroup=Australian%20citizenship)** > > Find out about Australian visas, immigration and citizenship. Most other countries have policies to avoid creating stateless people, there is a UN treaty aimed to prevent stateless people being created which came into force in 1961 > **[UNTC](https://treaties.un.org/Pages/PageNotFound.aspx)** > > This is the United Nations Treaty Collection homepage. Here you will find related information and links. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/3 "2012-10-22T12:55:22Z")
> [@oyster11](#): > > Let’s say an American obtained Australian citizenship, and this citizenship got cancelled by the Australian authority. The US does not recognize dual-citizenship, so he already lost it when he obtained the Australian one. What now? He doesn’t have either citizenship any more. And where does he get deported to? You do not lose your American citizenship when you obtain another one. Quite literally _millions_ of people have dual citizenships with one of them being American. All it means is that if you have two citizenships, and are subject to US law, the US government is going to consider you to be an American citizen. ---
**Author:** ![oyster11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f6c823/32.png) [@oyster11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oyster11)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/4 "2012-10-22T12:55:24Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > This situation can’t arise for a number of reasons. You don’t automatically lose US citizenship when you gain another one, you have to actually go through a process of renouncing US citizenship. > > Second, Australia wouldn’t cancel your citizenship for any reason if you didn’t have another citizenship, Even then why would they “cancel” it, you have to also renounce Australian citizenship. You can lose pemanent resident status or a resident visa (eg for some criminal offences), but citizenship is for life once granted and doesn’t get taken away. New Zealand have laws that can cancel one’s citizenship. For the purpose of discussion let’s assume it’s not America, but a country that make you automatically lose citizenship once you gain new one. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/5 "2012-10-22T13:03:24Z")
> [@oyster11](#): > > For the purpose of discussion let’s assume it’s not America, but a country that make you automatically lose citizenship once you gain new one. Well then whatever new country he became a citizen of wouldn’t “cancel” his citizenship in 99.9999 percent of cases. You might find some combinations of states where it’s possible, in which case the person becomes “stateless” which is a world of pain. OK from wiki on statelessness: “The United States, which is not a signatory to the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons nor the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, is one of a small number of countries which will allow its citizens to renounce their citizenship even if they do not hold any other. The Foreign Affairs Manual instructs State Department employees to make it clear to Americans who will become stateless after renunciation that they may face extreme difficulties (including deportation back to the United States) following their renunciation, but instructs employees to afford such persons of their right to give up citizenship.” ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/6 "2012-10-22T13:24:22Z")
A friend of mine has triple citizenship (US, Canada, UK). (She was born in Canada, moved to the US when she was 5 and lived here through college, gaining US citizenship…then moved to England after college and gained UK citizenship). She currently lives in England. All it means for her, though, is that when she travels to the US, she needs to use her US passport. ---
**Author:** ![CoastalMaineiac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@CoastalMaineiac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoastalMaineiac)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/7 "2012-10-22T13:52:57Z")
As far as I know, there are a few deliberate acts that could cause a U.S. citizen to automatically forfeit citizenship. I think serving in a foreign (particularly a hostile) military might be one of them. I believe they are called “expatriating acts” or something similar. Besides something of that nature, I think you have to go directly to a U.S. embassy to formally relinquish your citizenship in order to lose it. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Mood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@Blue\_Mood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Mood)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/8 "2012-10-22T14:05:06Z")
> [@Jman](#): > > All it means for her, though, is that when she travels to the US, she needs to use her US passport. Unless, of course, she’s earning income anywhere, in which case she must file a US tax return. (She may not need to pay tax, but must still file. The IRS is getting strict about this.) [US citizens abroad](http://www.irs.gov/publications/p54/ar01.html#d0e136) ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/9 "2012-10-22T14:23:36Z")
> [@CoastalMaineiac](#): > > As far as I know, there are a few deliberate acts that could cause a U.S. citizen to automatically forfeit citizenship. I think serving in a foreign (particularly a hostile) military might be one of them. I believe they are called “expatriating acts” or something similar. > . Not anymore: > **[404 - Page Not Found](https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/404.html)** if someone does perform an expatriating act the policy is: “the consular officer will simply ask the applicant if there was intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship when performing the act. If the answer is no, the consular officer will certify that it was not the person’s intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship and, consequently, find that the person has retained U.S. citizenship.” So you have to choose to lose it, even if you do fight in a foreign military they won’t take away your US citizenship unless you say when asked “yeah I did that deliberately in order to lose my citizenship”. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/10 "2012-10-22T14:56:45Z")
> [@CoastalMaineiac](#): > > As far as I know, there are a few deliberate acts that could cause a U.S. citizen to automatically forfeit citizenship. I think serving in a foreign (particularly a hostile) military might be one of them. I believe they are called “expatriating acts” or something similar. > > Besides something of that nature, I think you have to go directly to a U.S. embassy to formally relinquish your citizenship in order to lose it. You are 45 years out of date. Although in _Perez v Brownell_ SCOTUS ruled that such act was equivalent to a citizen giving up their citizenship less than a decade later in _Afroyim v Rusk_ they ruled that the US may not take away someone’s citizenship against their will.\* I know there are exceptions for naturalized citizen such as fraud on their application wherein they could lose citizenship and the rules for having one parent be a US citizen but being born abroad are complicated\*\* and change over time. - I’d be interested to hear from a lawyer why SCOTUS changed its position so quickly on this issue. \*\* For example, with Obama since his mother was unmarried according to Hawaiian law (she was the second wife in a bigamous marriage), under federal law at the time Barack automatically received the citizenship of his mother whatever it is. So the part of the law the birthers refer to does not apply and even if we have film of Obama being born in Kenya and letters from mom, dad, grandma and the Minister of Births that he was born in Kenya, he is still an NBC. Had it been a legal marriage then the rules would be different. ---
**Author:** ![CoastalMaineiac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@CoastalMaineiac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoastalMaineiac)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/11 "2012-10-22T14:58:53Z")
> [@Blue\_Mood](#): > > Unless, of course, she’s earning income anywhere, in which case she must file a US tax return. (She may not need to pay tax, but must still file. The IRS is getting strict about this.) > [US citizens abroad](http://www.irs.gov/publications/p54/ar01.html#d0e136) Ah yes… the long arm of the IRS reaches further than the long arm of the law. I believe the U.S. is one of only a handful of countries that insist on taxing citizens living abroad. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/12 "2012-10-22T18:23:14Z")
The guy accused of being “Ivan the Terrible” at Treblinka was stripped of his US citizenship, accused of lying on his immigration application and obtaining his citizenship through fraud. He was tried in Israel, found not guilty, and returned to the USA. They deported him to Germany, not because he was German but because they agreed to keep persecuting, I mean prosecuting him. > **[John Demjanjuk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk)** > > John Demjanjuk (Ukrainian: Джон Дем'янюк), born Ivan Mykolaiovych Demjanjuk (Ukrainian: Іван Миколайович Дем'янюк), was a Trawniki and Nazi camp guard at Sobibor extermination camp, Majdanek, and Flossenbürg. Demjanjuk became the center of global media attention in the 1980s, when he was tried and convicted in Israel after being identified as "Ivan the Terrible", a notoriously cruel watchman at Treblinka extermination camp. In 1993, the verdict was overturned. Shortly before his death, he was... > [@](#): > > Demjanjuk was born in Ukraine, and during World War II was drafted into the Soviet Red Army, where he was captured as a German prisoner of war. In 1952 he emigrated from Germany to the United States, and was granted citizenship in 1958 whereupon he formally anglicized his name from “Ivan” to “John”.[7][8] > > In 1986 he was deported to Israel to stand trial for war crimes, after being mistakenly identified by Israeli Holocaust survivors as “Ivan the Terrible”,[9] a notorious guard at Treblinka. Demjanjuk was accused of committing murder and acts of extraordinarily savage violence against camp prisoners during 1942–43. He was convicted of having committed crimes against humanity and sentenced to death there in 1988. The verdict was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, based on new evidence that “Ivan the Terrible” was likely another man, Ivan Marchenko.[10] After the trial, in September 1993, he returned to his home in Ohio. In 1998 his citizenship was restored after a United States federal appeals court ruled that prosecutors had suppressed exculpatory evidence concerning his identity.[11] > > In 2001 Demjanjuk was charged again, this time on the grounds that he had, instead, served as a guard at the Sobibor and Majdanek camps in occupied Poland and at the Flossenbürg camp in Germany. Demjanjuk became again a stateless person in 2002 (until his death in 2012).[5][12][13] His deportation was again ordered in 2005, but after exhausting his appeals in 2008 he still remained in the United States, as no country would agree to accept him at that time. On 2 April 2009, it was announced that Demjanjuk would be deported to Germany, where he would stand trial. On 11 May, Demjanjuk left his Cleveland home by ambulance, and was taken to the airport, where he was deported by plane, arriving in Germany the next morning.[14][15] On 13 July, he was formally charged with 27,900 counts of acting as an accessory to murder, one for each person who died at Sobibor during the time he was alleged to have served as a guard. On 30 November, Demjanjuk’s trial began in Munich.[16] ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/13 "2012-10-22T19:25:34Z")
I believe that the US naturalization does require you to renounce all other citizenships. Of course, many countries don’t accept such renunciation. Canada does not require renunciation so I was able to naturalize in Canada with no repercussion to my US citizenship. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/14 "2012-10-22T19:33:38Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I believe that the US naturalization does require you to renounce all other citizenships. It does not. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/15 "2012-10-23T02:02:45Z")
> [@Hari Seldon](#): > > I believe that the US naturalization does require you to renounce all other citizenships. Of course, many countries don’t accept such renunciation. Canada does not require renunciation so I was able to naturalize in Canada with no repercussion to my US citizenship. [nitpick] The [oath](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Allegiance_%28United_States%29) required when gaining US citizenship via naturalization includes a statement of renunciation of allegiance to a foreign state though does not specify renunciation of citizenship of that foreign state. That is a narrow and possibly meaningless distinction. [/nitpick] > [@Oath of Allegiance](#): > > I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.[1] ---
**Author:** ![quant18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecc23a/32.png) [@quant18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quant18)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/16 "2012-10-24T04:29:12Z")
As pointed out above, many countries have provisions that they will not strip your naturalised citizenship even in cases of fraud, if doing so would leave you stateless. Of course there are quite a few countries out there which are not signatories to any of the conventions on the reduction of statelessness or the treatment of refugees. However, even in those cases your “new country” (Australia in your original example) may not be able to deport you. It really depends whether they have a “readmission agreement” with your “country of origin” (the US in your original example), and what terms that specifies. In almost all cases readmission agreements state that the country of origin is not obliged to accept a deportee to whom the new country previously granted a visa or residence permit. So your new country is probably stuck with you. They may let you keep on living peacefully in accordance with the international treaties on the treatment of stateless persons. Or they may throw you in immigration jail and tell you to apply for resettlement as a refugee somewhere else. It probably depends on what you did that made them strip you of your citizenship in the first place. (E.g. fake green card marriage: not so bad. Selling state secrets to the enemy: very bad.) In the event you did get deported back to your country of origin, again it’s up to them what to do with you. Plenty of countries have provisions letting former citizens get visas very easily and/or re-apply for citizenship; some examples include the UK, Denmark, and South Korea. Other countries have no formal laws like this but in reality they may let you back in anyway. I don’t know about any cases of people naturalised elsewhere who were deported back to the U.S., but there have been at least two cases where former U.S. citizens who voluntarily made themselves stateless showed up at U.S. airports and requested readmission: Garry Davis and Joel Slater. In both cases the INS ended up giving them “humanitarian paroles” (exemption from the usual visa requirements). But of course if they think you renounced for tax or draft reasons, they might not treat you so kindly. For example, Thomas Jolley, who renounced in Canada during the Vietnam War and then snuck back into the U.S. — he was declared deportable, but then he kinda drops out of the historical record so I’m not sure what happened to him. I wrote some Wikipedia pages on these topics: > **[Joel Slater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Slater)** > > Joel Laverne Slater (April 30, 1960 – March 26, 2008) was an American activist who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1987 in Australia, voluntarily making himself stateless to protest U.S. foreign policy. > The Australian government soon afterward deported him back to the United States, and after six years of fruitless efforts aimed at finding another country to which he could be admitted as a refugee, Slater asked the State Department to reverse its earlier recognition of his renunciation, and h... > **[Thomas Jolley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jolley)** > > Thomas Glenn Jolley (January 26, 1944 – March 20, 2014) was an anti-Vietnam War protester who renounced his U.S. citizenship in Canada. Soon after his renunciation, Jolley crossed back into the U.S. and began working in Florida. A U.S. federal court ruled that he was deportable, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service could not actually deport him to Canada because he had lost his Canadian-landed immigrant status. He died in Asheville, North Carolina, at the age of 70. > Jolley was born in... > **[Reed Amendment (immigration)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Amendment_(immigration))** > > The Reed Amendment, also known as the Expatriate Exclusion Clause, created a provision of United States federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(10)(E)) attempting to impose an entry ban on certain former U.S. citizens based on their reasons for renouncing U.S. citizenship. Notably, entry can be denied to persons who renounced their U.S. citizenship to avoid paying income taxes. The United States is one of two countries in the world that taxes its citizens' income earned abroad for citizens whose primary ... > **[Ex-PATRIOT Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-PATRIOT_Act)** > > The Ex-PATRIOT Act was a proposed United States federal law to raise taxes and impose entry bans on certain former citizens and departing permanent residents. The law would automatically classify all people who relinquished U.S. citizenship or permanent residence in the decade prior to the law's passage or any future year as having "tax avoidance intent" if they met certain asset or tax liability thresholds or had failed to file any required federal tax forms within the preceding five years. Peop... ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancellation-of-citizenship/638512/17 "2012-10-24T16:55:37Z")
There was a thread a while ago about IIRC, the odd country was the Ukraine. Like many other “republics” previously occupied by the Russians, it seemed they have a hostility to those relocated to their country during the Soviet era; plus a hostility to those who had left during bad times. Failure to live in the Ukraine for something like 15 years meant they no longer considered you a citizen and you could not get travel documents. Note the bit on John Dejmanjuk - they could not find a country to take him. Just because the USA revoked its citizenship does nto mean any other country felt obliged to take him, except Germany who under pressure from the USA eventually agreed to prosecute a Soviet POW for what the Germans did.