To be clear, I don’t have any dual citizenship, so I’m ineligible for a direct answer.
But it’s a huge question for my cousins, who are US citizens by birth, but lived in Israel after my aunt emigrated until their majority. Of the three, two live in the US year round, though they visit their mother semi-frequently. The third came to the states to go to college, and after returned to Israel and has fundamentally not left. He is all but certain to renounce his US citizenship, and I know his kids pretty much consider themselves 100% Israeli.
Of my other two cousins in the states, well, I think the middle cousin would renounce her Israel citizenship, mostly because she gets more support here than she would in Israel and isn’t particularly close with her mother (mother/daughter issues). My eldest cousin I think would be close to 50/50 - his business is here but he’s very attached to his mother, and I could see him go either way.
A very ironic twist though is all three are heavy Trump supporters, based almost entirely due to his stance on Jerusalem and related issues. Despite this, his administration is going to throw them under a bus on this issue, and I’m tempted (not gonna do it, but tempted) to throw this in their faces if it goes into effect.
Actually, now that I think/type about it, I’m pretty sure the youngest cousin (they’re all older than me though) has already renounced his US citizenship, when he was working for then new-to-the position President (largely ceremonial) Reuven Rivlin.
(whom I got to meet in late summer of 2014 when I visited)
The Bill has been introduced by Sen. Bernie Moreno. SFAIK the administration doesn’t have a position on it yet.
As already pointed out in this thread, Melania Trump would likely be affected by this Bill; so would Barron Trump. It’s quite possible that there are other significant figures in the Trump administration who have dual citizenship — there’s a sporting chance that Marco Rubio is a Cuban citizen. Trump’s children by Ivana Trump quite possibly have Czech citizenship. So Trump may not rush to endorse this Bill.
Thank you for the correction - it seems so “on topic” for Trump and MAGA that I assumed it already had his blessing - and for him and his cohorts, it’s always “Of COURSE they’d pick being American - that’s what everyone (especially in s***hole countries) wants to be!”
[no, I’m not endorsing that POV, but channeling far too many ignorant MAGA-types]
And I’m sure he assumes that for his family, and while others in his circle may not, they’re likely too scared of being cast out to say much. Though there are some cracks these days…
I’ve been a dual Israeli/U.S. citizen since birth - my parents made Aliyah before I was born. Of my 51 years, 44 have been in Israel, 7 in the U.S.; I haven’t lived in the States since 2002.
Having a U.S. passport is nice, and occasionally useful, but there’s no real choice to be made here.
If forced, I would probably give up my US citizenship and keep the UK citizenship, since the UK is where I predominantly live and work. But I’d probably just do nothing and force them to revoke it via inaction on the assumption that 1) I might not be on the list in the first place, and 2) the policy could get revoked or struck down in the meantime.
Another problem with the Bill (in addition to all the obvious problems) is that the US government doesn’t know, and has no way of finding out, which US citizens also hold the citizenship of another country. Plus, there will be US citizens who hold the citizenship of another country but don’t know it. Which means that, for every single US citizen who hasn’t submitted a declaration of renunciation under this legislation, there will be a non-zero chance that in fact they are deemed to have renounced their US citizenship, but neither they nor the US government will necessarily be aware of the fact.
Even by the standards of Trumpery, this is an extraordinarily stupid proposal.
Indeed there will. My country, South Africa, had a law which automatically revoked the SA citizenship of anyone who voluntarily obtained another citizenship (e.g. by naturalisation in another country). Earlier this year our highest court ruled that this law was unconstitutional and that all the people who had lost their citizenship were actually still citizens. The effect of this ruling reached back to 1995, which has caused no small administrative complications, as people who thought they lost their SA citizenship thirty years ago now find they are retroactively deemed to have been citizens the whole time.
I’m working on getting my Canadian citizenship- well, first I have to get my permanent resident status, and it’s taking damn near forever. I’m getting close to retirement, and have no intention of moving, so if I’m absolutely forced to choose… I’d go with the country which is currently more sane.
I’d probably choose US over UK. Though (I realize this kind of practical discussion is not what the OP is asking for) would the declaration of renouncing your non US citizenship actually be binding? There is a formal process of renouncing British citizenship, and would that count?
That is the issue of course. Some countries would be like, whatever you say, you are still a citizen of our country. Depending on what country it is, that might be a blessing or a curse. The US can’t dictate what another nation decides determines your citizenship. Of course, like the banking laws that are imposed on foreign banks that they need to abide by in order to do business in the US, they could do something similar regarding citizenship requirements.
In any case, as mentioned above, except for somewhat shorter lines when entering the US, I personally have not felt that it has been beneficial to be a US citizen, and I would not mind moving to another country that is friendlier to foreigners, or living in France the other country I am a citizen of. Moving is always a pain, regardless of whether it is overseas or a few blocks away, so I would rather not do it, but if forced, I don’t think it would require a great amount of debate.
There is also the matter that you have to pay to give up your US citizenship, and the price for doing so has gone up significantly in recent years. Is the government, with this ultimatum, going to allow you do so for free? I doubt it.
This is exactly what my mother did when she became an American citizen. She renounced all other citizenships to the US officials, as required. This had no effect whatsoever on her Canadian citizenship: she still has two current passports, 30 years later.
When el donald took office for the first time, in 2016, he started turning people away as they arrived at the airport. My wife was a permanent resident at the time. She was a citizen of a country that was not yet on el donald’s naughty list. I still thought that my wife should get her citizenship just in case.
I’m a dual citizen of the USA & the Republic of Ireland. Lived my first 35 years in America, and my last twenty in County Cork.
Pretty sure this is just more performative GOP bullshit, but so as not to “fight the hypothetical”, if forced to choose, I’d pick Ireland without a moment’s hesitation. I chose this place over my home 20 years ago; that home hasn’t exactly become more of an attractive option in the meantime…
For values of “meet”, yes. The cousin I mentioned needed meet with him briefly while he was playing guide (and host for a period) of my family trip. So he arranged to meet at a nice restaurant bar, and were introduced, got a nice to meet you, and “glad you could make it” (this was near the tail end of the 2014 conflict as flights were reopened just one DAY before our flights were scheduled in.
My cousin stepped aside to talk with him for 10ish minutes, and that was that.
Likely, I would choose Canada if forced to make a real choice. But what I would likely do is send the US a letter saying I hereby renounce my Canadian citizenship and do nothing else. I doubt it would mean a thing.
I think the proposal states that you would have to actually drop your citizenship of either the other country or the U.S., and that what you propose would not be enough.
According to the report linked in the OP (highlighting added):
any who already hold foreign citizenship would have to submit a written renunciation of their U.S. or foreign citizenship to the government within a year. Those who didn’t comply would be assumed to have renounced their U.S. citizenship.
I read “to the government” there as meaning “to the US government”, if only because a requirement to submit anything to a foreign government would be pointless. The US government would have no way of knowing whether you had submitted a writtent renunciation to any foreign government, nor of knowing which of your citizenships you chosen to surrender in that renunciation.
So, at least per the report, if you’re a citizen of Teapotistan this bill doesn’t require you go through whatever processes are provided by Teapotistani law to renounce citizenship; it just requires you to submit a written renunciation of you Teapotistani citizenship to the US government. Whether that would be effective, either as a matter of law or as a practical matter, to terminate your Teapotistani citizenship status is not something the drafter of the bill seems to care about. To keep your US citizenship you have to say that you renounce your Teapotistani citizenship; you don’t have to actually renounce it.