Two’s a Crowd When It Comes to Citizenship

To be a citizen is to own and be owned in turn. The civis possesses a stake in the civitas, and is entitled to a share in its common life, even as he is bound by its rules and regulations. He is a subject of the same laws that protect him; he is bound by the same standard of justice he appeals to for redress of grievances. The citizen and the city belong to one another, and it is — by necessity — a marriage of exclusivity. If the city were open to all, its rights and privileges would be available to none. If the citizen belonged to all, it would dilute the very concept of belonging itself.

It is for this reason that Teddy Roosevelt denounced the concept of dual citizenship as “a self-evident absurdity”: “The full performance of the duties of American citizenship,” Roosevelt wrote in 1915, are “necessarily exclusive of and inconsistent with the profession of citizenship in or allegiance to any other nation.” At the time, Roosevelt was merely expressing the common citizenship assumption of the early 20th century” — i.e., “that national loyalty is indivisible,” wrote David A. Martin, a law professor at the University of Virginia. “This was not just an American view. “By 1915 virtually all other governments followed the same theory of nationality.” 

But “the consensus against dual nationality was subtly eroding from what may have been its high-water mark around the time when TR wrote, in 1915,” Martin wrote. “As far as American rules are concerned, the erosion started in the political arena, but later found its real momentum in the courts.” (READ MORE from Nate Hochman: Tim Walz: The Mogadishuan Candidate)

A long line of legal rulings over the course of the next half century steadily weakened the federal government’s safeguards against Americans (or would-be Americans) seeking to voluntarily naturalize in — or take an oath of allegiance to — a foreign state. By the latter half of the 20th century, almost all had been ruled unconstitutional.

The objections to dual citizenship are both practical and principled. While advocates of the institution may argue otherwise, ultimately, full loyalty can only ever be granted to one nation. (If two countries went to war, and both called up a draft, the man with legal citizenship in both would soon learn which of the two he was truly willing to die for).

Duality reduces citizenship from a sacred and indivisible bond to a mere legal formality. Without the demands of exclusivity, the ancient institution that united a people across space and time becomes a procedural classification. The idea that citizenship is something that could be duplicated or held simultaneously — that one could have a “backup plan” home in case the current one doesn’t work out — is fundamentally at odds with the very idea of citizenship itself. 

I am an American. This is my country. It belongs to me, and I belong to it. I will never belong to any other — nor would I ever even want to. My loyalties are to America first, only, and always. I have no “escape plan” if things take a turn for the worse — no country B to flee to, with a familiar language, culture, and people to take refuge in. My investment in the nation is absolute, because my membership in the nation is absolute. Why shouldn’t I be able to expect the same of my fellow citizens?

If the mere act of belonging to more than one civitas is a “self-evident absurdity,” one can only imagine what Roosevelt would say of the prospect of dual citizens serving in public office. And yet in today’s America, they do, although the absence of mandatory disclosure makes it impossible to know the exact degree and extent. Congressman Thomas Massie, a libertarian Republican from Kentucky, sparked a controversy today by suggesting that perhaps they shouldn’t.

A number of Massie’s critics countered that they weren’t aware of any dual citizens currently serving in Congress, thereby unwittingly revealing the problem — we don’t know. The share of foreign-born members of Congress is small but growing — 18 lawmakers, or 3 percent of the current Congress, were born outside the country — but dozens have at least one foreign-born parent: All together, according to Pew Research, there are 81 immigrants or children of immigrants in the 118th Congress — roughly 15 percent of the body.

Those who are familiar with international citizenship laws will likely be aware of the principle of jus sanguinis, or “right of blood,” which governs the way that the overwhelming share of the world’s nations grant citizenship today. In most countries, a citizen’s child is entitled to citizenship too — even if they were born abroad. (And even if their other parent is a non-citizen).

If a child is born in America to an American father and a Mexican mother, they are entitled to Mexican citizenship. And if that child goes on to become a member of the United States Congress, they are under no obligation to disclose their dual citizenship, let alone renounce it. (As it happens, Mexico is the most common nation of origin for the 81 lawmakers mentioned above). (READ MORE: The Tories’ Immigration Policies Spawned This Chaos)

There are, of course, simple solutions to these issues — although “simple” is not quite the same as “easy.” As America 2100 noted on X today, Congressman Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, introduced the Dual Citizenship Disclosure Act earlier this year. The bill proposes to do exactly what its title implies: “Require newly elected Members to disclose dual citizenship within 90 days of being sworn in.” The premise seems so painfully obvious and unobjectionable that one can’t help but wonder why it isn’t yet law. If Congress ever decides to make itself useful again, that would be a good place to start.

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