By Douglas V. Gibbs
Emer de Vattel, writing in 1758, defined “the natives, or natural-born citizens” as “those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” The men who wrote our Constitution knew that passage well. Blackstone repeated it. The First Congress’s Naturalization Act of 1790 assumed it. Chief Justice Waite quoted it in Minor v. Happersett in 1875. Senators Lyman Trumbull and Jacob Howard, in the debates over the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Citizenship Clause, recognized its truth when they called for “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to be read as “and not subject to any foreign power” and “not owing allegiance to anybody else.” For the Framers of the Constitution and those who followed, citizenship was not a document you could carry in two pockets at once. It was a family, an inheritance, and an allegiance. “We the People” means “a deep and united connection to the United States of America.”
That is why Represenative Anna Paulina Luna’s demand that members of Congress disclose dual citizenship is not some mere curiosity. It is aligned with the oldest argument in American politics.
Luna, a Florida Republican, announced recently that she is sponsoring legislation with other members of her delegation (she named fellow Floridians Kat Cammack and Randy Fine) to force disclosure. A similar bill was introduced a year and a half ago by Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky. It died in committee. The timing, however, is interesting, considering the reported federal search of Representative Ilhan Omar’s Washington-area home has given the question new urgency.
This issue not only concerns those holding office, but also those seeking it. In Michigan, we have a ready-made case study. The Washington Free Beacon published video on October 5 showing Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed describing himself as a dual citizen at a 2016 conference in Detroit. A 2014 academic résumé listed citizenship in the United States and Egypt. His campaign, through spokeswoman Roxie Richner, insists he “is not a dual citizen by any verifiable metric and never has been,” a claim that requires believing El-Sayed was wrong about his own status for years.
I have long believed the United States does not recognize dual citizenship at all. It is true, after all, that we spent a century trying not to. The Expatriation Act of 1868, the Bancroft treaties, and the naturalization oath (which still requires the applicant to “renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty”) are all aimed at the ideal of exclusive allegiance.
The Supreme Court, violating its position as a branch of government with no power to legislate, in Kawakita v. United States (1952) called dual nationality “a status long recognized in the law” and conceded that a dual national “may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilities of both.” Kawakita cited Perkins v. Elg (1939) and Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) later echoed it. From the viewpoint of an activist court, the oath still binds the conscience, but it no longer divests the status. Quite the contradiction.
My wife naturalized in 2006, renouncing her Mexican citizenship in her ceremony and her paperwork, and she meant it. But her renunciation bound her, not Mexico. Mexico has permitted dual nationality since 1998, and whether Mexico still considers her one of its own is a question of Mexican law that no American oath can answer. That is precisely Luna’s point. A document signed in a federal courtroom is not the same thing as a verified legal status, and voters currently have no way to tell the difference.
The Founders would have understood the discomfort. Washington’s Farewell Address warned against “the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” which he called “one of the most baneful foes of republican government.” Their own experience with the Tories, neighbors who had sworn allegiance to the King of England, taught them that a man could live among you, vote among you, and still answer to another sovereign. The natural-born clause for the presidency and vice presidency was their hedge, and I read it as Vattel read it: not merely soil, but parentage. Not just where you were born, but whose you are.
Congress is different. Article I sets only age, seven years of citizenship, and residency. Those cannot be tightened without an amendment. The Constitution does not mention dual citizenship, but based on history and the Founding Generation’s fear of the Tories’ willingness to sabotage America’s sovereignty out of the gate, it would clearly be something they frowned upon. Without constitutional support, and a court willing to usurp the law, the only tool available now to us is disclosure… but disclosure is the floor, not the ceiling.
It is worth being precise about what Luna has and has not done. As of her announcement there is no bill number, no legislative text, and no effective date. Florida Republican Kat Cammack’s separate measure, H. Res. 500, targets congressional staff rather than members. And the Omar matter remains an allegation, not a conviction; Vice President JD Vance said investigators would follow the facts and pursue a case only if the evidence supports one.
A serious bill would require a notarized statement of every citizenship claimed or recognized, a declaration of any foreign government employment, a filing deadline, and a penalty for false answers. It would apply to every member regardless of party, and it would force candidates to answer before the election, not after – with lying before the election, and being found out later, leading to expulsion from Congress (provided that the two-thirds vote of the House under Article I, Section 5 is met).
Critics say dual citizenship does not equal divided loyalty. In some cases they might be right; in others, perhaps not. Is that the ground we wish to stand on?
Luna has put the demand on the table. The harder work is turning a sound instinct into a rule with teeth, applied evenly, so that no future voter has to reconcile an old résumé, a campaign denial, and a foreign government’s own records to learn the truth about the person asking for their vote.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
