Can Congress impose criminal penalties that effectively strip citizenship without violating the Constitution?
Executive summary
Congress has proposed the Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, which would bar dual or multiple U.S. citizenship and treat failure to renounce a foreign citizenship as relinquishment of U.S. citizenship (text: S.3283) [1] [2]. Legal scholars, advocacy groups and reporting uniformly say that longstanding Supreme Court precedent—most notably Afroyim v. Rusk and related decisions—holds that Congress cannot strip citizenship absent a person’s voluntary, intentional relinquishment, meaning the bill faces near‑certain constitutional challenge if enacted [3] [4] [5].
1. What the bill would do and how it tries to work
Sen. Bernie Moreno’s “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025” would declare that no one “may be a citizen or national of the United States while simultaneously possessing any foreign citizenship,” require current dual citizens to choose within a set period, and treat noncompliance or later acquisition of foreign citizenship as de facto relinquishment—along with directing the State Department to create verification and recordkeeping systems and coordinate with DHS and DOJ to treat those deemed to have lost citizenship as aliens [2] [6].
2. Why legal analysts say the statute clashes with Supreme Court precedent
Multiple outlets and experts point to Afroyim v. Rusk and subsequent decisions as blocking congressional power to divest citizenship except where the citizen voluntarily relinquishes it; the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects citizens from congressional destruction of citizenship and requires voluntariness and intent for expatriation [3] [4] [5]. Newsweek quoted scholars who say a statute presuming loss from inaction would almost certainly be struck down [5].
3. Political and practical consequences emphasized by reporting
Reporting projects the bill would affect hundreds of thousands to millions of Americans—with one outlet estimating between about 500,000 and 5.7 million people potentially impacted—and would impose logistical burdens like consular renunciation backlogs and severe tax consequences for those deemed expatriated under existing “covered expatriate” rules [7] [3] [8]. GreenbackTaxServices places the bill’s enactment odds low (rough forecast ~3%) and stresses that dual citizenship remains legal as of now [9].
4. Who objects and on what grounds
Democrats Abroad, expatriate advocates, legal commentators and multiple news outlets call the proposal unconstitutional “on its face,” arguing it collapses under Afroyim and related rulings; they also frame it as harmful to families, business ties and Americans living abroad [10] [11] [7]. Legal scholars in Newsweek forecast the Supreme Court would almost certainly strike it down if Congress enacted it [5].
5. Arguments the bill’s backers implicitly or explicitly advance
Proponents frame the measure as restoring “sole and exclusive allegiance” to the United States and closing perceived gaps in loyalty, and they give executive agencies authority to implement and enforce exclusive citizenship and recordkeeping [1] [2]. Truthout and other outlets note similar prior proposals to limit dual-citizen public officials, signaling a broader political vein beyond one senator’s bill [12].
6. Constitutional fault lines and how a court might analyze this
Available reporting ties the bill’s legal weakness to two settled principles in the Court’s jurisprudence: the Fourteenth Amendment protects citizenship against congressional revocation, and loss of citizenship requires voluntary and intentional renunciation—standards the bill’s automatic or “deemed” expatriation provisions would fail to meet [3] [4] [5]. News analysts predict that, even if passed, the statute would face immediate judicial review and likely be invalidated [5].
7. What the public and lawmakers should know going forward
The bill is formally filed and referred to committees (S.3283) but faces steep legal obstacles and limited legislative prospects according to multiple sources; commentators stress that, for now, dual citizenship remains lawful and any change “is dead on arrival” in constitutional doctrine unless the Supreme Court revises its precedents—something none of these sources reports has occurred [9] [4] [1].
Limitations: sources provided here are news reports, advocacy statements, the bill text, and legal commentary; they do not include full judicial opinions or internal congressional strategy memos. Available sources do not mention any successful modern statute that has survived court review imposing involuntary expatriation under similar mechanics (not found in current reporting).