Has the US government revoked citizenship for someone born in the US since 1900?
Executive summary
No U.S.-born person has had citizenship involuntarily revoked by the federal government since the early 20th century; Supreme Court decisions since 1967 make clear native-born citizens can lose citizenship only by voluntary relinquishment (e.g., renunciation or committing an expatriating act with intent) [1] [2]. Recent administration actions and DOJ memos target denaturalization of naturalized citizens and attempts to limit birthright citizenship — but those focus on the naturalization process or on children born to noncitizen parents, not on stripping citizenship from people born here without their consent [3] [4] [5].
1. Historical baseline: courts have protected the native-born
The Supreme Court’s modern rulings establish that native-born U.S. citizenship is a protected status that the government cannot strip without the person’s voluntary relinquishment; the pivotal case Afroyim v. Rusk is widely cited as ending involuntary expatriation for native-born Americans and courts have enforced a high bar for any deprivation of citizenship [1] [6]. Congressional and legal histories on denaturalization make clear that “denaturalization” is a tool directed at naturalized citizens — not a general power to take away the citizenship of people born in the United States [2] [6].
2. Denaturalization versus revoking birthright citizenship: two different legal tracks
Denaturalization is a judicial process that cancels naturalization certificates when they were illegally procured, obtained by fraud, or where post-naturalization conduct fits statutory grounds; Congress and courts have long treated these cases as distinct from the status of the native-born [2] [7]. By contrast, efforts to “end” or limit birthright citizenship through executive orders or litigation seek to reinterpret the 14th Amendment or administrative recognition of who is a citizen at birth — an effort that targets children born to noncitizen parents, not retroactive stripping of adults born here [5] [8].
3. What recent government actions actually do — and what they don’t
Since 2025 the Department of Justice has prioritized denaturalization in “all cases permitted by law” — an enforcement push aimed at naturalized citizens accused of fraud or alarming conduct, not at people born on U.S. soil [4]. Separately, the Trump administration’s executive order and related legal fight seek to limit recognition of birthright citizenship for children born after a specific date to noncitizen parents; the dispute has reached the Supreme Court and concerns future births and federal recognition rather than involuntary revocation of existing native-born citizens’ status [5] [9].
4. Examples and counterexamples in the record
Available reporting and legal histories consistently emphasize denaturalization cases (revoking naturalized citizenship) — for example, DOJ memos and USCIS policy materials — and note that no parallel statutory or judicial mechanism exists to unilaterally strip native-born citizens except by their own voluntary act [4] [7]. Fact-checking outlets (Poynter, PolitiFact) report that presidents cannot strip U.S.-born persons of citizenship for political disagreements and cite Supreme Court precedent to that effect [1] [10].
5. Where confusion and misinformation appear
Political rhetoric and threats to “revoke” particular public figures’ citizenship have fueled misconceptions; several outlets point out that some targeted individuals are naturalized or foreign-born and therefore fall into a different legal category than native-born citizens [1] [3]. Executive orders aimed at curbing birthright citizenship — and media coverage of those orders — can blur the distinction between preventing future grants of birthright citizenship and retroactively taking away the citizenship of people already born in the U.S.; sources show the orders would apply prospectively to births after specified dates, not to those born earlier [5] [8].
6. Legal limits and unresolved questions
The law presently requires voluntary relinquishment for native-born citizenship loss and places heavy proof requirements on any effort to remove citizenship [6] [2]. But constitutional litigation over executive attempts to reinterpret the 14th Amendment is active: the Supreme Court has agreed to decide challenges to the administration’s directive to limit birthright citizenship, a decision that could change the landscape for future births or federal recognition [9] [11]. Available sources do not mention any modern, successful government revocation of citizenship for someone born in the United States since 1900 beyond voluntary renunciations (not found in current reporting).
7. Bottom line for readers
If your question is whether the U.S. government has involuntarily revoked the citizenship of a person born in the United States since 1900, current reporting and legal authorities say no — courts protect native-born citizenship except where a person voluntarily abandons it — while recent policy moves focus on denaturalizing some naturalized citizens and on limiting future birthright claims tied to parents’ status [1] [4] [5].