What countries are most commonly held as second citizenships among U.S. lawmakers?
Executive summary
There is no systematic list in the provided reporting of which foreign citizenships are “most commonly held” by U.S. lawmakers; available sources focus on recent Republican bills targeting dual citizenship rather than compiling statistics about lawmakers’ second nationalities (available sources do not mention a ranked list) [1] [2]. Coverage emphasizes political arguments and high‑profile examples (e.g., Melania Trump cited as holding U.S. and Slovenian citizenship) rather than aggregate data [3] [4].
1. Lawmakers’ second citizenships: reporting focuses on anecdotes, not counts
Media coverage cited here does not offer a compiled dataset showing which countries are most common as second citizenships among U.S. members of Congress. Reporting highlights individual or notable cases and policy proposals but explicitly notes that precise statistics on how many Americans claim a second nationality—or which countries dominate—are hard to obtain; one outlet described the numbers as uncertain and cited wide estimates for dual‑citizen Americans generally [1] [5]. In short: journalists are reporting examples and political implications, not authoritative lists [3].
2. Why journalists cite individual examples instead of national tallies
The stories assembled in these sources are about policy proposals—most recently the “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025”—and the political debate over “divided loyalties,” so reporters center on lawmakers’ motives and high‑profile people who could be affected [6] [2]. For instance, some pieces point to Melania Trump’s Slovenian citizenship as an example of a public figure with dual nationality, not as evidence of a broader pattern among legislators [3] [4]. The coverage treats second‑citizenship cases as illustrative rather than as the basis for a statistical claim [7].
3. The policy debate that drives the coverage
Republican sponsors argue dual citizenship creates “conflicts of interest” and propose forcing people to renounce non‑U.S. citizenships or lose U.S. status; reporters describe those proposals and legal complications in detail [6] [2]. Opponents and some legal scholars warn the bills would conflict with constitutional protections and longstanding precedent; that dispute is the dominant frame in the reporting, not compiling who holds which passports [8] [1].
4. Legal and practical limits on producing a country‑by‑country ranking
Multiple sources note practical obstacles to knowing how many U.S. citizens hold a second nationality because neither the U.S. government nor public records systematically record foreign citizenship in a way that yields reliable national‑level tallies [5] [1]. The Moreno bill itself would create new recordkeeping if enacted, including a database on multiple citizenships—an acknowledgment that such data do not already exist in accessible form [3] [6].
5. What the available reporting does say about scale and examples
News outlets cite very wide estimates of Americans who could be eligible for or who might hold dual citizenship—ranging from hundreds of thousands to several million—underscoring the lack of precise counts [1]. Reporting also repeatedly frames the issue through a few prominent anecdotes and political consequences, not through systematic demographic analysis [9] [10].
6. Competing viewpoints in the sources
Proponents of restrictions, including Sen. Bernie Moreno, frame dual citizenship as a threat to “sole and exclusive allegiance” and national integrity [6] [2]. Critics—including scholars quoted in reporting—characterize such measures as legally fraught and potentially punitive, warning they would erode constitutional protections around citizenship and could have heavy tax or civil consequences for those forced to expatriate [8] [11]. The coverage presents both positions but does not include evidence that one or more foreign nationalities predominate among lawmakers [8] [11].
7. What a reader should take away
Based on the supplied reporting, you should not assume there is a known list of “most common second citizenships” among U.S. lawmakers—available sources do not supply that information and explicitly note the absence of reliable, public data [1] [5]. The present news cycle is centered on proposed legislation and political symbolism; assessing which foreign nationalities are most common would require records or a study that the current reporting says do not exist [3] [6].
Limitations: this analysis is confined to the set of articles you provided; those pieces focus on the Moreno bill and the politics of dual citizenship rather than empirical inventories of lawmakers’ second passports [2] [6]. If you want a country‑by‑country ranking, the next step is a targeted data project drawing on official disclosures, naturalization records where available, and reporters’ biographical research—sources not present in the material cited here.