New Bill May Prohibit Dual Citizenship for Americans
Senator Bernie Moreno has proposed legislation that would require dual nationals to give up their U.S. passports or renounce their foreign ties.
The United States has permitted its people to maintain multiple passports for decades, but a new proposal aims to alter this long-standing policy.
The “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025,” a bill put forth by Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio, has the potential to effectively eliminate dual nationality for Americans. The law would compel millions of people to face the painful decision of either keeping their U.S. citizenship or giving it up to remain a citizen of another nation if it were to pass.
According to the U.S. Department of State, “U.S. law does not require a U.S. citizen to choose between U.S. citizenship and another (foreign) nationality (or nationalities),” the regulations are currently clear. Without endangering their U.S. citizenship, a U.S. citizen may become a naturalized citizen of another country.
People who were born in the United States but grew up elsewhere or foreigners who were naturalized in the United States have been able to keep connections to both worlds thanks to this flexibility.
Nonetheless, Moreno’s bill seeks to redefine loyalty. The idea contends that Americans ought to have “sole and exclusive allegiance” to the US. These new regulations would put an end to the “double life” of using two passports for travel.
For persons who now hold dual status, this could manifest in two primary ways.
To retain their U.S. passport and status, Americans would first need to publicly renounce their foreign citizenship. Furthermore, they would instantly lose both their U.S. passport and U.S. citizenship if they chose to maintain their non-American status. A year would pass if the bill were to become law, giving people a full year to determine which nation they actually belong to. Furthermore, the instant an American is naturalized abroad, they immediately forfeit their U.S. status if they pursue foreign citizenship in the future.
This is still only a suggestion, but it has shocked the expat and tourist communities. If it were implemented, the United States would become one of around fifty-one nations that do not accept dual citizenship. Experts predict that the bill would encounter many legal obstacles before it could ever become law, but the notion itself is enough to cause anxiety among many tourists about their future.
