Republican Senator born in Colombia proposes banning dual citizenship in the U.S.

Miami, 2 – Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, born in Colombia, proposed an initiative to ban dual citizenship in the United States, which would force naturalized migrants to renounce their country of origin to avoid “double loyalties”. “It’s very, very simple. Either you are a U.S. citizen or you are a citizen of another country. You cannot have dual alliances, you cannot have double loyalties,” declared the Ohio senator this Tuesday, who obtained U.S. citizenship at 18 years old, in an interview with Stephen Bannon, former advisor to President Donald Trump. Moreno’s initiative, born in Bogota in 1967, would apply to both people born in the United States and naturalized immigrants, as it would prohibit simultaneously holding both U.S. and foreign nationalities. Furthermore, it would establish that Americans who acquire a different citizenship would automatically renounce that of the United States. The proposal would give those with dual nationality a one-year deadline to submit a letter to the State Department renouncing their foreign citizenship, or send a written statement to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to renounce their U.S. citizenship. If people with dual citizenship do not comply with any of these actions, the law will consider that they are renouncing their U.S. nationality. “When I became a citizen of the United States, by the way, one of the greatest honors and privileges of my life, I swore allegiance to the United States of America and not to the country where I was born. It’s very simple. It’s common sense. This should have been done a long time ago,” the senator now declared.

Although there is no official estimate of how many people have dual nationality in the United States, the American Immigration Council (AIC) reports that there are 23.68 million immigrants who have become naturalized as U.S. citizens, almost half of the country’s total migrant population.

Moreno, who writes on his social media profiles that he is “grateful” because his parents “brought him to the United States,” has supported President Trump’s anti-immigrant policy, who has promised the largest mass deportation in the history of the country. “I was born in Colombia, in South America. In fact, I am Hispanic. But again, I made a conscious decision at the first opportunity I had, when I turned 18, to be a citizen of the United States. This country welcomed me,” he argued now. It is not clear how much support Moreno has for the bill to be approved, which could also face constitutional challenges. The Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that Congress does not have the power, under the Constitution, to deprive a person of U.S. citizenship without their voluntary renunciation, and that citizenship is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.