As I used to be settling in for a vacation break in Spain final month, my boyfriend’s father alerted me to a recent Grand Previous Social gathering shenanigan with profound potential to screw up my life. “Have you ever seen this factor about People’ twin citizenship?” he requested, cellphone in hand. “No,” I responded, grabbing my laptop computer and lamenting how way more keyed into American political information many Europeans are than many People (together with, seemingly, me: an American working in political information).
The factor turned out to be the Unique Citizenship Act of 2025, launched in December by Ohio’s MAGA-loyalist freshman Senator Bernie Moreno. The invoice would bar any American citizen from “concurrently possessing any international citizenship,” thereby making it unlawful to carry passports from two international locations—a standard observe amongst naturalized immigrants and more and more amongst native-born People in search of a option to escape the chaos of Trump-era America.
I maintain international citizenship: Irish, via my mom, which I’ve held my complete life. My Republic of Eire passport permits me to reside in France with my European boyfriend right now, reaping the advantages of nationwide healthcare, superior public transport, and world-class cheese, with out having to undergo the entire wedlock-for-naturalization trouble. It has not, as Senator Moreno baselessly posits, divided my loyalties. I’m an American, born and raised, whose household story reads like tens of millions of others. If Moreno’s invoice turns into legislation, my life could be in turmoil, which is, not less than partly, the purpose.
Moreno’s crisp four-page invoice takes goal, with seemingly diabolical cleverness, at two teams Trump’s base has been schooled to hate. The primary is globalist lefties comme moi, who presumably have the training, sources, and, in some circumstances, lack of religion within the American experiment to think about a transfer abroad. The opposite is immigrants, significantly naturalized residents who, in his view, are so missing in gratitude that they select to retain citizenship of their international locations of origin. On the similar time, the invoice would have little if any destructive affect on the vast majority of MAGA’s working class base, who’re disproportionately probably to lack a primary passport—a lot much less maintain a second.
The day after the invoice’s introduction, Steve Bannon, lengthy a dependable voice for the populist factions of Trump’s base, hosted Moreno on his Battle Room podcast. Maybe betraying a touch of skepticism, Bannon requested the senator—previously a automotive supplier turned crypto-enthusiast who flipped Senator Sherrod Brown’s seat in 2024—whether or not his laws would apply solely to these in search of twin citizenship sooner or later, or additionally to the tens of millions of People who already maintain two nationalities. Moreno made clear it was the latter. “You’re both an American citizen otherwise you’re a citizen of one other nation,” he stated, “You possibly can’t have twin allegiances. It’s not potential.” Apparently glad, Bannon referred to as the invoice “improbable” and urged his viewers to unfold the phrase about it.
My concern of Moreno’s measure was not solely of the disruption it will create in my very own life, but additionally its potential to fire up the nativism already coursing via the MAGA motion. Because it seems, my considerations might have been overblown. Every week after Moreno launched his invoice, YouGov launched a web-based ballot that requested 1,147 grownup U.S. residents whether or not naturalized immigrants ought to be required to surrender their unique citizenship. Lower than one-third of respondents agreed. When requested whether or not People who turn out to be residents of one other nation ought to be pressured to relinquish their U.S. citizenship, three out of 4 additionally disagreed.
It’s only one ballot, in fact, however the outcomes recommend Moreno massively misinterpret the room. His proposal might need had extra enchantment in 2024, when voters have been lining up behind Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant insurance policies and rhetoric. However the tide has clearly shifted, leaving Moreno’s invoice stranded.
The biggest swath of People the invoice targets are twin residents dwelling within the U.S.—largely immigrants from Latin America, like Moreno himself, who immigrated from Colombia as a toddler—whose house international locations permit their diasporas to retain their first citizenship after adopting a second. The one in ten voters who’re naturalized residents swung proper in 2024: 47 % voted for Trump, in comparison with simply 38 % in 2020, based on Pew Analysis Middle. Now, nevertheless, this pool of voters—like voters extra broadly—are sad with the president’s efficiency, with whopping majorities disapproving of his “third nation” deportations (80 %), efforts to finish birthright citizenship (69 %), and the usage of masked and plainclothes brokers in immigration enforcement (67 %). The twin residents on this group might not relish the thought of completely renouncing their id, ease of journey house, or the potential to return sooner or later.
The 58-year-old Republican additionally picked the improper immigrants to mess with. To native-born People, naturalized residents are a sympathetic group. These new People not solely performed by the foundations and entered legally, however in addition they demonstrated their dedication to the nation by changing into residents. That admiration is real even amongst Republicans. Although 59 % of Republicans surveyed by YouGov stated that naturalized U.S. residents ought to have to surrender their unique citizenship, that majority flipped when given the choice of requiring naturalized residents to take an oath of allegiance: In that case, 51 % of Republicans then stated that immigrants ought to not be required to resign their international nationality. (For sure, changing into a U.S. citizen already entails pledging allegiance to the USA of America.)
Moreno additionally appears to have miscalculated the variety of People concerned with dwelling overseas. The USA, like most international locations, doesn’t monitor which of its residents maintain twin nationality, making enforcement of Moreno’s invoice a pricey, nightmarish thought experiment. The YouGov ballot discovered that round 6 % of respondents self-reported holding a second citizenship. Whereas not an enormous voting bloc, there’s a far bigger group of People who wish to be part of our ranks. One in 5 People says they need to completely transfer to a different nation, based on a November 2025 Gallup ballot, double the proportion who stated the identical in 2011.
A February 2025 Harris ballot discovered that 40 % of People have thought-about or plan to maneuver overseas, with 14 % “severely considering” a transfer. This 40 % predictably skews youthful, feminine, and left. Nonetheless, tellingly, the survey additionally discovered that 36 % of Republicans agreed with the assertion “I believe I’d be happier with my life if I moved overseas.”
In his haste to attain populist factors, Moreno appears to have forgotten that voters don’t prefer it when the federal government makes it tougher for them to train their rights—even when, as within the case of twin passports, most People are unlikely to make use of them. Maybe this is the reason the Ohio senator’s invoice has not garnered help from the president, whose spouse, Melania and youngest son, Barron, are twin residents of the U.S. and Slovenia, and solely a single Republican endorsement.
The strongest proof that Moreno’s invoice will flop is his personal try to course-correct. Lower than two weeks after confirming to Bannon that the legislation would have an effect on present twin passport holders, Moreno appeared on one other podcast, telling host Gabe Groisman that it will apply solely to “new individuals [naturalized citizens] going ahead,” though the invoice textual content clearly states in any other case.
Moreno was proper about one factor in his Groisman interview: Patriotism has taken a beating within the U.S. Final yr, record-low numbers of adults stated they have been proud to be American. However it isn’t dueling nationalities driving the issue. It’s pessimistic prospects for younger individuals, unfavorable photos of each political events, and the failure of each events’ insurance policies to enhance the lives of most People. Within the February ballot from Harris, “decrease price of dwelling overseas” edged out “dissatisfaction with the present political management” because the primary motivating issue for wanting to depart, adopted carefully by “need for a better high quality of life” and “higher and/or lower-cost healthcare.” The answer to restoring patriotism isn’t “elevating what it means to be an American citizen,” as Moreno repeatedly claims, however making the American authorities worthy of its individuals’s delight.
“There shall be a time when the GOP wakes up in no matter post-Trump world, at any time when the post-Trump world exists, and has this raging hangover and remorse about the way in which they have been appearing and behaving the night time earlier than,” Republican political guide Mike Madrid instructed me. “You don’t keep in mind if it was the primary beer or the tenth, but it surely was the beer.”
That world is coming. The Unique Citizenship Act is a hopefully doomed, pint-sized instance of the decade-long distraction Trump and his MAGA acolytes in Congress have been perpetrating: America First rhetorically, but policy-wise, pushing America farther from the primary place anybody all over the world would select to reside.
