The Troubling History of US Citizenship Stripping | Amanda Frost | TMR

The Enduring Fight for Citizenship

• 💡 The overarching theme in US citizenship history is the ongoing struggle between exclusionary definitions based on lineage and ancestry versus inclusive values.
• 📌 Citizenship has been historically denied to groups and individuals often based on race, but also on ideology and gender, with US citizen women losing citizenship for marrying non-citizens.
• 🎯 The contest over who is an American is never truly over, with debates continuing throughout the nation's history.

The Nuances of Citizenship and Belonging

• 🧠 Citizenship encompasses political rights (voting, jury service) and the legal right to enter and remain, but also a crucial sense of belonging.
• ⚖️ While historical property requirements limited voting rights for some, white men were generally accepted as belonging in the US, a contrast to the systemic denial of rights to other groups.
• 📜 The Dred Scott decision declared no Black person, slave or free, could be a citizen, a ruling later overturned by the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship clause.

Birthright Citizenship and Immigration Debates

• 🚀 The 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship guarantee is a significant development, but it intrinsically links to ongoing debates about immigration and who should be allowed to become an American.
• 🤝 While the US has made naturalization difficult at times, it has generally been more accessible than in many countries, with immigrants significantly powering the economy and society.
• ⚠️ Debates over immigration and citizenship are cyclical, often driven by xenophobia that targets various groups based on race and origin.

Denaturalization and Shifting Legal Landscapes

• 🚨 The Trump administration's declaration that naturalized citizen status was at risk was a shocking development, reviving historical precedents of denaturalization based on political views or race.
• ⚖️ The Supreme Court in 1967 largely limited denaturalization to cases of fraud or error, but the Trump administration sought to use it as a tool of immigration enforcement.
• 🚫 While courts have slowed mass denaturalization efforts, the goal remains to reduce judicial and due process involvement in immigration and deportation.

Historical Examples of Citizenship Stripping

• 💔 Ethel McKenzie, a suffragist, lost her citizenship for marrying a non-citizen, illustrating how laws could penalize women based on marital status and race.
• 🚢 Operation Wetback in the 1950s involved mass deportations of Mexican families, including US-born citizens, often without due process, a tactic that some administrations have viewed favorably.
• 🇩🇪 Fritz Julius, leader of the German-American Bund, lost his citizenship and was deported after WWII for his pro-Nazi activities and lying about his past, a process that involved a trial, unlike the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Foundational American Values

• 🇺🇸 Core American values, rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, include freedom of speech, the principle that