On December 1st, Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno introduced the “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025″—a bill that would effectively outlaw dual citizenship in America. If you're an Australian who's become a US citizen (or thinking about it), this probably sent a chill down your spine. But before you start panicking about choosing between your passports, let me explain why I think this bill is going absolutely nowhere.
Don't get me wrong—it's worth understanding what's being proposed and why it matters. But this bill has “political theater” written all over it, and the reasons it will fail are constitutional, practical, and frankly, a bit ironic.
What the bill actually says
The “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025” would make it so that no one may be a citizen or national of the US while simultaneously having any foreign citizenship. If passed, a US citizen who voluntarily acquires foreign citizenship would have to relinquish their US citizenship after the date of enactment. Those who have dual citizenship would have to:
submit a written renunciation of foreign citizenship to the Secretary of State or a written renunciation of US citizenship to the Secretary of Homeland Security no later than one year after the enactment of the act.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/3283/text
And here's the kicker: An individual who doesn't comply will be deemed to have voluntarily relinquished United States citizenship.
In Senator Moreno's words:
“Being an American citizen is an honor and a privilege—and if you want to be an American, it's all or nothing. It's time to end dual citizenship for good.”
It's a bold statement. It's also almost certainly unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court has already settled this—twice
Here's the thing: the US Supreme Court has ruled on this issue multiple times, and the law is remarkably clear.
In 1967, the Court decided Afroyim v. Rusk, a landmark case involving a naturalized US citizen who voted in an Israeli election. The government tried to strip his citizenship under a law that made voting in foreign elections an expatriating act. The Supreme Court ruled in Afroyim's favor in a 5–4 decision, ruling that citizens of the United States may not be deprived of their citizenship involuntarily.
The ruling emphasized the rights of citizens to hold dual citizenship and established that the burden of proof to revoke citizenship rests on demonstrating clear intent, rather than mere actions such as voting abroad.
Then in 1980, the Court reinforced this in Vance v. Terrazas, ruling that intent to relinquish citizenship needed to be proved by itself, and not simply inferred from an individual's having voluntarily performed an action designated by Congress as being incompatible with an intent to keep one's citizenship.
In plain English: the government cannot take away your citizenship unless you clearly and voluntarily choose to give it up yourself. Congress can't just pass a law that says “do X or lose your citizenship”—that's exactly what the Supreme Court struck down.
For further clarification, the Fourteenth Amendment clearly states andguarantees that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that this citizenship cannot be taken away by the government as a punishment or policy choice.
Moreno's bill tries to get around this by “deeming” non-compliance to be voluntary relinquishment. But that's a fiction that courts are unlikely to accept.
As immigration attorney Ayla Blumenthal pointed out, “A 1-year-old certainly cannot relinquish citizenship, cannot take any voluntary acts of relinquishment or specific intent. And yet this bill makes no provisions to acknowledge that.”
Congress cannot overrule the Constitution by statute, and this bill would collapse immediately under judicial review.
The practical problems are enormous
Even if this bill were somehow constitutional (it isn't), how would it actually be enforced?
There is a lot of uncertainty about how Moreno's bill would be enforced, as the US does not currently require people to report their dual citizenship, and there is no central database of dual citizens.
The US government genuinely doesn't know who holds dual citizenship. US law does not require people to declare or register dual citizenship and the government does not maintain a registry. Newsweek Estimates of how many Americans hold dual citizenship range wildly—from 500,000 to 5.7 million, and a report in Forbes suggested about 40 percent of Americans could be eligible for dual citizenship. These two numbers alone are staggering and truly describe how many people this kind of legislation would impact.
So who exactly is going to be tracked down and forced to choose? The bill doesn't say, because there's no mechanism to do it.
The political awkwardness
But here's why I really think it's going nowhere.
If enacted, the Bill could (and would) impact First Lady Melania Trump. She remains a dual citizen of the US and Slovenia, as does her son Barron Trump. This would therefore put the Senator right in the face of the President who endorsed him and present him with a significant issue for his political future.
In addition to this direct contact, there are a small but significant percentage of Senators and Congresspeople are either foreign-born or are the first generation of their family to be born in the US who would also all have something to say. They have businesses and lobbyists who fund them, who are powered by high-powered multi-nationals, who would also have something to say if they ever want to see a dollar again.
Millions of Americans hold dual nationality, many from birth, many through marriage, parentage, or living abroad for work or service. These Americans include service members, diplomats, aid workers, business leaders, and families who represent the United States around the world.
This isn't a fringe group—it's a massive, politically connected, economically significant chunk of the American population. And many of them vote or are involved in the political process.
What this bill actually is
Let's be honest about what we're looking at here. This is signal politics—not legislative policy.
Moreno, who won his Senate seat in 2024 after an endorsement from President Donald Trump, was born in Colombia but has (loudly) renounced his Colombian citizenship. He's positioning himself as the ultimate “assimilated immigrant” and using this bill to appeal to a certain base.
The real impact of this bill would fall hardest on diverse immigrant communities—particularly Somali, Nepali, Ukrainian, Mexican, Arab, and West African families who use dual nationality to maintain property, inheritance rights, travel access, and family ties.
The bill relies on a false and dangerous narrative about dual citizens. They do not have “divided loyalty”; they have deep global ties that strengthen America's influence, economy, and security.
I'm sure that goes without saying.
What happens now?
The bill, S.3283 titled Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
That's known as where bills go to quietly die.
There's been no indication of significant support for this legislation, no co-sponsors making noise about it, and no realistic path to passage. Even if it somehow passed both houses of Congress (it won't), it would be immediately challenged in court and almost certainly struck down based on decades of Supreme Court precedent.
What this means for Australians
If you're an Australian who has become a US citizen (like me)—or who's considering it—this bill should not change your plans. The law as it stands today recognizes dual citizenship, and that's not going to change because of one senator's press release.
Australia allows dual citizenship. The US, despite not formally encouraging it, has accepted it as a reality for decades. The State Department's own guidance acknowledges that US citizens may hold other nationalities.
Continue to make decisions based on your actual circumstances, not hypothetical legislation that contradicts 60 years of constitutional law.
Senate Bill S.3283 is constitutionally dubious, practically unenforceable, politically awkward, and almost certainly going nowhere. It's a bill designed to generate headlines and appeal to a specific political base, not to become law.
Will I be watching it? Sure. Should you lose sleep over it (as an Australian-American with dual citizenship)? Absolutely not.
Your Australian passport is safe. Your US citizenship (if you have it) is safe. And the Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that Congress can't change that on a whim.
There are so many battles worth fighting and I don't think this one is worth even a look-in.
Your article is excellent. I am a dual US/Swiss citizen. I was born in the US so my US citizenship is “birthright” (jus soli). My paternal grandfather came to the US from Switzerland. According to Swiss citizenship law (just sanguinis) my father, born in the US was seen by Switzerland as a Swiss citizen BY BIRTH (regardless of the location of his birth). This Swiss law also applied to me at my birth, also born in the US. Because of the respective citizenship laws of the two countries, I am a citizen of each BY BIRTH. I have served in the US Army and was discharged honorably. Later, I served in the US government as a federal employee with a Top Secret SCI security clearance with polygraph. In the application process with the agency, thst agency requested that I renounce my Swiss citizenship. I went to the Swiss Embassy in Washington DC and attempted to do so. I was told by an employee of The Swiss Embassy that because my Swiss citizenship is BIRTHRIGHT citizenship, I do not, per Swiss law, have the right to renounce Swiss citizenship. The Swiss Embassy employee told me “if you are BORN Swiss, as you were, then you die Swiss, you do not have the right to renounce Swiss citizenship.” Many uninformed Americans believe because American citizens may renounce their citizenship, (as a “civil right”) the citizens of all countries may renounce their citizenship, that is not true. Renunciation of US citizenship is a civil right for all US citizens. However, that is not the case for Swiss citizens who are a Swiss citizen by BIRTH. In the process of getting my security clearance with the US government intelligence agency for which I worked I explained everything as above on my SF 86 form, the lengthy and highly detailed form used to initiate a US security clearance. The US intelligence agency adjudicated my security clearance and deemed it permissible and appropriate that I be granted a Top Secret/ SCI security clearance.
You made two very good points in your article. The first being that the author of this Bill is disingenuously throwing red meat to his base. The second point you made so well was that the US government may not put conditions on a US citizen after US citizenship is granted which were not previously required. Clearly, the author of this bill is attempting very poorly to make a name for himself in Congress. He would be well advised to do his homework more in the future, reading up on the decisions by the Supreme Court on this topic would be a good start. Sadly however, we have many office holders who truly lack the intellectual maturity and discipline to perform their duties
In closing, I would like to state I shall never renounce my US citizenship. I propose that I have given far more in service to this country than the author of bill S.3283, who perhaps as a naturalized US citizen, doesn’t truly understand what it is to be born a US citizen and, and as a result, he is woefully overcompensating for this lack of understanding.