Do you want to be an American media?
Here we go, come before the storm, so to speak, so to speak slowly on seven hundred WLW see winter weather starts to move in. Got till tonight, then all hall is going to break loose. So between now and then, it's me and you this morning. And one of the topics of interest today, at least that I found interesting, is the end of dual citizenship in America. I don't actually have the numbers in front of you. Probably if I were better at my job, i'd looked that up.
But anyway, Bernie Moreno, our own Bernie Moreno, has proposed the Exclusive Citizenship Act of twenty twenty five, and it literally is ignited one of the most explosive civil liberities debates in a long time. So dual citizenship is fully legal right now, but the bill threatens to force millions of Americans into a one year ultimatum. So you'd have to make up your mind, and that is to abandon your US passport and lose your citizenship automatically. You've choose
one team or the other. No more dual citizens in the United States. And we'll get how that works in just a second here. But first on the show is Augustina Virgara Seed. On the show, she writes with the Hill on RCPs, I'll say a young voice is senior contributor Augustina, good morning, how are you?
Good morning, Scott, Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, I got you. So let's just jump in.
Let me run down the list and kind of the people aren't following this. You may not be following this entirely. So here's what we had to do. Correct me if I'm wrong, if I miss anything here too, It'd be unlawful to hold US citizenship and any foreign citizenship at the same time, and it'd take one hundred and take
effect one hundred eighty days after enactment. So for future citizens, basically what happened is anybody who voluntary acquires foreign citizenship after the effective date automatically loses their US citizenship, and you would obtain a new foreign passport would also lose
your US citizenship if you're a current dual citizen. There's a one year deadline, So within one year of enactment, you have to choose a renounce your foreign citizens to the State Department or be renounce your US citizenship to Department of homeland security. And if you don't choose, then
you by default will give up your US citizenship. So anyone who is born with a dual nationality, naturalized US citizens, who retained original citizenship, Americans abroad who required foreignationality through marriage or dissent or naturalization, that's what's in play here. Did I miss anything important? Those all the facets of this.
Yeah, that's essentially what the bill is trying to do.
Yes, could you tell us why?
I mean, I get immigration, I understand that, I understand that there's a concerned about who's in our country.
We need to know who that is.
But and I suppose that there's concern that someone who holds citizenship from China or Russia could be working in sensitive US positions would be an example. I think that's a valid worry. But why aren't we addressing it in that fashion as opposed to just a blanket uster them philosophy.
Yeah, so it's a good question why this is allegedly needed or and why? Now I read the bill, and the bill does not have any really substantial destination of why this is needed. So the build friends dual citizenship as a potential source of alleged conflicts of interest or divided loyalties, but the bill never defines what that means. Those are essentially just buzzwords that really, if without any
sort of replanation, really don't mean much. So I think that really this is a solutional search for a problem. I don't think that dual citizenship or multiple citizenship in America is a problem that needs Congress to step in and fix. Really, dual citizenship does not represent a threat of any kind, and people who hold dual citizenship, by myself am one such person. I do not have any sort of do not represent a thread or anything in America.
But you just said that, Okay, maybe there might be you know, sensitive positions that require that someone be native born, like, for example, a constitution mandates that a person who is naturalized cannot become pressed in the United States, or you know that requires really you know, that that person has only one citizenship. Then okay, that's great, let's address those positions specifically. But there is really no reason to try to impose only one citizenship on the rest of Americans.
Yeah, and if you're worried about you know, spying, and that's what this is, maybe that would prevent that summer. I think you're still going to wind up getting you know, sources and the like. I mean, look at how many people have committed to reason who are naturally born US citizens don't hold those those and there are US citizens they are born here, their families here, who have committed
these types of crimes in the past. So that doesn't seem to be good indicator if it's a national security issue.
Yeah, absolutely, there's really no This is not a threat. And like when I judge the and laws, like, I think they should pass one big test, which is does this bill or these all do they protect the vision rights? Like is there a need to pass this bill in order to protect the visual rights as or constitution man made? If the answer is no, then we have a problem.
And I really don't think that this bill is protecting anyone's in the visual rights because there's really no threat from holding multiple citizenships.
Right, the fourteenth Amendment is pretty clear anyone born in the US as a citizen. We'd have to change if someone's born in America, say to I don't know, Canadian parents just Canada automatically confer citizenship at birth, And how can Congress force that person to choose without violating birthright citizenship. That's going to be a tricky one to navigate.
Yes, I think the bill poses many challenges in implementation, and I do think that it's an constitutional because of the Fourteenth Amendment, because what it asks, like you mentioned earlier, what it asked Americans to do is if they hold another citizenship and if they are native born and they have American citizenship, because of the fourteenth Amendment that you mentioned, it's forcing them to choose, and if they don't choose, then their America's citizenship is taken away, and that is
not constitutional. You cannot take citizenship away from a native born American unless e commit triaism, which not choosing a citizenship is not an act of treason. I think, for instance, like you said, that people who have who are native born Americans and who have dual citizenship because of their parents who might be from another country. I always think of this example. There's a you know, m or rat and Brown, the wide receiver from the Detroit Lions. He
has dual citizenship. He's American and he's German because his mother is German. So we are asking Amaranpian Brown and millions of other Americans who were native born to choose nationality for really no reason, because it does not pose any sort of stress. They do not post any sort of threat to America, and I'm not violating anyone's individual rights.
I wonder how this is gonna work, Augustina with there's countries like for example, Ireland, Italy in Israel in particular, that actively encourage Americans to claim citizenship because of their ancestry because of a Jewish law. This would essentially then force those Americans to reject those ties. We know that the ties and the support that this administration gives Israel,
that's not a good look. Or do they just say, well, unless you're from Israel, it's a different story, which make it very well and it just waters down the intent, whatever intent that is of this particular proposal.
Yes, that's one of the many reasons why I think this is really not gonna work, including because look, for example, I become an American this year, in July of this year, and I could talk half an hour about what that means to me and why exclusively be of my life
to be an American. But if I had to choose between my two nationalities, I can't because I am originally from Argentina, and Argentina does not renounce the citizenship because I was born there, So that would mean that if this bill were to pass, that would mean that I would have to give up being an American because my country of birth, which I didn't choose, does not allow me to renounce my citizenship. And how is that fair?
Like I worked for decades to become an American, and I'm a proud American and I took a note of a llisions to this country. Why would someone want to take that away from me? And I have literally no choice. And there are other countries that also don't allow the renunciation of their of the citizenship. I think Costa Rica is one such country, and those people like me would
have absolutely no option. And thress people who have ties to other countries Israel or whatever other country, and there is no reason to make them choose a few of reasons why people would hold multiple citizenships because they were born there, because of cosural ties, because of tax reasons, sometimes because they are American and their spouse and they live abroad with their spouse, and they for several reasons
referred to have that citizenship as well. And there's really no reason to make them choose.
Augustina Virgara Seed on the show She Rich of the Hill RCP, is a young voice and senior contributor and talking about Senator Bernie Moreno's exclusive citizenship app as Citizenship Act of twenty twenty five that essentially would divide Americans a sense that if you hold dual citizenship here, you'd have to renounce one of those, either with US or
against US. I guess as the mindset here, but you're talking, I mean little millions of millions of people like yourself that hold dual citizenship, and it's probably difficult enough for you. But you recently became a citizen of the country.
I've seen it. Why Why the hell would you want to come here?
Why wouldn't I? So I could say so much about this, but essentially, I've been in love with America and America's promise and what American represents since I basically first became aware of the existence of America when I was a little kid, and growing up, I realized that America is special. America is different from any other countries. America is different from the country where I was born and the values.
Growing up, I started studying American history and American political philosophy, and I realized what an incredible achievement the American Founding was historically philosophically, it truly is unique in human history. And that is not just an abstract idea. That is something that we see reflecting the freedoms that we enjoy every day. America is literally, and I don't want and
I say this knowing the full meaning of it. America is literally the best most moral country in the world in it Founding principles, and I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to live here and enjoy the freedoms that our amazing Founding values allows us to have. And truly, I am so so proud of in America. And it's honedly an honor.
And I would think that that sediment you just so articularly describe describes a lot of people who hold dual citizenships. And I'm sure someone's listening right now. And the case you just made for becoming in America, which is a difficult thing. It takes a tremendous amount of effort. We're just born to do it. You had to work to get here. I don't know how we could tell someone like you.
No, yeah, I know that. You know, maybe not everybody has studied in detail the political philosophy the United States, but you know, in an implicit manner, they do. I know so many people who are either immigrants to America or that are naturalized citizens, and they do love this country so much, and they do value the freedoms that we have, and this is their country that they actually chose me into America as I'm sure that many people at this point. No, it's not easy to do. It's
really really hard to do it. It's really hard to do it legally, which you know is the only path to becoming a citizen, and we go through all that trouble because we really really value this country. This country is worth it. So yeah, it's really unfair, I think, to you know, to impose this very onerous requirement of people like me who truly love this country.
Yeah.
And the other thing, too is the practical implementation. I mean, okay, it gives you, if this is enacted in past, it gives people like yourself to those citizens one year to pick the United States or the country you also hold citizenship in. But I mean, how do you even do this administratively? It's not like we have a comprehensive database of people who hold foreign citizenship and the light we know you have a you know, your old status here.
But I mean, how would you even go through the notification produce It seems impossible.
Yes, including because there is no registry of who polls the world citizenship for multiple citizenship in America, So how are we going to know? And yeah, it would be a bureaucratic nightmare to do that, and it would be so expensive, it will require so many resources, such payer money, in order to just exclude people who for whatever reason can't make a choice like myself, or just for whatever reason do not want to make a choice. But they are just as American as anybody else.
Yeah, and you're talking about a sizeable amount of the other element here too, is that Okay, let's say maybe you want to again. You go, okay, I'll be in America. I'm going to renounce my Argentinian citizenship. You renounce that. But what if the foreign country simply refused the process that or just it's like okay, well fine, you want to announce. It's going to cost you, I don't know,
two hundred thousand dollars to do that. Or it just takes a lot longer than a year for them to process all that stuff with this, so you can lose your US citizenship. There's no fault her on. I mean, sure, that's a pretty big do process violation, I would think, would you agree.
Yes, absolutely, I agree with that because the status of the other citizenship has nothing to do with whatever the US government decides decides to do. And like in the case of like, like I said, like myself, I literally cannot legally renounce my citizenship because Argentina does not allow it. I will never stop being in Argentinian even if I try, because it is illegal. Like, I literally cannot legally renowned citizenship.
So what do we do there? Should I these strips with my citizenship because of you know, the Argentina a lot, and I'd never chose to be born there. That's that's
not right. And yeah, like you said, it can take a long time to you know, renounce some some other country citizenship, and it might be really expensive and there might be you know, it might require years older, Like there's so many things that can happen that you know, it's not a straightforward process, and that one year deadline, it's really just not going to work.
Yeah, I went down.
I think because you're talking about millions of people here too, and trying to have them process that would be extremely difficult.
I think in a lot of these cases.
So how much is this then, Augustine, do you think this is actually is this just political posturing?
Is this his bluster?
And I mean Bernie Marina proposes this, but does he actually think it as a chance of passing or just does it to offer I guess the core a gesture saying hey, I'm getting tough on immigrants here in the United States. It doesn't seem like, you know, there's a big movement to get this passed, but along all the details we just laid out and probably countless more make it feel like it's an impossibility.
Is this just posturing?
I think there's there has to be some of that, because, like I said, I read the bill. There's really four pages and that's not a lot. And I don't think honestly, when I read the bill, I was expecting to find, you know, a long explanation why we need this. I was expecting to find a longer explanation of how this
is actually going to work. The build laxing details, and that makes me think that there is not a lot of effort put into actually trying to make this to persuade uh, you know, the Congress to pass this bill. So and I know there's obviously there's gonna be if this build is debated, there's going to be like a whole debate and they're going to explain what it's about. But like, I don't see it as a genuine effort to solve a problem because there is no such problem.
Like I said, I think this also comes at a time where immigration is a it's a hot topic. Obviously there is you know a lot of nationalism and rejection of anything foreign, including people. And it comes also at a time where Alcolo administration has been also weaponizing not a citizenship as well. You know, they have threatened some people, including ether Mask himself from you know, you know away
there's citizenship. So it's I think a way of playing into this nationalism that is an e vogue in unfortunate in America right now. And I really, I really think I think this is really awful because even if it doesn't pass, which it will not pass, I can guarantee you that this is scaring a lot of people. I have gotten so many messages from people saying, hey, am I going to have to renounce my US city? Like what's going what's going on? I don't know what to do.
It's really scaring people. And some of the media also, you know, does not do not help because they frame it in a way as if sties were a fact. But this is just a bill. But yeah, it's scaring a lot of people. And I don't I think it's actually introducing this debate right now. It's actually a disservice.
Agree, I agree with. I guess it's it's politics is worse in my opinion. It's just more posturing with no intent of actually anything passed. But it's a gesture to whom I don't know. But I think the country is better people like yourself, you know, provided your you're paying taxes, you're working, you're educated, you're contributing.
That's what we need. I gotta go. I appreciate the time.
Augustina Gergara Seed from the Hill and RCP and Young Voices, thanks again, thank you so much, appreciate it. Let me get a news update and of course we get the weather. We'll get the latest timelines out for you. Here, just seconds away, slowly seven hundred ww