Rethinking Dual Citizenship in the Post-Sept. 11 World

Newhouse News ^

[RCW2001]

Rethinking Dual Citizenship in the Post-Sept. 11 World

By JONATHAN TILOVE

c.2002 Newhouse News Service

Beys Afroyim was a radical modernist painter. Shawn Pine is an expert in military intelligence. What they have in common, aside from being Jewish, is that both were dual citizens of the United States and Israel who, in turn, defined the possibilities and limits of dual citizenship in America.

Afroyim was the petitioner in the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that opened the door to millions of Americans now holding citizenships in any of nearly 100 other nations across the globe that permit it.

But Pine, a major in the Army reserves, last fall saw his top secret U.S. security clearance revoked precisely because he was also a citizen of Israel. He regained his clearance only after surrendering his Israeli passport.

In absolute numbers, persons holding both U.S. and Israeli citizenship are a tiny portion of Americans who can claim the citizenship of more than one country. But dual U.S.-Israeli identity has always been central to sorting out the political, legal and moral meaning of dual nationality, and would be central to any attempt, post-Sept. 11, to regulate the exercise of multiple citizenship.

"Jews were the people with whom dual citizenship first arose in the United States," said Stanley Renshon, "and there has always been an accusation that Jews are not to be trusted because they have this dual citizenship."

Renshon, a scholar of political psychology at the City University of New York, is writing a book, "The 50 Percent American: National Identity in the Global Age."

He believes that simmering concerns about dual citizenship will bubble up in the post-9/11 environment. "I think the whole issue of American identity and national attachment is central in a way that it has not been in my lifetime, and I'm 58," he said.

Beys Afroyim, born in Poland in 1893, immigrated to the United States at 19. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1926, and later emerged as a New York painter of some renown.

When, in 1950, the new nation of Israel enacted the Law of Return, granting citizenship to any Jew who wanted to make "aliya," Afroyim was among 761 Americans who moved to Israel that same year. But in 1960 he was unable to renew his American passport, told he had forfeited his citizenship when he voted "in a foreign state."

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed. In its landmark 5-4 decision, Afroyim v. Rusk, the court declared that an American has "a constitutional right to remain a citizen in a free country unless he voluntarily relinquishes that citizenship."

For the rest of his life Afroyim divided his time between an artist colony in Israel and New York's Staten Island, where, in 1984, he died and is buried.

Before the Afroyim decision in 1967 there was only one year in which U.S. immigration to Israel exceeded 1,000. Between 1969 and 1973 nearly 30,000 made aliya, and there was fury in the Arab world when American citizens began serving in the Israeli military.

Since 1985, about 1,800 Americans a year move to Israel, according to Rutgers University sociologist Chaim Waxman, author of "American Aliya," but close to 40 percent eventually return home.

Altogether, Waxman estimates that about 70,000 American dual citizens now live in Israel (a nation of more than 6 million). But he believes that without the right to retain American citizenship, "you would have close to nothing." In fact, he said, Israelis increasingly seek second citizenships in the United States and Europe, including Germany, just in case. There are almost certainly more dual U.S.-Israel citizens living in the United States than in Israel.

U.S.-Israel dual citizenship has become a fact of life. In key Israeli elections, planeloads of dual citizens fly to Israel to vote -- absentee ballots are only for those abroad on official government business. In the 2000 presidential election in the United States, the Gore campaign pinned some of its fading hopes in the tortured Florida recount on the absentee ballots arriving from Israel.

George Washington University professor Amitai Etzioni, who moved to the United States to attend graduate school, said he still uses his Israeli passport when traveling there because the Israelis make it virtually impossible to relinquish it.

Etzioni, who was a senior adviser in the Carter White House, said dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship is not a problem "as long as there is a clear priority of loyalty."

Shawn Pine, 43, grew up in the United States, the son of a sergeant major who served 30 years in the U.S. Army. On retirement, the family moved to Israel. Pine was nearly 17. Conscripted, he served three years in the Israel Defense Force's Golani Brigade.

Pine returned to the United States to study at Georgetown University, then spent nine years in the U.S. Army, eventually commanding a counterintelligence detachment.

After leaving the Army in 1994, Pine pursued his doctorate at Hebrew University in Israel and while there was called for reserve duty. He said he explained his background in military intelligence to Israeli and U.S. authorities, and was advised by both to do his duty. He spent 30 days in 1996 patrolling the Israel-Jordan border, and voted in the Israeli elections, for the first and only time, that year.

On his return to the United States, Pine joined the active reserve and was given command of the 300th Military Intelligence Company, a linguistic unit, based in San Antonio.

After a routine background check, the Army last fall yanked Pine's security clearance. He was advised that his dual citizenship and possession of an Israeli passport created concern that he might favor Israel, where his mother still lives, over the United States.

Pine believes he was singled out because some in the Army look at him and see "another Jonathan Pollard," the Navy Intelligence analyst in prison for passing secrets to Israel. Lt. Col. Stan Heath, an Army spokesman, denies that and says about 25 soldiers a year lose security clearances over dual citizenships of all kinds.

Pine said that during the course of his career his first loyalty to the United States had been tested and proved, and noted that once he knew it was a problem, he surrendered his Israeli passport. In May, he won his appeal to an Army board. His security clearance was restored, but Pine said the damage was done.

Pine, who is affiliated with the pro-Israel Freeman Center for Strategic Studies in Houston and the hard-line Ariel Center for Policy Research in Israel, said he lost private sector counterterrorism assignments after Sept. 11 because of the cloud on his reputation.

"The intelligence community is a very small community," he said.

But University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson said that, "After Sept. 11, I would be quite surprised if the United States did not follow the practice they apparently did with Pine." In the new world situation, he said, "It's quite possible American and Israeli interests could diverge.'

Renshon, himself Jewish, believes Congress should enact penalties, short of loss of citizenship, to keep Americans from voting in foreign elections or serving in foreign armies. He knows many American Jews would object, but believes it is in their interest to remove the "slender thread" of suspicion cast upon their patriotism.

Mark Richter, a Labor Department attorney who lives in Silver Spring, Md., plans to make aliya next year with his wife and three children. "We're proud American citizens," Richter said.

At 35, he is too old for military service. He thinks he would be reluctant to continue to vote in U.S. elections, expecting his first loyalty to shift to Israel. But he also believes that, in his case, "what is in the interest of one country is in the interest of the other."

"Would it possible for somebody to be a citizen of Iraq and the United States?" Richter wondered. "Probably not."

(Jonathan Tilove can be contacted at jonathan.tilove@newhouse.com)

[Wonder Warthog]

Dual citizenship is bull-bleep. Either you are an American citizen, or you aren't. Loss of American citizenship should be automatic with obtaining citizenship in another country--no matter WHICH country.

[monkeyshine]

"Jews were the people with whom dual citizenship first arose in the United States," said Stanley Renshon, "and there has always been an accusation that Jews are not to be trusted because they have this dual citizenship."

Jews have always been considered by some to be untrustworthy to their country, even before Israel was founded. Now with the creation of Israel, this canard is supposed to gain legitimacy? I don't think so.

The topic of dual nationality has been decided by the US Supreme Court. Nationality is simply a matter of law.

According to US law, a person born in the USA, or born to American citizens in a foreign land is an American. According to French law, a person born in France or to a French citizen is French. A Jewish person can acquire Israeli citizenship no matter where he/she is born. As you can infer, it is very easy to acquire dual citizenship, or even triple or quadruple citizenships. A Jewish person born on US soil to a French father is born with 3 nationalities which are his for the taking, and this is sanctioned by the US Supreme Court rulings.

[monkeyshine]

It's not a question of "obtaining" citizenship somewhere else. By the virtue of who you were born to, you are born with citizenships. It could be 1, 2, 3 or 4 citizenships automatically upon your birth, depending on the laws of the various countries.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Thank you, monkeyshine,

I fail to understand all this hysteria and hatred at times on FR about having more than one passport. It is legal; it is a measure of safety (yes, it can save your life); and it simplifies traveling. It has nothing to do with lack of love for America or whatever it's suppose to do to one's brain.

[ExpandNATO]

By this reasoning a hell of a lot of refugees from Soviet Communism and their descendants would have lost their United States citizenships, simply because the Soviet Union decided to expand the definition of citizenship to include anyone who had ever been living on territory conquered by it and their descendants.

The reason was to make it easier to dispose of anyone trying to protest the Soviet Union at the Moscow olympics

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Among frequently asked questions about dual citizenship, read the following:

Question:

Isn't there something inherently unethical about being a dual citizen? I mean, how can you be a loyal American and at the same time owe allegiance to another country? "No man can serve two masters", and all that.

Answer:

This is a question of political philosophy, which I won't presume to argue. The fact remains, though, that the Supreme Court has ruled dual citizenship is legal -- and Congress has amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to reflect that reality -- and the State Department now finally appears to be at peace with the concept as well -- so it's now a firmly entrenched part of the law of the land.

[Wonder Warthog]

"It's not a question of "obtaining" citizenship somewhere else. By the virtue of who you were born to, you are born with citizenships. It could be 1, 2, 3 or 4 citizenships automatically upon your birth, depending on the laws of the various countries."

I spoke unclearly. What I mean is that if one voluntarily EXERCISES any aspect of those "birth citizenships" while an American citizen, one should LOSE that American citizenship. You are either a loyal American, or you aren't. FI, an American citizen (Jewish) who serves in the Israeli army under his "dual" citizenship, or a Mexican US citizen who nonetheless votes in the Mexican elections under THEIR "dual" citizenship. Hatred has zip to do with it.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The fact remains, though, that the Supreme Court has ruled dual citizenship is legal -- and Congress has amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to reflect that reality -- and the State Department now finally appears to be at peace with the concept as well -- so it's now a firmly entrenched part of the law of the land."

The government has done a lot of stuff that is both wrong and stupid.

[monkeyshine]

I don't think I used the word hate. But, to use your example, the US Supreme Court has already ruled that voting in a foreign election is not enough of an expatriating act to lose your citizenship.

You can lose your citizenship, but you have to practically renounce it, in writing, on foreign soil, to lose it. They couldn't even strip Jihad Johnny Walker of his citizenship for his acts.

[monkeyshine]

I agree the government has done a lot of wrong and stupid things. But these are a question of perspective. I think the WOD is wrong and stupid, maybe you do or don't, the point is that to the USA it is not wrong, stupid or unconstitutional.

According to the USA, whatever the USA does that is ruled legal by the US Supreme Court is neither wrong or stupid but perfectly legal. Maybe that is wrong and stupid, too... but that's just the way it is for now.

[glc1173@aol.com]

The issue post-9/11 isn't dual Israeli-American citizenship, dammit.

The issue is why any nation would tolerate large numbers - or any number - of aliens from hostile societies living within its borders. That means why Washington allows any Iranians, Arabs, or other Moslems at all to have visas or to remain.

I say:

DEPORTEMALLLETALLAHSORTEMOUT !

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

You are correct.

Again, among frequently asked questions about voting when one is a dual citizen, read the following:

Question:

I am a dual US/Canadian citizen by birth. I was once told that if I ever voted in either an American or a Canadian election, I would lose citizenship in the other country. Is this true?

Answer:

No. Neither US nor Canadian citizenship law says anything about losing citizenship as a result of voting in an election in another country.

Note that US law used to mandate loss of US citizenship for voting in a foreign election. However, this provision was struck down by the Supreme Court in Afroyim v. Rusk and was repealed by Congress in 1978.

Canada's current Citizenship Act (in force since 1977) says nothing at all about voting in foreign elections and loss of citizenship. If you are a citizen of some country other than Canada, of course, you will need to check the laws of that country in order to find out if you could endanger your citizenship in that country by voting in a US election.

Incidentally, US citizens living abroad (whether or not they happen to be dual citizens) should be aware that they may be legally entitled to vote in US federal elections. Even if you have not had any residential ties to the US for years and have no plans to return, you may still vote in federal elections based on your last place of residence before moving away from the US. In such cases, federal law prohibits your former state from declaring you a resident for state tax purposes simply because you have exercised this right to vote in a federal election. For more information on how to register and vote from outside the US, contact the nearest US embassy or consulate, or visit the Web site of the Federal Voting Assistance Program at www.fvap.ncr.gov.

[lavaroise]

All I know is that US citizenship forces one to bear arms for the nation in case of need, and it also forbids one from serving in a foreign army unless caught and coerced to do so by the Foreign nation of citizenship. Not doing this means the US citizenship will be revoked. I actualy know a guy who has no citizenship because he lost his unique US citizenship by admiting he went to a foreign army one summer to pay for college. He is in a very awkward position.

Now with this Islam is peace bull, while we know any muslim can enter any muslim country and serve it, we are in a difficult situation.

[monkeyshine]

You must be reading from the dual citizen faq from that Canadian fella. I learned a lot from that site many years ago.

[Robert Drobot]

"now a firmly entrenched part of the law of the land."

Pretty heady words bucko. Judicial creation of new law is only as "....firmly entrenched...." as the composition of the next series of appointees who think themselves supreme.

Actually, when you consider which has the greater positive impact on America:
- the kind of manure created by all three branches of government, and
- the kind of manure created by cows and horses
You've got to admit America is better off relying on cows and horses.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Hey, Monkeyshine!!! How did you know? You're not playing fair!!! Just kidding. Yes, I am taking it from the FAQ. I thought it would be interesting to the rest of the readers.

Here’s more:

Question:

But doesn't serving in a foreign army result in automatic loss of US citizenship?

Answer:

No. As explained above, essentially nothing causes automatic loss of US citizenship any more. If you join a foreign army, you can lose your US citizenship if you acted with the intent of giving it up. Otherwise, you can still keep it.

Current US law says that foreign military service will result in loss of US citizenship if the person served as an officer (commissioned or non-commissioned) or the foreign military force is engaged in hostilities against the US; the service was voluntary; and (most importantly) the person intended to give up his US citizenship.

Current US policy goes further. Unless a dual citizen is serving in a "policy level position" in a foreign government, commits treason against the US (e.g., by fighting the US voluntarily during wartime), or acts in a manner considered totally inconsistent with any possible intent to keep US citizenship, the State Department is unlikely to take any action. Further, the current policy statement on foreign military service recognizes that dual citizens sometimes find themselves legally obligated to participate in the military forces of their other country of citizenship, and can do so in such situations without endangering their US status.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Very well stated.

[foreverfree]

Jews have always been considered by some to be untrustworthy to their country

Are you talking about American Jews being considered untrustworthy to America, or is "country" in this case an "insert country name here" case?

foreverfree

[monkeyshine]

In the general sense, Jews have usually been considered less than loyal citizens to whatever nation they have lived in by swaths of the public if not the government itself.

There is no question in my mind that America has been the greatest nation to the Jewish people (and to just about any other people) in all time throughout the world, but even the tendency to distrust them permeates segments of American culture.