Senator Ted Cruz is renewing his push to pull the citizenship of any American who goes abroad to join ISIS, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Sen. Cruz (R-TX) suggests that, since the 9-11 attack, 124 citizens or green card holders have traveled to the Middle East to join terrorist organizations. If passed, his bill would deny similar people re-entry, by suspending their passports.
But constitutional law expert Prof. Gerald Treece at the South Texas College of Law says the Supreme Court has already ruled that this type of legislation is unconstitutional.
“The Supreme Court has made it very clear is that the only way you can lose your citizenship is by voluntarily doing so,” he tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI. “There is even a government form to do it.”
He points to the landmark case, Afroyim v. Rusk. The Court ruled that citizens of the United States may not be deprived of their citizenship involuntarily. It involved a man born in Poland, who was a naturalized U.S. citizen. He was in danger of losing his citizenship because he had cast a vote in an Israeli election. The justices ultimately decided that his right to retain his citizenship was guaranteed by the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
“Once you get citizenship, you’re on top of the mountain,” Treece says. “You can climb off the mountain but you can’t be forced off the mountain.”
Cruz’s bill would allow due process for anyone who lost their citizenship.
They would be afforded a hearing to challenge the decision.Both Cruz’s bill and the companion bill, filed by Rep. Steve King (R-IA), refer to a process to revoke the citizenship of anyone who joins a foreign army at war with the United States.
Treece doubts the bill will get any more traction, now that Donald Trump is president. He says it’s clear from the rulings on a travel ban that the judiciary is not in the mood to make radical change.