What Do You Have to Do to Lose U.S. Citizenship?

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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A recent event in North Korea forces us to confront the question of retaining or losing one’s citizenship. A CNN reporter interviewed three American citizens being held in captivity there, one for nearly two years now.

Two of the captives don’t concern us here, but the case of the third captive, 24-year-old Matthew Miller, does. His case goes beyond curious. Although described by high school colleagues as extremely bright, he comes across as callow and arrogant in his CNN interview. Among other things, he says “This interview is my final chance to push the American government to help me,” and “there’s been no movement from my government.”

These are infuriating statements coming from a young man who enrolled in an organized tour of the secretive North and, upon arrival at Pyongyang’s airport, tore up his travel documents and demanded asylum. To be clear, it wasthe United States he asked the North Koreans to protect him from. Doubtless, they thought him an agent provocateur and instead of considering the request, immediately threw him in irons.

During the interview, one cannot help but notice Miller’s accent. The news stories make clear he grew up in California, but are silent on any possible foreign birth. It could simply be that he speaks oddly.

But, whether Miller is native-born or not, the question that begs to be asked is this: Why should we, as a government or a society, buy into this young adult’s demand that he be bailed out from between the rock and hard place where he put himself, by a nation that he specifically rejected in favor of North Korea?

Under current rules, it is unlikely that his actions amount to conduct that would permit the United States to conclude that he abandoned (“relinquished”) his citizenship and is now an expatriate to whom our government owes nothing. (The Center has published on the related issue of denaturalizing naturalized citizens here.) The bar for a finding of relinquishment is high, in part because of a previous Supreme Court decision in the case of Afroyim v. Rusk, but also in part because the U.S. government has since drafted even more stringent rules governing a finding of conduct that expresses a clear and voluntary intent to relinquish citizenship. In this light, one can think of no more perfect example than a man who, with considerable forethought and planning, methodically goes about the steps necessary to enter the territory of one of the most repressive regimes in the world and then ask them to grant him asylum from the United States.

That he was unsuccessful in his bid is of no moment; that was because of the North Koreans, not because he had a last-minute change of mind. And now he arrogantly demands help of the country from which he sought asylum, and asserts our government hasn’t done enough to help him out?

If Miller’s conduct doesn’t evidence adequate intent under present rules to deem that he has abandoned his citizenship then perhaps the rules need to be reconsidered.

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