Can Your Passport Be Taken Away?

If you’ve ever taken the time to read through your passport you’ll likely have noticed the following…

“THIS PASSPORT IS THE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT. IT MUST BE SURRENDERED UPON DEMAND MADE BY AN AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE.”

Now, it’s highly unlikely that the U.S. government should ever come to reclaim it… unless you happen to be under investigation (in which case you have bigger problems) or dead (in which case you’re unlikely to mind)… but the fact remains that while it’s yours to use, you don’t actually own it in the traditional sense.

When you hand over your passport fee what you get in return is a conditional document granting you travel privileges, not outright possession.

For this and many other reasons—among them personal freedom, the right to live (no questions asked) in another country, and easier and broader travel options—I’ve long extolled the benefits of getting a second, heck, even a third or fourth passport.

I have two—my U.S. passport and an Irish one, obtained during the seven years I spent living in Ireland. After all, as long the countries involved allow dual citizenship—which both the U.S. and Ireland do—why not?

Well, according to Colombia-born Ohio-based Republican Senator Bernie Moreno… “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.”

Bernie has just introduced the Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, a bill which seeks to ban dual U.S. citizenship. Under it, Americans with foreign nationalities would be ordered to renounce their previous citizenship(s) within a year or forfeit their U.S. status, demanding as it does, “sole and exclusive allegiance” to America.

Moreno, who came to the U.S. from Colombia 40 years ago and ultimately relinquished his Colombian citizenship, said that becoming a U.S. citizen was one of the greatest honors of his life, adding that current laws allowing foreign citizenship “could create conflicts of interest.”

Born or made, it is indeed an honor to be an American citizen… but the implication that holding a second passport creates some nefarious conflict of interest in the estimated 40 million U.S. dual citizens is as ill-thought out as the bill itself.

For starters, there’s the legal element. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Afroyim v. Rusk and Vance v. Terrazas, citizenship cannot be taken away without an individual’s voluntary, intentional act and Congress cannot redefine “intent” through deadlines, making the bill, according to legal experts, almost certainly unconstitutional.

It also lacks bipartisan support and endorsement from congressional leadership. Legislative forecasting models put the probability of the bill’s enactment at a paltry 3%.

For now, it remains a solo introduction by Moreno with no co-sponsors listed. Plus, it’s hard to see The White House getting behind a bill that directly impacts two of its residents…

First Lady Melania Trump is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Slovenia, as is her son Barron.

And then there’s the paperwork… Renouncing your U.S. citizenship—an option a good chunk of the estimate 40 million U.S. dual citizens would likely take should the bill become law—requires not only forms and questionnaires but also in-person appointments.

Currently the number of cases in in the renunciation appointment backlog is more than 30,000… and the annual capacity is 5,000 cases. Adding in a few million more cases simply isn’t feasible and essentially makes the proposal impossible to implement.

Finally, there’s the tax implications… if millions of U.S. citizens living in the U.S. opted to renounce and go elsewhere, the loss of federal income and payroll taxes as well as long-term losses of capital-gains and estate-tax revenue could run into the billions. Hardly a smart move for the government.

So, in short, Bernie’s bill is most likely a nothingburger that nobody ordered, wanted, or is likely to swallow.

My advice remains the same, get a second passport and stay diversified.

Lief Simon
Editor, Offshore Living Letter