A Case Against Noncitizen Voting

Previous posts have discussed ideas about noncitizen voting. At Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall writes about a New York City Council proposal to let noncitizens vote in municipal elections.

To me, it’s definitely a bad idea. That’s not, I hope it’s clear, because I’m anti-immigrant. I’m very pro-reform and pro-legalization. But citizenship itself is a critical thing to me — and I suspect that opinion is shared by many residents and currently undocumented immigrants who are clamoring to get a chance to join the club.

I’ve written about this several times in the past. But I believe in what I think of as ‘thick citizenship’, a robust bundle of rights and responsibilities. Being a citizen of the United States isn’t just a matter of carrying a US passport or being able to vote. It’s much more foundational than that. It’s a commitment to a political community, albeit a vastly large one. And it’s because of that that I don’t think there should be such a thing as dual citizenship. In my mind it’s almost a contradiction in terms.

To me, thick citizenship is really at the root of our equality as Americans. The mix of rights and responsibilities that come with it are what makes the Salvadoran immigrant every bit as much an American as someone whose ancestors have been here for centuries. We’re all equal because we’ve all made the same commitment as citizens. Being an American citizen also matters for how you’re taxed and where you keep your money.

That’s what makes the plutocrat who renounces his citizenship for tax purposes really execrable and someone who I don’t think should be allowed ever to enter the country again.

Particularly as our society becomes more economically stratified, citizenship is the sheet anchor of what keeps us fundamentally equal, at least in key ways. It’s the basis of every citizens claim on the larger national community. If our citizenship isn’t common, what really connects the affluent educated New Yorker who can live or work anywhere on the globe to an impoverished young woman in South Texas with none of those freedoms or opportunities?

If Latin American immigrants maintain citizenship in the countries of their birth, doesn’t that undermine the claim to full equality here?

Knesset Member to Give Up American Citizenship

Previous posts have discussed dual citizenship and expatriation. The recent Israeli election brings both topics to the fore. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports:

A dual American-Israeli citizen who was elected to the Knesset will have to give up his American citizenship when he takes office.

Rabbi Dov Lipman, elected Jan. 22 to the Knesset from the Yesh Atid party, is the third US citizen to serve in the Knesset and the first to voluntarily give up his citizenship, Haaretz reported.

Lipman is No. 17 on the list of the party headed by former television personality Yair Lapid; the party garnered the second highest vote total.

Lipman, of Beit Shemesh, immigrated to Israel from Silver Spring, Md., eight years ago.

Rabbi Meir Kahane was stripped of his US citizenship in 1984 after being sworn in to the Knesset. His attempts to regain his US citizenship failed.

Other Israeli Americans who gave up their citizenship to serve the Israeli government include Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel, and Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador in Washington.

Israel’s Basic Law requires that a Knesset member with a second citizenship do “everything required on his part to be released from such citizenship.”

See State Department guidance on potentially expatriating acts.

Dual Citizenship and the Olympics

An earlier post dealt with citizenship and Olympic competition. The National Post reports:

A Canadian has become America’s biggest hope to lead the nation’s swim team at the London Olympics.

On Monday, Missy Franklin, 17, a high school senior in Centennial, Colo., with dual citizenship, won the gold medal for the United States in the 100-metre backstroke.

The performance set a U.S. record of 58.33 seconds and bested Emily Seebohm of Australia (58.68 seconds) and Japan’s Aya Terakawa (58.83 seconds).
...


Both Ms. Franklin’s parents were born in Canada. Her mother, D.A., is a physician from Halifax, and her father, Richard, a director at a clean-technology organization, is from St. Catharines, Ont.

Although the teenager, nicknamed Missy the Missile, chose to swim for the States, she said her “favourite place in the entire world” is Pictou, N.S., where she digs for clam and grills oysters while vacationing with her parents. Her first international meet was in Vancouver when she was 13.

Dual Citizenship

At The New York Times, "Room for Debate" has a symposium on dual citizenship.

Temple University Professor Peter Spiro:

Dual citizenship poses few concrete problems as the world moves away from zero-sum competition among states. Acceptance of the status allows the many individuals with multiple national attachments to actuate those identities. In this respect, dual citizenship represents a kind of freedom of association, a form of voluntary affiliation to be protected, not condemned.

Mark Krikorian of the  Center for Immigration Studies:

 Just as membership in a marriage entails an exclusive relationship, so does membership in a national community. Despite the multiple connections and loyalties we all have, a person can have only one ultimate political allegiance, be the member of one "We the people." Anything else is, in Theodore Roosevelt's words, a "self-evident absurdity."

University of Miami Professor David Abraham:

The increased mobility of people, goods and money has been creating a larger and larger population of dual citizens in the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America and around the world. With some countries allocating citizenship on the basis of birthplace and others on the basis of descent, dual citizenship is inevitable. 

University of Toronto Professor Ayelet Shachar:

 The strategic value of dual nationality is immense. It allows emigrants to establish and maintain connections between their old and new home countries — connections that can generate significant knowledge transfers, remittances, and future investments. It may also mitigate the “brain drain” associated with the unidirectional movement of migrants, especially the highly skilled, from poorer to richer countries.

Brown University Professor José Itzigsohn:

 The United States does not officially recognize dual citizenship, but it does not take action against it either. I believe this to be a correct policy. Evidence suggests that dual citizenship does not delay the identification of immigrants with the receiving country. Migration does not imply an abrupt break with the country of origin and an immediate identification with the new country. This process takes time as migrants naturally keep an emotional attachment to the place in which they were born. This has always been the case, now and in the past, here and in other countries.

Dual Citizens

Dual citizenship, the subject of a "Deliberation, Citizenship, and You" box in our chapter on American citizenship, is in the news. A New York Times item on US Olympic hockey coach Ron Wilson notes:

He grew up in Fort Erie, Ontario, across the Peace Bridge from Buffalo, where his father, Larry, skated for the Bisons of the American Hockey League for 13 seasons, longer than any other player.

He holds dual citizenship but said, “even though I was born in Canada, I’m as proud as any American can be.”

On Fox, Chris Wallace had this exchange with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, who said that she would not run for president:

WALLACE: Yes, that's true. We should point out Governor Granholm is a Canadian and cannot run for president.

GRANHOLM: I'm American. I've got dual citizenship.

WALLACE: Who are you rooting for in the Olympics?

GRANHOLM: U.S., come on!

WALLACE: OK. There you go. Anyway, they're doing--

GRANHOLM: I left Canada when I was four. Come on.