The following article was based on legislation before Congress (S. 1698 and H.R. 3166) termed the “Enemy Expatriation Act.” Under this new legislation, the government would more easily be able to divest citizens of their nationality, and in so doing, would then be able to apply the full forces of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) against them.
America in Exile?—The Enemy Expatriation Act
In what now seems to be an unending stream of legislation brought about as part of the so-called “war on terrorism,” new legislation introduced in Congress recently will allow the government to strip you of your citizenship if it decides it is in the country’s best interests.
Introduced as S. 1698 and H.R. 3166 by co-sponsors Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Congressman Charles Dent (R-PA), the Enemy Expatriation Act will give the government the power to strip Americans of their citizenship without having to convict them of being “hostile” against the United States. What this means is that anyone can be stripped of their citizenship for “engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States.” For the purpose of the bill, ‘hostilities’ is defined to mean any conflict subject to the laws of war, but considering the ambiguity of the “war on terrorism,” almost any action could be interpreted as supporting terrorism.
Constitutional lawyers Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson point out, “The American people are constantly being reminded that the nation is at war against terrorism, albeit undeclared by Congress, and against an as-yet-to-be-defined enemy. Anyone voicing opposition to the war in Afghanistan, or contributing to an Islamic charitable organization, is thus in jeopardy of being charged with committing the expatriating act set forth in these two bills.”
The Enemy Expatriation Act follows on the heels of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and is designed to “add engaging or supporting hostilities against the United States to the list of acts for which United States nationals would lose their nationality.” With the term “supporting hostilities” so loosely defined, it allows the government widespread interpretation as to what actually constitutes “supporting hostilities.” Additionally, once stripped of citizenship, a non-citizen would not have the same rights as a citizen, and would be subject to the full force of the NDAA. It appears that this new bill may be the loophole by which the government can indefinitely detain Americans.
According to Titus and Olson, “These bills are inconsistent with current law and Supreme Court precedent. They appear to be tailored to cow the American people, without regard for the 14th-Amendment guarantee prohibiting Congress from divesting an American citizen of his citizenship.” It would appear the government, rather than protecting us from abuses against our liberty, may be leading the charge.
S.1698 and H.R. 3166 differ from current law regarding expatriation in that these new bills would make it easier for the government to strip Americans of their citizenship. “Six of the seven expatriating acts in the current law require proof of formal actions—either a direct renunciation of citizenship, or a similar act unmistakably demonstrating a change of allegiance to another country. These bills would require neither. Rather, they describe a newly minted offense, the commission of which may give rise to the inference of an intent to renounce citizenship, but without requiring any direct evidence of such an intent,” state Titus and Olson.
Under current law, before a person is divested of their citizenship, that person must be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of one or more criminal acts in a “court governed by procedural safeguards of trial by jury.” Under the newly proposed bill, the government would only be required to provide a preponderance of evidence, that is, “just enough evidence to make it more likely than not that the fact the claimant seeks to prove is true.” In other words, you could be accused of engaging in or supporting hostilities any way the government decides to define it, and then the government could strip you of your citizenship and apply indefinite detention per the NDAA without convicting you in a court of law.
Expatriation is not a civil matter. It is a very serious criminal punishment—and anyone charged with renouncing their citizenship, according to Titus and Olson, “should be entitled to all the criminal procedures secured by the Bill of Rights. Nothing less will satisfy due process of law. S.1698 and H.R. 3166 move the nation in just the opposite direction, adding more uncertainty where more precision is needed. If American citizenship is to be protected against involuntary forfeiture, government officials must be reminded that in America, the People, not the government, are sovereign.”
What would the Founding Fathers think of such legislation? And how would they feel knowing that “We the People” have stood idly by allowing such atrocities against our liberty to be enacted against us, with only minimal public outrage and opposition? Somehow this experiment in democracy is going totally awry. As historian Carl Becker wrote, “If the framers of the Constitution could come back and see what the federal government is doing today, they would all agree that this monstrous thing was no child of theirs; for to-day the federal government exercises as a matter of course powers which they never dreamed of.”
Share this post...
