Birthright Citizenship and Dual Citizenship: Harbingers of Administrative Tyranny

Edward J. Erler Co-Author, The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration

Edward J. Erler is professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute. He earned his B.A. from San Jose State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from Claremont Graduate School. He has published numerous articles on constitutional topics in journals such as Interpretation, the Notre Dame Journal of Law, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He was a member of the California Advisory Commission on Civil Rights from 1988-2006 and served on the California Constitutional Revision Commission in 1996. He has testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the issue of birthright citizenship and is the co-author of The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration.

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Dual Citizenship and Decline

The same kind of confusion that has led us to accept birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens has led us to tolerate dual citizenship. We recall that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment specified that those who are naturalized must owe exclusive allegiance to the U.S. to be included within its jurisdiction. And the citizenship oath taken today still requires a pledge of such allegiance. But in practice, dual citizenship—and dual allegiance—is allowed. This is a sign of the decline of American citizenship and of America as a nation-state. It is remarkable that 85 percent of all immigrants arriving in the U.S. come from countries that allow—and encourage—dual citizenship. Dual citizens, of course, give the sending countries a unique political presence in the U.S., and many countries use their dual citizens to promote their own interests by exerting pressure on American policy makers. Such foreign meddling in our internal political affairs has in fact become quite routine.

Thus we have created a situation where a newly naturalized citizen can swear exclusive allegiance to the U.S. while retaining allegiance to a vicious despotism or a theocratic tyranny. Elite liberal opinion has for many years considered the sovereign nation-state as an historical anachronism in an increasingly globalized world. We are assured that human dignity adheres to the individual and does not require the mediation of the nation-state. In this new universe of international norms, demands on the part of the nation-state for exclusive allegiance or for assimilation violate “universal personhood.” In such a universe, citizenship will become superfluous or even dangerous.

Those who advocate open borders tend to share this cosmopolitan view of transnational citizenship. Illegal immigrants, they say, are merely seeking to support their families and improve their lives. Borders, according to them, should not stand in the way of “family values”—those universal “values” that refuse to recognize the importance or relevance of mere political boundaries. Somehow, for those who hold these views, political exclusivity and the requirement of exclusive allegiance are opposed to these universal “values” if not to human decency itself.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon was in California recently pushing for more liberal immigration policies. He assured his fellow citizens who reside in the U.S. that he is “actively working to defend their human rights.” “No matter their immigration status,” Calderon said, “they are human beings with dignity and rights that should be respected. We are working, with the full effort of the [Mexican] government, to bring a halt to the campaigns that harass migrants.”

However much Calderon may be worried about the human rights of his fellow citizens, he is fully cognizant of the fact that Mexico’s economy depends on the remittances of its citizens working abroad. These remittances have become Mexico’s second largest source of revenue, trailing only its rapidly declining oil revenues. It is far easier—and politically safer—for Mexico to export its poverty than to reform its own political and economic system.

We must constantly remind ourselves, however, of the historical fact that constitutional democracy has existed only in the nation-state, and that the demise of the nation-state will almost certainly mean the demise of constitutional democracy. No one believes that the European Union or similar organizations will ever produce constitutional government. Indeed, the EU is well on its way to becoming an administrative tyranny. Nor would the homogeneous world-state—the EU on a global scale—be a constitutional democracy; it would be the administration of “universal personhood” without the inconvenience of having to rely on the consent of the governed.

The doctrine of birthright citizenship and the acceptance of dual citizenship are signs that we in the U.S. are on the verge of reinstituting feudalism and replacing citizenship with the master-servant relationship. The continued vitality of the nation-state and of constitutional government depends on the continued vitality of citizenship, which carries with it exclusive allegiance to what the Declaration calls a “separate and equal” nation.

Unless we recover an understanding of the foundations of citizenship, we will find ourselves in a world where there are subjects but no citizens.