Constraining Denaturalization
| Author | Patti Tamara Lenard |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321720964666 |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720964666
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(2) 367 –384
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720964666
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Constraining Denaturalization
Patti Tamara Lenard
Abstract
Citizenship has been treated, since World War II, as a robust political and legal status. Recent
political events have prompted the reassessment of the conditions under which it can be justly
removed, however. Using the lens of democratic theory, I consider one particular instance of
denationalization, namely, the withdrawal of citizenship from naturalized citizens when the granting
state believes that the applicant ‘misrepresented’ themselves, that is, engaged in some form of
deception, during the process of naturalization. There is an intuitive plausibility to the thought that
if an applicant for citizenship lies or fails to provide all of the requested information, she should
be denied citizenship. It seems equally plausible that, if citizenship status is nevertheless granted
under these conditions, it can be permissibly removed. However, I argue that this conclusion is
too quick: to be permissible, denaturalization procedures must be significantly constrained, in the
ways that I outline.
Keywords
denaturalization, denationalization, fraud, misrepresentation
Accepted: 10 September 2020
Constraining Denaturalization
Citizenship is a robust political and legal status. Especially in democracies, citizens
possess an extensive range of rights, and their state is charged with protecting citizens’
capacity to exercise them (Spiro, 2019a). It is conventional to say that this has been true
since the end of World War II, when framers of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights responded to the denationalization of Jews and others in Nazi Germany by declar-
ing the right to nationality to be a human right that could not be arbitrarily withdrawn
from citizens. The use of the term arbitrarily has proven controversial, but its addition to
the Declaration served to recognize that there will be cases in which sovereign states may
possess good reasons to withdraw citizenship. Recent political events have prompted the
reassessment of the conditions under which citizenship can be justly removed, however,
most recently whether it can be justly removed as punishment for, or to protect against,
terrorism (Barry and Ferracioli, 2015; Birnie and Bauböck, 2020; Macklin, 2015). In this
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Corresponding author:
Patti Tamara Lenard, 120 University Private, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1N 6N5.
Email: plenard@uottawa.ca
964666PCX0010.1177/0032321720964666Political StudiesLenard
research-article2020
Article
368 Political Studies 70(2)
article, and using the lens of analytic political theory, I consider one particular instance of
denationalization, that is, the withdrawal of citizenship from naturalized citizens when
the granting state believes that the applicant ‘misrepresented’ themselves, that is, engaged
in some form of deception, during the process of naturalization.
There is an intuitive plausibility to the thought that if, during the application proce-
dure, an applicant for citizenship lies or fails to provide all of the requested information,
she can fairly be denied citizenship. And, it seems equally plausible that, if citizenship
status is nevertheless granted under these conditions, it can be permissibly (i.e. not arbi-
trarily) removed; one party to the agreement was not forthcoming, and so the status was
granted on the basis of false or inadequate information, and can thereby be removed. In
what follows, however, I argue that this conclusion is too quick. Rather, I aim to show that
denaturalization procedures, to be permissible, must be significantly constrained.1 As a
result, the vast majority of cases of denaturalization are patently unjust.
In what follows, I begin with some contextual information to explain the focus on
denaturalization and why this focus should be treated as worrisome. I then unpack the
variety of acts and omissions that are included in the larger category of ‘misrepresenta-
tion’, to notice that they differ with respect to whether the misrepresentation is minor or
severe, whether it is relevant to the granting of citizenship as well as to the initial admis-
sion to territory, and whether it is intended to obscure an applicant’s identity or past
actions (or, often, both). This discussion highlights the vast range of actions and omis-
sions that are included in the category ‘misrepresentation’, and shows that many of them
are ultimately relatively minor from a moral point of view. Next, I outline the constraints
that must frame any fair and fitting use of denaturalization: it may not render someone
stateless; it is subject to a proportionality assessment, which means that it may not be
implemented when the impact on the individual, and her children, is severe; and it must
be subject to a statute of limitations. Here, I outline one permissible exception, in the case
of individuals who commit crimes that would, had they come to light earlier, have ren-
dered them ineligible for admission to the territory in the first place.
(Why) Should We Worry about Denaturalization?
Denaturalization is the term used to remove citizenship from an individual who has natu-
ralized into citizenship, including refugee arrivals, high-skilled migrant arrivals and
even irregular migrants who have managed to convert their status to citizenship. It is one
among many types of denationalization, which is a broader term for when a state with-
draws citizenship status. So, denaturalization targets immigrants but not naturally born
citizens, who in turn may, in some situations, be subject to denationalization. In discus-
sions of denaturalization, and denationalization more generally, a key question is the
justice of laws that target only those dual citizens who have acquired their citizenship via
immigration. Doing so appears to create a fundamental inequality between citizens
based on the source of their citizenship, since only those who naturalize into citizenship
can reasonably be subject to expulsion following citizenship removal; this is especially
problematic in states that promise to protect all citizens equally, that is, to make no dif-
ferentiation between naturalized and natural-born citizens. For example, as Matthew
Gibney notes, the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution makes this commitment
expressly, saying ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they
reside’. This amendment has been interpreted to mean there exist no relevant or legal
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