It’s important for citizens to know if their representatives have dual citizenship because both real and apparent conflicts of interest erode public trust.
Are there any members of Congress who are dual citizens of the U.S. and another country? Possibly. In 2014, Senator Ted Cruz and then Representative Michelle Bachman attracted wide press coverage when they renounced their Canadian and Swiss nationalities respectively. Yet there is nothing in the public record that discloses the foreign citizenship of House and Senate members. Nor is there any legal requirement for members to make such a disclosure.
It seems that even the question of who is or may be a dual citizen presses a red button. Some years back I telephoned the DC office of one of my senators for help in identifying Members of Congress who hold dual citizenship. After a long pause, the response was unequivocal: “You are not entitled to that information!” The offices of my other senator and congressman were no more helpful, while two nonprofits promoting ethics in government failed to return my voice messages summarizing the issue.
Until the Supreme Court decided otherwise in the 1967 case of Afroyim v. Rusk, a U.S. citizen who voted in a political election in a foreign state would lose his or her U.S. citizenship. Afroyim removed that penalty. It made dual or multiple citizenship legally permissible.
Not all countries allow their citizens to obtain dual citizenship, perhaps because the loyalty it demands may create a potential conflict of interest. One nation that does make it relatively easy to become a dual national is Israel. Under its “Law of Return”, every Jew has the right to come to Israel as an oleh (a Jew immigrating to Israel) and become an Israeli citizen. While the law seems to require an intention to reside permanently in Israel, that may not in fact be required of all who travel to Israel.
As part of his protest against the 2014 Gaza war that year, a Jewish-American n Massachusetts (Lenny Lapon) renounced the citizenship that he said Israel had conferred on him when he flew to Tel Aviv in October 2010. If this case is not exceptional, one or more Jewish members of Congress may similarly have acquired Israeli citizenship if and when they visited Israel. However, we don’t know if any such member obtained Israeli citizenship; or renounced it if granted.
Before I am accused of anti-Semitism or a McCarthyite witch hunt, let me repeat: there is nothing illegal about dual citizenship for any American, including Members of Congress. Though some may argue that dual citizenship of Senators and Representatives carries an inherent conflict of interest that should require renunciation, my case here is simply for transparency—public disclosure of any dual or multiple citizenship. I single out Israel only because of the possibly automatic nature of its Law of Return. Transparency as to dual citizenship should be required of any Member of Congress who accepts another citizenship, regardless of country.
Religion and ethnicity are already a part of each Member’s public profile.
Unlike citizenship, they pose no serious issue because neither identity conflicts with citizen loyalty to the U.S
So why is it important for citizens to know if any of their representatives in Congress is a dual citizen? Because both real and apparent conflicts of interest erode the public trust. When a Member of Congress speaks out in support of a policy that favors a country in which he or she holds citizenship, the public should be able to assess which loyalty motivates the speech.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) maintains a detailed personal profile on each Member of Congress that includes age, political party, past occupations, education, religion, gender, ethnicity and military service.
If CRS would simply add “citizenship” to its list of profile categories, Americans could better judge where their representatives are coming from when they take a public stand on a foreign policy issue affecting a country where they have a citizenship tie. Such exposure would also help eliminate corrupting conflicts of interest.
Israeli citizen is not automatically granted on arrival in that country – it has to be requested, and is subject to validation of eligibility. Interesting that none of the other countries that offer citizenship based on ancestral connections: Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Hungary, Greece are mentioned.
“Unless at least one parent or an Irish-born grandparent was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth, you cannot claim Irish citizenship on the basis of extended previous ancestry (that is, ancestors other than your parents or grandparents).”
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/irish_citizenship/irish_citizenship_through_birth_or_descent.html
That is hardly equivalent to Israel’s unique “right of return” for Jews.
If that was true a lot of Americans would move to Ireland, but it has become very Jewish lately
Not quite accurate, Tariq.
Any “Oleh” arriving in Israel is automatically granted Israeli citizenship (after a 90 day period, which need not be spent in Israel) unless the “Oleh” specifically asks not to be granted Israeli citizenship.
And do you realize how hard the Aliyah process is? To make it seem like you just walk off the plane and you are a citizen is misleading
The Law of Return, Carl, is an Israeli law passed on the 5th July 1950, It gives Jews the right to come and live in Israel and gain Israeli citizenship.
Section 1 of The Law of Return states; “Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an immigrant (in Hebrew immigrant is Oleh hence my use of that word).
In your analogy; In affect any Jewish immigrant who steps off a plane does immediately become a de facto Israeli citizen, the paperwork proceedings naturally take some time.
That said if the “Oleh” were important enough all the paperwork could have been completed prior to arrival making it possible to leave the airport as a full Israeli citizen. in every practical way.
However, it does raise the question, What is a Jew? and in Israel there have been several amendments to the Halakah Rabbinical definition of a Jew, but the fact remains any Oleh who conforms to the current Israeli legal definition of Jew, does get immediate full Israeli citizenship – On Arrival!
P.S. Arab (Christian or Muslim) citizens of Israel are not “Full citizens” rather they are classed as “Residential Citizens” who can be deported or exiled (which regularly happens).
Nor is it possible for Non-Jewish residential citizens to marry Jewish Israeli (Full) citizens under Israeli law.
Not quite, Mike, you are misinformed.
I obtained my information from the Israeli Government website, splash.
Best to do that, in my opinion, there are far too many myths and propaganda involving Israel.
P.S. It`s just not good enough, splash, to claim I`m “misinformed” without forwarding a justification, it gives the impression that you disagree without knowing why – a symptom of a belief system that is not based on factual reasoning.
What was he wrong about spash? Can you pinpoint it for me? I am quite interested.
“Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Hungary, Greece”
Are there many of them in congress, dual citizens from those countries you list?
Israel will be destroyed by all the nations of the earth, America will be gone in the dark ages Babylon the great will fall as long as we are occupied by Israel
Amen, brother. There is no place for racist, apartheid colonies in the 21st Century.
… except Muslim countries where ethnic cleansing, slavery and genocide are now and always have been acceptable if not celebrated.
There are no apartheid Muslim states that were created by ethnic cleansing – there is only one apartheid state created through ethnic cleansing – the Jewish state.
“except Muslim countries” most of which are staunch US allies.
F- me – why are we having a “civil” discussion about Israeli racism. A “Jewish state” isn’t a democracy, it’s a racist dictatorship. Zionism is racism. There are over five million registered Christian and Muslim refugees from Israeli ethnic cleansing campaigns whose sole offense was to be non-Jewish. Please, if you want to have a racist, apartheid state, at least have the class to stop trying to deny it. “Who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?”
“The Congressional Research Service (CRS) maintains a detailed personal profile on each Member of Congress that includes age, political party, past occupations, education, religion, gender, ethnicity and military service.
If CRS would simply add “citizenship” to its list of profile categories, Americans could better judge where their representatives are coming from ”
What is wrong with this solution?
They are coming from their State.
To hell with the phony call for ‘transparency’ in citizenship! Let’s address the concept of “dual-citizenship” as the idiotic contradiction it is. No one can possibly have allegiance to two distinct nations simultaneously. It is impossible! It should be outlawed or citizenship is meaningless and by extension, so are nation states.
The people have an absolute right to know whether or not their representative in government have dual-citizenship! We already suffer from a disproportionate Israeli influence in our government with guys like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who has publicly stated that he “believes he was chosen by god to look after Israel’s interests.” Just how bad does it have to get before we take action on this travesty?
Equally “interesting” is the fact that none of the nations you enumerated get an automatic gift of billions of our scarce tax dollars each and every year, as does Israel, nor do any of them intrude into our government ‘s affairs as does Israel’s AIPAC.
See my comment below, Tariq, which for some reason was not posted below your own as my response.
Nor does any other country relentlessly steal from our country, sadly enough with permission to some degree…To listen to psychopathic America hating Bibi Netanyahu speak, especially as he loves to gloat at their “technology” conferences as he did this year, you would think the Israeli technology sector was the best in the world and always had been, this tiny “state” – it is all so sickening once you know the full truth of all of this. I learned more than I think I cared or wanted to, because my life hasn’t been the same ever since. There is no going back to your life as you knew it. I am always amazed (and maybe even a little envious in some ways) when I come across others who have learned of the devastating level of deception with which we are living under and have lived under, in this country, for over 100 years.
I, personally, consider the death of our country as December 21, 1913. The official nail in the coffin may have been March of 1933. I can’t always keep my dates straight but have tons of notes, both written and online. I continue researching every day when it’s possible for me. Sometimes I take a small break from it so I don’t become consumed with hopeless and despairing thoughts.
I agree with you 100%. I too have been researching to learn what actually happened to this country after the traitor Woodrow Wilson handed our country over to the bankers. This is the biggest ongoing crime of two centuries now. I believe the Federal Reserve is breeding ground of corruption.
It at least makes me happy to see so many people actually naming the Jews for what they are, two timing back stabbing neurotic self hating sociopaths. No more tip toeing around ‘tropes. We must name the JEW
Ireland only for 3 generations and not getting billions upon billions of U.S. dollars. There’s the other question as to are “Jews” a nationality or even an ethnic group? Ivanka Trump Kushner is Jewish but not born a Jew. So is she Jewish like I am Irish? Does she get “right of return”?
Doubtom, please provide documentation for that quote. Making such a serious accusation requires documentation.
Hatred of Jews has been around since the beginning of Jewish history. I have never understood it but see here it is alive and well…
I agree with you 100%. I too have been researching to learn what actually happened to this country after the traitor Woodrow Wilson handed our country over to the bankers. This is the biggest ongoing crime of two centuries now. I believe the Federal Reserve is breeding ground of corruption.
I find that any representative or member of congress or senator,etc who has dual citizenship is truly not 100% American. How could they be. 1/2 heart for America, 1/2 heart for motherland. That is what screws the US up lately. They bring there motherland politics here. Schumer is a dual citizenship, so if he gets more involved and becomes president I am sure our country will go down the tubes.
yep!
This racist, false, and dangerous statement at least stands as an example of the difference between reasonable criticism of Israeli and Zionist policies and their interference in our government and the foul, false, and sick name calling of Jews or any other group of people. Keeping informed about the polices of other countries, especially those we give a lot of our tax $ to, is critical to our health as a democracy, as is the freedom to criticize the policies of any country and their interference in our government – and Israel should not be an exception.
The above statement from “truthseeker” was directed to the comment by Iron Dream on July 28 ,2019 that used false and racist stereotypes against Jews.
Ummm, could you please give us the source of that claim about Schumer? There is no valid record anywhere that I can find that says when/where/or even if Chuck Schumer said this. I don’t think he did.
Hold on, hold on. It is always inaccurate—and dangerous—to slur whole groups of diverse people, in this case many millions of people living in countries all over the world. If there are laws, policies, or practices you don’t like, single those out and tell us why. But to call a whole community of people connected by a religious heritage a bunch of names is just ignorant—and dangerous. It’s also unconstitutional in the sense that your comment does not admit to the freedom of religion we enjoy at least in the USA. This whole thread makes me very nervous. I travel internationally often and get mildly irritated in meetings when I am asked, “Do all Americans do X ?” or, “What do Americans think about Y?” I’m invariably polite and help them as much as I can, but what always go through my head is, “I don’t know that I can reliably speak for 325 million people.” There may be commonalities among all Americans, but it tends to be shared cultural knowledge and not innate character traits. Same thing goes for any nationality, religion, belief set, or core values shared by millions of people. You can paint with broad strokes but you will definitely miss all nuance and difference when you do; and you can substitute slurs and scapegoat neighbors because you haven’t bothered to see them as individuals. There is no religion on earth practiced only by bad people. Further, religious practices are not the person. So let’s take a break on the knee jerk antiSemitism, shall we, and work on more productive lines of argument and activism to work out how to make a peaceful world without hunger or poor health, a world for everybody.
Do you know that 9/11 was a Mossad operation? An Israeli false-flag attack on the US designed to jump start the “war on terror” and get the USA to destroy Israel’s enemies? If not, please listen to investigative journalist Chris Bollyn. Of course, I assume you know that 9/11 was an “inside job”, that the towers were all brought down by controlled demolition, not by fires and that the official story is a fabrication concocted by Israel’s agents in the USA. If not, see Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. The entire US government – both parties, Congress and Executive branches – plus the mass media and even the federal courts – all work for Israel. Israeli dual citizenship of US elected officials comes as no surprise to me. In fact, it’s too be expected! Israel owns us all!
-1973. Sen. J. William Fulbright claimed on the CBS “Face the Nation” television program yesterday that the Senate was “subservient” to Israel and prevented the Administration from applying pressure on that country. The Arkansas Democrat, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. possessed the leverage on Israel because “we supply all the wherewithal –or a major part of the wherewithal–to finance or to pay for everything Israel does.” But, he added, this leverage could not be applied because “Israel controls the Senate.”
-You can corroborate this easily many places online, including the We’ve been fighting Israels wars in the middle east ever since.
– Comments By U. S. Senator Ernest F. Hollings – Wednesday 23 June 2004
“In 1996, a task force was formed in Jerusalem including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. They submitted a plan for Israel to incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Clean Break. It proposed that negotiations with the Palestinians be cut off and, instead, the Mideast be made friendly to Israel by democratizing it. First Lebanon would be bombed, then Syria invaded on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. Afterward, Saddam Hussein was to be removed in Iraq and replaced with a Hashemite ruler favorable to Israel.
“The plan was rejected by Netanyahu, so Perle started working for a similar approach to the Mideast for the United States. Taking on the support of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Cambone, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld et al., he enlisted the support of the Project for the New American Century.
“The plan hit paydirt with the election of George W. Bush. Perle took on the Defense Policy Board. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith became one, two and three at the Defense Department, and Cheney as vice president took Scooter Libby and David Wurmser as his deputies. Clean Break was streamlined to go directly into Iraq. Iraq, as a threat to the United States, was all contrived.”
– Yes, the American people need to know what US Congresspersons have dual citizenship to any other countries, especially Israeli because the our long history of 70 years ongoing of ethnic cleansing, (which is an understatement), Mossad footprint all over 911. The Epstein assassination of a high level prisoner in a US high security prison is a window into the Mossad. Epstein was a Mossad assett with
“kompromat” on many of the worlds top leaders. There should be no one is the US Government holding high office with dual citizenship with any other country, this is the only way to get our country back from foreign interests.
– And no, I’m not anti-semetic, I have Jewish blood in my immediate family, which I’m proud of. I am anti-Zionist, let’s call it what it is, Isreal has
completely dehumanized the Palestinians, colonized and stolen 80 percent of Palestinian lands, with 70 years of ethnic cleansing= genicide.
Zionists apparently learned nothing from the Nazi’s except how to identify with them. Such a shame, and a stain on Judaism.