Afroyim v. Rusk is a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case which ruled that American citizens may not be deprived of citizenship involuntarily. The U.S. government tried to revoke the citizenship of Beys Afroyim (pictured with his son), who had voted in an Israeli election after becoming a naturalized American citizen, but the court decided that his right to retain his citizenship was guaranteed by the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It overruled Perez v. Brownell (1958), in which it had upheld loss of citizenship under similar circumstances. Afroyim opened the way for a wider acceptance of multiple citizenship in American law. Its impact was narrowed by Rogers v. Bellei (1971), which held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply in all cases, but the specific law in that case was repealed in 1978. The Bancroft Treaties—a series of agreements between the United States and other nations which sought to limit dual citizenship—were abandoned after the Carter administration concluded that they had been rendered unenforceable. As a consequence of revised government policies adopted in 1990, it is now "virtually impossible" to lose American citizenship involuntarily. (Full article...)
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