Altmire and Dent Introduce Enemy Expatriation Act

Pennsylvania Congressmen Charlie Dent (R-PA) and Jason Altmire (D-PA) joined Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Scott Brown (R-MA) in introducing legislation to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act in order to strip American citizenship from Americans fighting against us abroad in the Global War on Terror.

The text of the legislation, known as The Enemy Expatriation Act, is available here and has been referred to the Judiciary Committee. 

An existing federal statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1481, identifies seven categories of acts for which U.S. citizens lose their citizenship.  The bill would add an eighth category stripping the American citizenship of those who are “engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States.”

The recent drone strike against Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki prompted the drafting of the bill over concerns relating to the legality of the targeted killing of an American citizen and questions of due process rights.

Many of these legal questions were answered in portions of a leaked White House Office of Legal Council memo, but the OLC memo was narrowly drawn only to address the specific case of al-Awlaki.  It appears as if the Enemy Expatriation Act seeks to deflect future legal questions by enacting legislation that would remove legal barriers posed by American citizenship status of any terrorist abroad.

In a statement to Pete Kasperowicz at The Hill, Congressman Dent (PA-15) said that the bill “modernizes the process by which the citizenship status of an individual engaged in hostiles against the American people is examined by treating terrorists in the same manner as a U.S citizen who marched with the Third Reich, Imperial Japan or the forces of Saddam Hussein.”

Congressman Altmire (PA-04), on his congressional website, stated that “[u]nfortunately, we live in a world where our own citizens may engage in terrorism against our country. To help meet the challenges we are facing, and to protect our homeland, updates to our current laws are necessary as we continue to fight the global war on terror.”

The determination as to whether or not a citizen has indeed renounced his citizenship rights is made the by Department of State.  The right to appeal that determination to the State Department and further appeal to a federal district court will remain in place.