If you’re a dual citizen and your priority is keeping your U.S. citizenship no matter what happens with this bill, here’s the realistic picture: what current law already protects, what would change if S.3283 passed, and what the actual mechanics of giving up a foreign citizenship look like.
First: you don’t need to do anything today
S.3283 is a bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It has not passed, has no enactment date, and current U.S. law places no limit on holding dual citizenship[1]. Nothing below is a step to take right now — it’s what the process would look like only if this specific bill were enacted as written.
What current law actually allows
Under existing U.S. law and State Department policy, a U.S. citizen may hold and use a foreign passport, and dual nationality is explicitly recognized as a status the U.S. government does not require anyone to choose out of[1]. Naturalizing as a U.S. citizen does not require proving you’ve given up your other citizenship[2]. That is the baseline this bill would change.
If S.3283 became law: the choice for existing dual citizens
Under Section 4(c) as written, an existing dual citizen would have one year from enactment to submit one of two things[3]:
- A written renunciation of the foreign citizenship, filed with the Secretary of State — the path that keeps U.S. citizenship; or
- A written renunciation of U.S. citizenship, filed with the Secretary of Homeland Security.
To keep U.S. citizenship under that framework, the renunciation of the foreign citizenship is the relevant path. The bill directs the State Department to write the actual regulations and procedures for declaration and verification within 180 days of enactment[3] — meaning the real step-by-step process doesn’t exist yet, because the bill doesn’t exist as law yet.
Renouncing a foreign citizenship is a foreign-government process, not a U.S. one
This is the detail that trips people up: giving up a non-U.S. citizenship is governed by that other country’s laws, not U.S. law. Every country has its own renunciation procedure, its own fees, its own paperwork, and in some cases, restrictions on renouncing at all (a small number of countries don’t allow it, or only allow it under specific conditions, such as already holding another nationality). If this bill became law, anyone choosing this path would need to start with that other country’s embassy or consulate, not a U.S. agency, to find out what’s actually required and how long it takes — and processing time varies enormously by country, from weeks to well over a year.
The trap in Section 4(b): don’t acquire a new foreign citizenship casually
Separate from the one-year choice for existing dual citizens, Section 4(b) says that if you are a U.S. citizen who later voluntarily acquires a foreign citizenship after this bill’s enactment, that act alone is treated as giving up your U.S. citizenship immediately[3]. If this bill became law, that would matter for situations people don’t usually think of as high-stakes: accepting citizenship offered through a spouse, through inheritance-related citizenship programs some countries run, or through ancestry-based naturalization drives. Under this bill, none of those would be a small decision anymore.
What actually protects you before any of this is real
Right now, today, the two Supreme Court rulings covered in the previous post in this series — Afroyim v. Rusk and Vance v. Terrazas — are the operative law, and they set a real limit on how far Congress can go in stripping citizenship without an individual’s specific, provable intent to give it up. If S.3283 or anything like it moves toward a real vote, that’s the point where legal advocacy organizations and immigration attorneys typically start weighing in publicly, and where a direct legal challenge becomes realistic if it passes.
What to actually do with your time now
- Track the bill’s status directly (the next post in this series covers exactly how).
- If you’re a dual citizen with immigration questions specific to your situation, an immigration attorney can tell you where you actually stand under current law — not the hypothetical bill.
- Don’t make an irreversible decision about either citizenship based on a bill that hasn’t passed and may never pass.
Up next: the flip side — what it actually takes to give up U.S. citizenship if that’s the direction you’d choose, including the real costs and consequences.
References
- U.S. Department of State. (2026, August). Dual Nationality. Bureau of Consular Affairs. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/Advice-about-Possible-Loss-of-US-Nationality-Dual-Nationality/Dual-Nationality.html ↩a ↩b
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. (2026, August). Citizenship Through Naturalization. https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/find-help-with-the-naturalization-process ↩
- U.S. Congress. (2025, December 1). S.3283 – Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, bill text. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/3283/text ↩a ↩b ↩c
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