For people born in the United States or naturalized honestly, the short answer is: not against their will. Citizenship can be given up, and naturalization obtained by fraud can be undone, but the Supreme Court has held that Congress cannot simply strip it as a punishment.
The constitutional starting point
The Fourteenth Amendment says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.” In Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), the Court struck down a law that took away the citizenship of Americans who voted in a foreign election, holding that the government has no general power to take citizenship without the citizen’s assent. Vance v. Terrazas (1980) added that the government must prove the person intended to give up citizenship, not just that they did something the law lists as an expatriating act.
Giving it up: expatriation
Federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1481) lists acts that can end citizenship if done voluntarily and with the intent to relinquish it: formally renouncing before a U.S. consular officer, serving as an officer in a foreign army engaged in hostilities against the United States, or being convicted of treason, among others. Intent is the key element in every case.
Undoing a naturalization: denaturalization
Naturalized citizens face one additional route. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1451, the government can go to federal court to revoke naturalization that was “illegally procured” or obtained by concealing or misrepresenting a material fact. In Maslenjak v. United States (2017), the Court held that a false statement must have actually mattered to the grant of citizenship to support revocation. Denaturalization is a court process with a high standard of proof, not an administrative decision.
The Enemy Expatriation Act
In 2011 and 2012, bills introduced as the Enemy Expatriation Act would have added “engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States” to the list of expatriating acts. Critics, including this domain’s previous publisher, argued it would let the government strip citizenship without a criminal conviction. Supporters said the existing intent requirement and court review would still apply. The bills never became law.
Birthright citizenship
A separate question is who becomes a citizen at birth. United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) held that a child born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. A 2025 executive order sought to deny citizenship to some U.S.-born children based on their parents’ status, and its legality has been fought in the federal courts. Check the latest rulings before relying on any summary, including this one.