However, a line of Supreme Court cases beginning in the 1960s, most notably Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) and Vance v. Terrazas (1980), held this to be unconstitutional and instead required that specific intent to relinquish citizenship be proven by the totality of the individual's actions and words.

Since a 1990 policy change, the State Department no longer proactively attempts to prove such intent, and issues a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) only when an individual "affirmatively asserts" their relinquishment of citizenship.

Between 2010 and 2015, obtaining a CLN began to become a difficult process with high barriers, including nearly year-long waitlists for appointments and the world's most expensive administrative fee, as well as complicated tax treatment.

[18] The green bars reflect the number of records of people who have renounced U.S. citizenship added each year to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (2006–present).

A Los Angeles Times article stated that between 1951 and 1973, a total of 10,000 Americans renounced their citizenship, while another 71,900 lost it "either unknowingly or deliberately, by acquiring a foreign passport".

[29] Allison Christians of McGill University and Peter Spiro of Temple University have suggested that the complexity and cost of the process, especially the $2,350 State Department fee and the potential penalties for failure to file related tax forms, may constitute a breach of the U.S.' obligation not to impose arbitrary barriers to change of nationality, particularly when applied to accidental Americans who have few genuine links to the United States.

[clarify] Such an obligation can be found in municipal law (the Expatriation Act of 1868), in international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in general state practice.

[37] In Canada, one of the countries with a high volume of relinquishments of U.S. citizenship, initial intake and review of the questionnaire prior to assignment of an appointment reportedly took 60 days in 2016.

[38] Interviews are normally conducted on an individual basis, but in 2011 the U.S. Consulate in Toronto held a group appointment for twenty-two people in an apparent attempt to address scheduling difficulties.

[61] In the committee report on the bill, Walter described this provision as "forestall[ing] further erosion of the statute designed to preserve and uphold the dignity and priceless value of U.S. citizenship with attendant obligations".

Garry Davis, who renounced U.S. citizenship in 1948 at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, attempted to return to the United States in 1978 without a visa, and was granted parole into the U.S. but not legal admission.

Henry Martyn Noel moved to Allied-occupied Germany in the aftermath of World War II and voluntarily made himself stateless to protest "a climax of nationalism" he saw rising around him in the United States.

[83] In early U.S. legal history, the Supreme Court recognized the expatriation of a minor by his father's action in Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbor (1830).

It was not clear whether he was born before or after the United States Declaration of Independence, but it was common ground that his loyalist father took him to Nova Scotia after the 1783 British evacuation of New York.

Justice Smith Thompson, writing the majority opinion, held that the father's action constituted election to be a British subject under the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and that decision extended to the plaintiff as well.

[84][Note 9] In the early 20th century, the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service clashed on the question of whether parental action could result in loss of citizenship of minor children.

[95] One early example of this, which was described at the time as the first such case in U.S. diplomatic history, was Oskar R. Lange's decision to renounce citizenship in 1945 to become the Polish ambassador to the United States.

[108] In 2024, a new U.S. non-profit, non-partisan organization called Tax Fairness for Americans Abroad was created specifically to lobby the U.S. Congress to relieve long-term U.S. non-resident citizens of the obligation to declare non-U.S.-source income and financial accounts to the U.S.

[121] This policy ended in April 1990, when the State Department began applying a presumption of intent to retain U.S. citizenship to most potentially expatriating acts, including naturalization in a foreign country.

The minority objected that by the time the provision had been written, "conscription and not voluntary enlistment had become the usual method of raising armies throughout the world, and it can hardly be doubted that Congress was aware of this fact.

The State Department accepted community leaders' argument that the earlier renunciations had been made under duress due to the social and political environment at the time, and were thus involuntary and did not meet the legal requirements to terminate citizenship.

About five thousand individuals, mostly at Tule Lake, renounced citizenship for a variety of reasons, including anger at the U.S. government for the internment and the desire to remain with non-citizen family members whom they feared would be deported to Japan.

[145][146] There were later some pro se lawsuits regarding 1481(a)(6) due to what Judge Bernice B. Donald derided as a "popular myth among prisoners" that renouncing citizenship would allow early release in exchange for deportation to another country.

[148] Further attempts by prisoners to renounce under 1481(a)(6) continued to be stymied by a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services policy that applicants had to attend an in-person interview and demonstrate that they could leave the U.S. immediately upon approval of renunciation.

[155] As a result, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) enacted concrete criteria under which an ex-citizen would be presumed a "covered expatriate" who gave up U.S. status for tax reasons, based on the person's income and assets, (26 U.S.C.

Dual citizens at birth and young people who relinquished citizenship before the age of 18½ were exempt from "covered expatriate" status, subject to some restrictions including limited physical presence in the United States.

[161] In addition to the tax law changes, HIPAA included a provision to make the names of people who give up U.S. citizenship part of the public record by listing them in the Federal Register.

Ying, a Taiwanese American lawyer who renounced U.S. citizenship to take political office in Taiwan, subsequently re-immigrated to the United States on a petition by his wife (who had remained a U.S. citizen), and applied for naturalization again for the sake of convenience.

This provision, along with similar treatment for people adjudged mentally defective or dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Armed Forces, and a restriction on mail-order firearms sales, was aimed at preventing a repeat of the circumstances which allowed Lee Harvey Oswald to obtain the rifle which he used to assassinate President Kennedy.

[178] The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) interprets the word "renounced" in this provision of law to apply only to persons who swore an oath of renunciation U.S. citizenship before a designated U.S. government official, and not those who committed other relinquishing acts.