Denaturalization

In the United States, the Bancroft Treaties in the 19th century regulated legislation concerning denaturalization. Also there, the proposed but never ratified Titles of Nobility amendment of 1810 would revoke the American citizenship of anyone who would "accept, claim, receive or retain, any title of nobility" or who would receive any gifts or honors from a foreign power.

Sakharam Ganesh Pandit successfully lobbied against the United States' denaturalization of Indian-Americans

Before World War I, only a small number of countries had laws governing denaturalization that could be enforced against citizens guilty of "lacking patriotism". Such denaturalized citizens became stateless persons. During and after the war, most European countries passed amendments to revoke naturalization.[3]

In Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power or Bare Life (1998), philosopher Giorgio Agamben mentioned a number of denaturalization laws that were passed after World War I by most European countries:

It is important to note that starting with the period of World War I, many European states began to introduce laws which permitted their own citizens to be denaturalized and denationalized. The first was France, in 1915, with regard to naturalized citizens of "enemy" origins; in 1922 the example was followed by Belgium, which revoked the naturalization of citizens who had committed "anti-national" acts during the war; in 1926 the Fascist regime in Italy passed a similar law concerning citizens who had shown themselves to be "unworthy of Italian citizenship"; in 1933 it was Austria's turn, and so forth, until in 1935 the Nuremberg Laws divided German citizens into full citizens and citizens without political rights. These laws—and the mass statelessness that ensued—mark a decisive turning point in the life of the modern nation-state and its definitive emancipation from the naive notions of "people" and "citizen"

The 1915 French denaturalization law applied only to naturalized citizens with "enemy origins" who had kept their original nationality. Later under Raymond Poincaré's government, another law was passed in 1927 which entitled the government to denaturalize any new citizen who committed acts contrary to the national interest. In 1916, Portugal passed a law which automatically denaturalized all citizens born to a German father. In 1922, Belgium enacted a law revoking the naturalization of people accused of having committed "antinational acts" during the war; this was supplemented in 1934 by a new decree against people "in dereliction of their duties as Belgian citizens." After 1926 in Italy, people who were deemed not to deserve the Italian citizenship or who were considered to represent a threat to the public order could lose their naturalization.

In the United States, citizenship had long been restricted to free whites and those of African descent. A number of Indian emigrants gained American citizenship during the early 20th century by qualifying as white. However, the 1923 Supreme Court case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind found that Indians were legally non-white and could not be considered citizens.[4][5] As a result, the US government moved to strip naturalized Indian-Americans of their citizenship, arguing that it had been "illegally procured." A number of denaturalization cases went forward, including against Thind's lawyer, a Californian named Sakharam Ganesh Pandit. However, Pandit successfully argued that he had reasonably relied upon his American citizenship and he would be unjustly harmed by its removal, winning his case in court.[6] The federal government subsequently dropped its denaturalization cases against other Indian-Americans.[7]

Egypt in 1926 and Turkey in 1928 enacted laws authorizing denaturalization of any person threatening the public order. Austria passed a similar law in 1933 by which it could denaturalize any citizen who participated in a hostile action against the state. Russia also passed several similar decrees after 1921.[3]

In 1933, Nazi Germany passed a law authorizing it to denaturalize any person "living abroad" and began restricting the citizenship rights of naturalized citizens of Jewish origin, followed in 1935 by citizens by birth on the basis of the Nuremberg laws.

During Vichy France, 15,000 people, mostly Jews, were denaturalized (between June 1940 and August 1944), following the setting up, in July 1940, of a Commission charged of revision of naturalizations since the 1927 reform of the nationality law.[8]