Chairman Schmitt and Ranking Member Welch, I am honored to have the opportunity to testify before you and the other Members of the Subcommittee today regarding denaturalization and its constitutional limits.
The U.S. Constitution provides that Congress has the power to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” and section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside”, One of the Immigration and Nationality Act’s (INA) primary requirements for naturalization is that an applicant “has been and still is a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States.”