This section of the law was not added until 1981. The law in effect when Barry would have been adopted in Indonesia did not prevent him from renouncing his U.S. citizenship ... providing he ever had it. There’s no legal proof that he did.
Significant Court Cases
A number of cases, some of which reached the Supreme Court of the United States, have helped frame immigration law regarding dual nationals. Here are some of the most noteworthy.
Perkins v. Elg (1939)
This case involved Marie Elizabeth Elg, who was born in the United States in 1907 to Swedish parents and raised in Sweden. When she turned 21 she acquired a U.S. passport and returned to live in the United States. Later, the U. S. government tried to deport her, claiming that under Swedish law she had become a Swedish citizen when she and her parents returned to Sweden. The U. S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Elg was in fact a U. S. citizen because her parents’ action did not take away her right to reclaim U. S. citizenship when she reached her majority. While this is not technically a dual citizenship case (since Elg did not try to maintain her Swedish citizenship), it nonetheless was important for those who did not wish to lose their right to U. S. citizenship through no fault of their own.
Kawakita v. United States (1952)
Tomoya Kawakita, born in the United States to Japanese parents, was in Japan when World War II broke out. During the war he supported the Japanese cause. He went to work in a factory where he supervised and also abused American prisoners of war who were forced to work there. After the war he returned to the United States on a U. S. passport, whereupon he was arrested for TREASON, convicted, and sentenced to death. Kawakita appealed the sentence, arguing that he had registered as a Japanese national during the war and therefore was not a traitor. The Supreme Court ruled that Kawakita had neither acquired Japanese citizenship nor renounced U.S. citizenship, since he was already a dual national. Kawakita lost the appeal but instead of EXECUTION he was stripped of his U. S. citizenship and deported to Japan.
Afroyim v. Rusk (1967)
Beys Afroyim immigrated from Poland to the United States in 1912 and became a naturalized citizen some years later. He became fairly well known in art circles as a modernist painter in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950 he emigrated to Israel, and ten years later he tried to renew his U. S. passport. The State Department refused, explaining that Afroyim had voted in an Israeli election in 1951 and had thus given up his citizenship in the United States.
Afroyim sued the State Department, and the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor in a 5-to-4 vote. Interestingly, the Court invoked the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Although intended to guarantee citizenship rights to freed slaves, the Court held that in effect it protected all American citizens from losing their citizenship without proof of intent to do so. True, Afroyim had voted in an Israeli election. But this was not a formal renunciation of his U. S. citizenship.