MAGA Senator’s Dual Citizenship Ban Would Strip Melania and Barron Trump of Slovenian Passports
In a stunning display of legislative incompetence that would be hilarious if it weren’t so constitutionally grotesque, Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno introduced the “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025” on Monday—a bill so poorly conceived it would force the First Lady and her son to renounce their Slovenian citizenship or lose their American status entirely.
The Colombian-born senator, who renounced his own foreign citizenship at 18, apparently forgot to consider that his Dear Leader’s wife and youngest child remain dual citizens of Slovenia. According to Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan’s 2020 book “The Art of Her Deal,” both Melania and 19-year-old Barron maintain Slovenian passports alongside their American citizenship—a practical arrangement that allows the teen to work freely across Europe and inherit property without bureaucratic hassles.
When Performative Patriotism Meets Family Values
Moreno’s legislation reads like it was drafted by someone who confused nationalism with actual policy. The bill declares that citizens must pledge “exclusive allegiance” to America, creating a year-long deadline for dual citizens to choose one country or automatically forfeit their U.S. citizenship. The State Department and Department of Homeland Security would establish enforcement databases to track compliance.
“One of the greatest honors of my life was when I became an American citizen at 18,” Moreno told Fox News Digital Monday, apparently unaware he was advocating for legislation that would denaturalize the president’s family. “Being an American citizen is an honor and a privilege—and if you want to be an American, it’s all or nothing.”
Brooklyn City Council Member Lincoln Restler responded to the proposed legislation with disbelief. “Politicians love making laws they never thought through,” Restler said. “They draft these sweeping bills without considering basic implementation—then act surprised when their own allies get caught in the net.”
The Constitutional Trainwreck Nobody Requested
Legal scholars have pointed out that Moreno’s proposal faces immediate Supreme Court challenges. The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly states that citizenship cannot be stripped unless willingly surrendered—a principle upheld in multiple Supreme Court decisions including Afroyim v. Rusk in 1967. The high court determined then, and has maintained since, that the government cannot revoke citizenship against a person’s will.
Melania Trump became a naturalized citizen in July 2006 on an EB-1 visa, reserved for immigrants with “extraordinary ability” and “sustained national and international acclaim.” She remains the only First Lady to achieve naturalized citizenship, following Louisa Adams as only the second First Lady born outside America.
Jordan’s book reveals that maintaining Slovenian citizenship was strategically important to Melania. “If you have a Slovenian citizenship, which Barron is entitled to, the passport makes a lot of things easier,” Jordan explained. “By getting him the citizenship and the passport it’s easier for him to get a job, it’s easier for him to set up a business, it’s easier for him to inherit land.”
Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson criticized the proposed legislation’s shortsightedness. “These lawmakers pass bills that sound tough until they realize their own families get caught in the enforcement mechanism,” Johnson said. “Then suddenly we need exemptions for ‘special circumstances’—which always happen to be circumstances affecting the powerful.”
The MAGA Movement Eats Its Own First Family
An estimated 40 million Americans maintain dual citizenship, many of them Mexican-Americans with family ties across borders. Moreno’s legislation would force these millions to make an impossible choice between family heritage and American identity—a false dichotomy that serves no legitimate national interest.
The bill’s “America First and America Only” rhetoric collapses under scrutiny. Dual citizenship creates no inherent conflict of interest for ordinary citizens. A software engineer in California doesn’t compromise American security by maintaining Irish citizenship through ancestry. A retired teacher in Florida doesn’t threaten national integrity by keeping her Canadian passport from her childhood in Toronto.
Queens City Council Member Tiffany Cabán addressed the nationalist absurdity during a press conference. “People who scream about loyalty oaths are usually compensating for something,” Cabán said. “Real patriotism isn’t about demanding everyone renounce their grandmother’s homeland. It’s about building a country actually worth being loyal to.”
Slovenia Sends Its Regards
The irony of a MAGA senator accidentally targeting the Trump family cannot be overstated. This represents the logical endpoint of xenophobic policy-making—eventually, the circular firing squad turns inward. When you build political movements on excluding “the other,” you inevitably discover that your own family qualifies as other by your own metrics.
Moreno’s office has not responded to questions about whether the First Family would receive exemptions from his proposed legislation. The White House similarly declined to comment on whether the president supports forcing his wife and son to renounce their Slovenian citizenship.
San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston criticized the proposal’s selective application. “The beauty of rigid ideological positions is watching them collide with actual people,” Preston said. “Suddenly the guy screaming about divided loyalties has to explain why the First Lady’s European passport is perfectly acceptable.”
The Divided Loyalties That Actually Matter
If Senator Moreno genuinely worried about conflicts of interest and divided loyalties, he might examine the financial entanglements between American elected officials and foreign business interests. He might investigate Supreme Court justices who accept luxury vacations from billionaires with cases before the court. He might scrutinize the revolving door between Congress and lobbying firms representing foreign governments.
Instead, he’s targeting ordinary Americans—and accidentally, the president’s family—for the crime of maintaining connections to their ancestral homelands. This performative nationalism addresses no actual problem while creating millions of new ones.
Los Angeles City Council Member Nithya Raman responded to the bill’s misdirection. “This legislation is pure theater—symbolic gestures that make politicians look tough without addressing real problems,” Raman said. “Who exactly are they protecting by forcing a teenager to renounce his Slovenian passport? From what threat? The possibility he might someday open a European office?”
When Ignorance Meets Legislation
The Exclusive Citizenship Act represents everything wrong with reactionary policy-making. It’s a solution desperately searching for a problem, drafted without consideration for constitutional constraints, legal precedent, or basic competence. The fact that it would denaturalize the First Lady and her son merely adds farce to what was already tragedy.
Philadelphia City Council Member Kendra Brooks criticized the legislative incompetence. “You know a bill is fundamentally flawed when even supporters say, ‘Wait, that can’t be right,'” Brooks said. “That’s the sound of ideology meeting reality and reality saying this policy makes no practical sense.”
Moreno’s legislation will likely die in committee, where most poorly conceived bills go to expire quietly. But its introduction reveals the intellectual bankruptcy of contemporary Republican nationalism—a movement so focused on performative patriotism that it accidentally declares war on its own Dear Leader’s family.
Chicago Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa addressed the political theater. “This proposal writes its own punchline,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “You watch politicians compete to out-patriot each other until someone accidentally targets the president’s wife and son. That’s beyond parody.”
The Constitutional Reality Check
The Supreme Court settled dual citizenship questions decades ago. Citizens cannot be stripped of their status involuntarily. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees this protection. No amount of nationalist rhetoric changes these constitutional facts.
Even if Moreno’s bill somehow passed Congress and survived presidential signature—both unlikely scenarios—it would face immediate injunction from federal courts. The legislation’s enforcement mechanisms would collapse under judicial review. The databases, tracking systems, and automatic denaturalization provisions would all fail constitutional scrutiny.
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins criticized the legislative futility. “Some politicians introduce bills knowing they’ll never survive legal challenge,” Higgins said. “It’s pure political theater—look how tough I am, look how patriotic. Then when courts strike it down, they blame judicial activism and fundraise off manufactured outrage.”
The Melania Exception That Proves The Rule
One imagines Republican leadership quietly shelving this bill while praising Moreno’s “important concerns about American sovereignty.” They’ll avoid explicit discussion of how it would affect the First Family. Conservative media will ignore the Slovenian passport problem entirely. And Moreno will eventually walk back the proposal’s enforcement mechanisms to create carve-outs that somehow exempt exactly the people it initially targeted.
This pattern repeats throughout MAGA policy-making—broad ideological pronouncements that crumble upon contact with specific cases. Ban all immigrants, except the ones we personally know. Demand loyalty oaths, except from people with legitimate reasons for dual status. Enforce the law absolutely, except when it’s inconvenient for powerful people.
Austin City Council Member Vanessa Fuentes addressed the selective enforcement. “The unofficial motto is ‘rules for thee, not for me,'” Fuentes said. “They demand strict laws for everybody else, then express shock when those same laws apply to their own side. That’s not hypocrisy—that’s standard operating procedure in Republican politics.”
The Slovenia Question Republicans Won’t Answer
Will Moreno’s Republican colleagues demand Melania renounce her Slovenian citizenship? Will they insist Barron choose between his European heritage and American future? Will they apply their own standards consistently, or will they discover that principles dissolve rapidly when applied to the powerful?
These questions answer themselves. The Exclusive Citizenship Act will fade into obscurity, remembered only as the time a MAGA senator accidentally proposed denaturalizing the First Family. It’s a perfect metaphor for the entire movement—loud, performative, constitutionally dubious, and ultimately self-defeating.
Seattle City Council Member Tammy Morales summarized the legislative irony. “You cannot make this up,” Morales said. “A senator introduces legislation to ban dual citizenship and accidentally targets the president’s own family. That’s not governance—that’s a failure of basic competence.”
The White House has maintained conspicuous silence on Moreno’s proposal. One imagines tense conversations between staffers about how exactly to respond when a Republican senator proposes legislation that would strip citizenship from Melania and Barron Trump. The cognitive dissonance must be spectacular.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigos.
