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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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For the last year or two, when people argued over "due process," many restrictionists here (like myself) said deportation is not a punishment. I understand you talk here of "stripping citizenship," not deportation per se. But, it seems related to me, and it seems I could construct a similar line of argument.

Is stripping citizenship really a punishment? I mean, if the country imprisons you but decides you can't own property or vote, that's one thing. If it is relinquishing its control, obligations, etc; over you and banishes you, that seems a little less bad to me.

I suppose the key distinction is: if a country is doing this to its own natural-born citizens, it creates a "stateless person" but this is very different than telling foreigners to go back to their home country. Blurring that distinction is uh, well, shall we say a soldier in a political argument.

Stripping recently-granted citizenship is different, almost equivalent to revoking a green card, and maybe doesn’t need to go through the same justice system. Although if someone has been a citizen for a long time (say, around a decade), at that point they may have more ties in their host country: in extreme cases, if they moved as a child with no relatives, their birth country would be like a truly foreign country to them.

An immigration system should only grant citizenship to someone after they’ve stayed in the country for a long time, so every case of removing it should be the latter. But if a party grants citizenship to visa holders who’ve in some cases only stayed months (which may have already happened), the next party should be able to revoke it almost as easily as they could revoke the visas.