Don't Strip ISIS Fighters of Citizenship
Shamima Begum and Hoda Muthana are products of their own societies—they can’t just be disowned.
In October 1959, Lee Harvey Oswald presented himself to the U.S. consul in Moscow and attempted, without success, to rid himself of his U.S. citizenship. The describes his frustration: First he told the consul, Richard E. Snyder, that he wanted to give up his citizenship. The consul refused to accept his declaration, so Oswald picked up a pen and put it in writing. To remove doubt, he added that he intended to defect to the Soviet Union and pass along secrets he had learned during his service as a U.S. marine. Denied again, he wrote to the consul days later, protesting the deprivation of his “legal right” to stop being American. To him, being American was a disease, and his government was withholding the cure.
