Demonizing Dual Citizens

from The Washington Post:

A year after Samuel Huntington's book "Who Are We?'" portrayed Hispanic immigrants as the greatest threat to U.S. national unity, Stanley Renshon has written a book that is likely to once again stir up suspicions toward the foreign-born -- particularly those who have gone a step further by becoming naturalized citizens while maintaining citizenship in their countries of origin.

In "The 50 Percent American: Immigration and National Identity in an Age of Terror'' (Georgetown University Press), Renshon, a professor of political science at the City University of New York, argues that dual citizens have a "shallower attachment to the American national community.''

In Renshon's mind, "the question of American national identity and the strength of our attachments to the American national community are ... in an age of terrorism ... perhaps the most important domestic national issue facing this country.''

The danger, Renshon contends, is that dual citizens have been brought up outside the United Sates and their attentions are divided between their adopted home and their countries of origin. According to Renshon, attachment to a nation is patriotism, something which dual citizens critically lack.

What Renshon is really searching for, as was Huntington before him, is a rationale for why immigrants today threaten the long-term national interests and viability of the United States. But to find one, Renshon pursues arguments that defy common sense and reveal a bizarre generalization that all immigrants are potentially terrorists.

The connections that dual citizens maintain to their countries of origin -- voting in elections, investing in family and business affairs -- are worrisome to Renshon. These connections create conflicts of interest that would be a liability if the United States were ever at war with one of 150 countries that today allow some form of dual citizenship.

In Renshon's world, dual citizens sound like potential sociopaths.