New Bill Could Force Melania and Barron Trump to Give Up Slovenian Passports

A Republican Senators Own Party Problem

A Republican senator from Ohio wants to ban dual citizenship in America. The bill would give millions of Americans one year to choose between the U.S. and any foreign passport they hold.

There’s just one problem: it would also apply to the First Lady and her son.

Both Melania and Barron Trump hold Slovenian citizenship alongside their American passports, and under this legislation, they’d have to give one up or lose the other.

The senator who wrote the bill is himself an immigrant who gave up his Colombian citizenship, and he says loyalty to America should be all or nothing.

Melania and Barron Hold Slovenian Passports

First Lady Melania Trump and her 19-year-old son Barron are both dual citizens of the United States and Slovenia. This detail comes from journalist Mary Jordan’s biography “The Art of Her Deal,” first published in 2020.

Jordan confirmed in a 2024 interview that both still hold joint citizenship.

Under Senator Bernie Moreno’s new bill, they would have one year to renounce their Slovenian passports or automatically lose their American citizenship.

The White House has not commented on how the bill might affect the First Family.

The Senator Who Wrote It Came from Colombia

Bernie Moreno was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1967. His family moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when he was five years old.

At 18, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen at the first opportunity. He has since renounced his Colombian citizenship entirely.

Moreno won his Senate seat in 2024 after an endorsement from President Trump and became Ohio’s senior senator in January 2025 when JD Vance left to become Vice President.

He introduced the Exclusive Citizenship Act on December 1, 2025.

Dual Citizens Would Get One Year to Decide

The bill gives Americans with foreign passports 12 months after enactment to make a choice. They can submit a written renunciation of their foreign citizenship to the Secretary of State.

Or they can renounce their U.S. citizenship to the Department of Homeland Security.

Anyone who does neither would automatically be “deemed to have voluntarily relinquished” their American citizenship.

They would then be recorded in federal systems as non-citizens and treated as aliens under immigration law.

Melania Wanted Barron to Have Options

Mary Jordan reported that Melania kept her son’s Slovenian citizenship for practical reasons. A Slovenian passport lets Barron work freely anywhere in the European Union without visa restrictions.

Jordan wrote that Melania wanted to give her son “more options” in life. Barron speaks Slovenian and has maintained ties to his mother’s home country.

Slovenia is a small nation of about 2 million people that was part of Yugoslavia when Melania was born there in 1970. She left for a modeling career in the 1990s.

Nobody Knows How Many Dual Citizens Exist

The U.S. government does not keep a registry of dual citizens. Americans are not required to declare or register foreign passports.

Expert estimates of how many people hold dual citizenship range wildly, from 500,000 to 5. 7 million.

One report suggested about 40 percent of Americans might be eligible for a second passport through ancestry or marriage, though most have not claimed one.

Moreno’s bill would require the State Department and Homeland Security to build an entirely new tracking system from scratch.

The Supreme Court Already Addressed This

In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in Afroyim v. Rusk that American citizens cannot be stripped of their citizenship involuntarily.

The case involved a naturalized citizen from Poland who voted in an Israeli election.

The government tried to revoke his passport, but the Court said the Fourteenth Amendment protects citizenship as a permanent right.

Justice Hugo Black wrote that citizenship can only be lost if someone voluntarily gives it up. Legal experts say this precedent poses a major obstacle for Moreno’s bill.

Immigration Lawyer Calls It Unconstitutional

Michael Wildes, an immigration attorney who clarified Melania’s status during the 2016 campaign, told Newsweek the bill is unlikely to survive court challenges.

He pointed out that several founding fathers held dual nationality with Great Britain, then America’s enemy. “To claim that dual nationals cannot devote their full service to this country is preposterous,” Wildes said.

He also noted the bill does not explain why Americans born with dual citizenship should be treated differently from those who naturalized. Wildes declined to comment on the First Family’s specific status.

Melania Is the Only Naturalized First Lady

Melania Trump is the first and only First Lady in American history to become a naturalized citizen. She was born Melanija Knavs in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, in 1970.

She moved to New York in 1996 to pursue modeling. In 2001, she received a green card through an EB-1 visa, a category reserved for people with “extraordinary ability. ” She became a U.S. citizen in July 2006, one year after marrying Donald Trump.

She later sponsored her parents’ citizenship through family-based immigration.

Celebrities and Military Kids Face the Same Problem

The bill would not just affect the Trump family. Actor Tom Hanks holds Greek citizenship alongside his American passport.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a dual citizen of Austria and the United States. Ryan Reynolds holds both Canadian and American citizenship.

Beyond celebrities, the bill could affect children of U.S. military members born on bases overseas, who often qualify for citizenship in their birth countries.

Many Americans hold Irish, Italian, or German passports through ancestry programs that have become popular in recent years.

Moreno Says Loyalty Must Be Undivided

Senator Moreno argues that dual citizenship creates “conflicts of interest and divided loyalties. ” In a statement, he said becoming an American citizen was one of the greatest honors of his life.”

“It was an honor to pledge an Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America and ONLY to the United States of America,” he wrote.

“Being an American citizen is an honor and a privilege, and if you want to be an American, it’s all or nothing. ” He did not provide examples of specific conflicts caused by dual citizenship.

The Bill Faces Long Odds in the Senate

Moreno’s proposal now moves to the Senate committee process, where its future is uncertain. Republican leaders have not said whether they will advance it.

Even if it passes both chambers and reaches President Trump’s desk, it would almost certainly face immediate legal challenges based on the Afroyim ruling.

The bill would also require building federal systems that do not currently exist to track and process millions of people. For now, Melania and Barron can keep both passports.

Whether that remains true depends on what happens next.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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