Case Example: Forced Renunciation A.S. entered the United States in September 1994, using a false Bangladeshi passport. He then applied for asylum. He has no criminal history or bankruptcy and has paid all of his taxes to date. His brother was granted U.S. citizenship through the Diversity Visa system. A.S. assumed his brother’s identity as a U.S. citizen and his wife also naturalized. According to the terms of his plea agreement, A.S. and his wife must self-deport to Bangladesh, a country A.S. has not lived in for 25 years, leaving behind four young daughters—N., age 13; S., age 12; T., age 10; and P., age five. According to A.S., he is dreading sentencing as “[t]here is no future, only darkness.” A.S. was denaturalized in July 2018. The terms of his plea included that his wife would be de facto denaturalized. Based on a purported agreement with the prosecutor, the U.S. attorney agreed not to prosecute her, contingent on her renouncing her citizenship at the U.S. consulate in Bangladesh upon her return. If she fails to do so, the government stated that it would prosecute her criminally. Effects of a parent’s deportation on U.S. citizen children. Separating families causes significant and lasting consequences, including emotional distress, economic and housing instability, and food insecurity. This can have permanent consequences for children’s development. According to the American Psychological Association, children separated from their deported parents show signs of trauma, depression, anxiety, and difficulties in school.476 This can affect children for the entity of their lives, resulting in learning, behavioral, emotional, and physical challenges.477 A study that explored the ways that deportability affects U.S. citizen children found that: 1) children’s own identity (as American) was irrevocably tied to their parents’ deportability, generating a sense of not belonging in the United States; and (2) the rupture in the family bond created a sense of exclusion from citizenship and community.478 Even if the parent is not immediately deported, living in limbo and fear of deportation weighs heavily on family members. Young children are aware that their parent may be deported, and educators and other adults report pervasive fear, anxiety, and varied behavioral changes among children.479 Stress relating to their potential deportation is linked with parents’ diminished emotional well-being and worse academic outcomes among their children.480 Conclusion In Knauer v. United States (1946), a case which stripped U.S. citizenship of a Nazi-sympathizer, Judge Rutledge, dissenting, wrote, “there are other effective methods for dealing with those who are disloyal, just as there are for such citizens by birth.”481 This is an essential point, even for pre-Janus type cases that target war criminals and other heinous actors. The early cases 112 UNMAKING AMERICANS