Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz plans to introduce legislation next week aimed at stripping U.S. citizenship from anyone providing support to or fighting with terror organizations. His proposal comes after reports that at least 100 Americans have joined the ranks of the Islamic State (ISIS).
"Americans who choose to go to Syria or Iraq to fight with vicious ISIS terrorists are party to a terrorist organization committing horrific acts of violence, including beheading innocent American journalists who they have captured," Cruz said in a statement,
reports The Hill.
"There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt on their part to re-enter our country and carry out further attacks on American civilians."
Cruz said he plans to file the
Expatriate Terrorist Act as a reaction to threats posed by ISIS in order to help keep extremists from re-entering the United States.
The bill would result in such people renouncing their citizenship "with the intent of supplanting his U.S. citizenship with loyalty to a terrorist organization," said Cruz, and the legislation would apply to people who provide support to foreign terrorist groups.
The Cruz proposal would amend a current federal law passed in 1940 that allows the government to strip the citizenship of any person who votes in another country's elections or who joins the military forces of countries at war with the United States.
"I am hopeful that we will see Republicans and Democrats come together in support of the legislation I'm introducing to provide that any American that takes up arms and fights with ISIS forfeits his or her U.S. citizenship." the potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate said while announcing the bill Friday at an event in Brazos Valley, Texas, reports CNN affiliate KTXN.
On Thursday, another potential candidate, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, also called for passports to be revoked from people who become active with terrorist groups.
"We should revoke passports from any Americans or dual citizens who are fighting with ISIS," Rand said in in an op-ed he wrote
for Time Magazine.
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama signed legislation Cruz proposed to prevent a U.N. ambassador from entering the United States if that ambassador was a known terrorist.
He filed his bill after Iran named an ambassador to the United Nations who had links to the group responsible for the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, The Hill reports.
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