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Rosie O’Donnell at an awards ceremony in New York City, May 4, 2019.<\/span>Anthony Behar\/SIPA via AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n President Donald Trump<\/span> threatened on Saturday to revoke the citizenship of Rosie O\u2019Donnell, an American-born comedian, talk-show host, actress, and long-time Trump nemesis who moved to Ireland after Trump won the 2024 election.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the fact that Rosie O\u2019Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her,\u201d Trump wrote<\/a> on his social media platform Truth Social. \u201cGOD BLESS AMERICA!\u201d <\/p>\n The Fourteenth Amendment, which protects \u201call persons born or naturalized in the United States,\u201d forbids him from doing that. <\/p>\n Federal statute<\/a> provides an exception to that standing when a judge\u2014not the president\u2014finds a citizen\u2019s certificate of naturalization was \u201cillegally procured or were procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.\u201d Some experts have concerns<\/a> about judges misinterpreting the statute\u2019s wording in cases regarding naturalized citizens: Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman recently wrote in Bloomberg<\/a><\/em> that\u00a0\u201cthe law is not as precise as it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n But his concern should not apply to O\u2019Donnell, who was born in Commack, New York, and is no less American than Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s threat came a few days after O\u2019Donnell blamed Trump for leaving Texas ill-equipped to handle the catastrophic floods that began on July 4, with 122 people confirmed dead<\/a> so far. \u201cThese are the results that we\u2019re going to start see on a daily basis because [Trump] has put this country in so much danger by his horrible, horrible decisions,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said<\/a>. \u201cPeople will die as a result and they have started already. Shame on him.\u201d (She did not respond immediately to a request from Mother Jones<\/em>).<\/p>\n The First Amendment\u2019s free speech protections allow O\u2019Donnell to share her critiques freely without fear of risking her right to return to the US. But Trump\u2019s public threat to revoke her citizenship is a dangerous escalation of rhetoric that portends a dark future. <\/p>\n When an American president can get away with threatening people\u2019s citizenship simply because he feels unfairly criticized, then journalists, political opponents, and everyday citizens\u2014especially those who became so through the process of naturalization\u2014had better beware.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n