MAGA senator accidentally forces Melania and Barron Trump into tight spot
Barron Trump walks with his parents Donald and Melania in 2019. (Evan El-Amin/Shutterstock)
December 02, 2025
A Republican senator's proposal to overhaul U.S. citizenship could force President Donald Trump's wife and youngest son into a tight spot.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) intends to introduce legislation that would end dual citizenship by requiring American citizens to declare their “exclusive allegiance” to the U.S. and renounce their foreign citizenship, as the Trump-endorsed senator did for his own Colombian citizenship, reported The Daily Beast.
“One of the greatest honors of my life was when I became an American citizen at 18, the first opportunity I could do so,” the Colombian-born Moreno told Fox News Digital.
“It was an honor to pledge an Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America and only to the United States of America,” Moreno added. “Being an American citizen is an honor and a privilege — and if you want to be an American, it’s all or nothing. It’s time to end dual citizenship for good.”
Moreno's proposal could create a headache for the first lady and Barron Trump, who remain dual citizens of the U.S. and Slovenia after Melania filed paperwork at some point ensuring her son would also have citizenship in her birth country.
“She did that to give her son options,” said Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan, who published a book on Melania Trump last year titled "The Art of Her Deal." “If you have a Slovenian citizenship, which Barron is entitled to, the passport makes a lot of things easier."
“I think she also likes that he speaks Slovenian, he has a Slovenian passport," Jordan added. "By getting him the citizenship and the passport it’s easier for him to get a job, it’s easier for him to set up a business, it’s easier for him to inherit land. It’s mama bear just giving options to her son.”
Born in 1970 in Slovenia, Melania Trump is only the second first lady born outside the United States, after President John Quincy Adams's wife Louisa Adams, who was born in London in 1775.
She is the only first lady to become a naturalized U.S. citizen and obtained her citizenship in July 2006 on an EB-1 visa, which is reserved for immigrants with “extraordinary ability” and “sustained national and international acclaim.”
The Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025 proposed by Moreno would be enforced by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security and would set up a system to track dual citizens, who would then have a year to renounce their foreign citizenship, or forfeit their U.S. citizenship.
Anyone who failed to comply within that year would automatically lose their U.S. citizenship, and anyone who gave up their U.S. citizenship would be considered foreigners and recorded as non-citizens.