[captainperl]

> in the US, it’s basically impossible to involuntarily lose citizenship

Over the past 20 years, several laws have been passed that erode proof of citizenship:

- id documents with an expiry date are not usable after that date (expired passports used to be accepted for domestic non-travel uses)

- the Evite database decides whether you can work at many companies

- parish records are sometimes deemed unacceptable as proof of birth, disallowing the reissue of other documents like passports

- some people have duplicate SSNs

- in the past year, a small number of people in both the USA and Canada have been told their original and valid citizenship documents were not valid by Immigration, with the burden of proof on the citizens.

[mikeash]

Compare that to losing one’s permanent residency, which can happen because of something as simple as forgetting to tell the government that you’ve moved.