Self-described "MAGA communist" Jackson Hinkle is having quite a week. A video making the rounds on social media allegedly shows the American political commentator leading anti-United States chants in front of a big crowd in Tehran, Iran, during official funeral events. As Trending Views reported, the clip has predictably launched a wave of conservative accounts demanding that Hinkle be stripped of his U.S. citizenship. Which sounds decisive and patriotic right up until you remember how citizenship law actually works.
First, let us talk about the video itself, because the internet is doing what the internet does best: sharing first, verifying never. Several details attached to the viral version are either wrong or unconfirmed. Some posts reference "the Ayatollah's funeral," which is interesting since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, is very much alive. Large state funerals in Iran have been held for other senior figures, so which event this clip actually depicts, and what exactly was chanted, has not been independently nailed down. What we can say is that the accusation is spreading way faster than the confirmation.
Now for the fun part. A bunch of people online are demanding Hinkle lose his citizenship, apparently under the impression that the government has a big red "revoke" button somewhere. It does not. U.S. citizenship is one of the stickiest legal statuses in existence. The Supreme Court ruled in Afroyim v. Rusk back in 1967 that natural-born citizens cannot have their citizenship yanked by the government as punishment. Loss of citizenship requires proof that the person voluntarily intended to give it up. Chanting something dumb at a rally, no matter how offensive, does not meet that bar.
For naturalized citizens, there is a process called denaturalization, but that only applies when the government can prove the person committed fraud or lied during their naturalization process. It is not a penalty for being a provocateur with terrible judgment.
As for treason, which some commenters are throwing around like confetti, that is also narrowly defined under U.S. law. It requires levying war against the United States or giving "aid and comfort" to enemies, backed by either a confession in open court or two witnesses to the same overt act. Yelling things that make people angry on the internet is not treason, otherwise half of social media would be in prison.
Whether Hinkle is a natural-born or naturalized citizen has not been publicly established in this whole mess, but it barely matters. Under current law, neither path makes stripping someone's citizenship over political speech anything close to straightforward.
So here is where we land. You can think Hinkle is a clown. You can think traveling to a country that regularly chants "Death to America" and allegedly joining in is a spectacularly bad look for an American citizen. Those are perfectly reasonable opinions. But the people demanding his citizenship be revoked are confusing moral outrage with legal authority, and those two things have never been the same. Treat the viral claims with caution, separate your feelings from the law, and maybe wait for the facts to catch up before grabbing the pitchforks.
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