[desdiv]

>My understanding is that you cannot renounce citizenship on US soil.

I know nothing about this except 5 minutes of googling, but seems like USCIS does process renunciations on US soil:

>Further attempts by prisoners to renounce under 1481(a)(6) continued to be stymied by a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services policy that applicants had to attend an in-person interview and demonstrate that they could leave the U.S. immediately upon approval of renunciation. [0]

Reading between the lines though, the process seems far harder than doing it aboard because you must demonstrate "intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship", meaning cutting off all US ties and establishing foreign ties, and that's hard to demonstrate when you're physically inside the US.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relinquishment_of_United_State...

[someguydave]

my learning level is about the same, it seems the process is governed by https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1481

The gist is that the us gov pretty much has full discretion to “not believe” your renunciation if they desire. In practice the us gov seems to be unwilling to officially entertain renunciations except through very narrow processes.

[someguydave]

Clarifying the above I found this: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-us-citizens-can...

The important quote is this: “ For all the acts listed above, it is not enough to appear to commit the act—even voluntarily—to lose U.S. nationality; the person must also commit the act in order to relinquish the nationality.”

It seems US gov policy is to interpret the law linked in the parent comment such that nearly no one (even traitors and rebels!) have the intent to renounce US citizenship and furthermore it is almost impossible to unambiguously prove that intention.

Since no other nation is going to presume to tell the US gov who its citizens are (not), there is very little recourse or due process available.