[skissane]

> There’s never before been a US citizen who is also a foreign sovereign.

Éamon de Valera was born in New York City in 1882, and served as President of Ireland from 1959 to 1973

Bhumibol Adulyadej was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1927, and served as King of Thailand from 1946 until his death in 2016

That’s just two US-born individuals who became head of state of another country, there may be more.

I assume both were US citizens at birth (de Valera was born into poverty, abandoned by his Spanish father, reputedly an artist; Bhumibol‘s father was a student at Harvard)-whether or not they ever formally renounced their US citizenship, I don’t know

[madcaptenor]

I was wondering whether Wikipedia would comment. They don't, but somebody already edited Bhumibol's article to say that "His father was enrolled in the public health program at Harvard University, which is why Bhumibol was the only monarch to be born in the US until the 2025 papal conclave elected Pope Leo XIV."

There are some sources indicating that children of foreign sovereigns would be exempt from automatic citizenship, but Bhumibol's father wasn't the king, just the king's brother.

Éamon de Valera's case is unambiguous.

There are surely other world leaders who spent significant time in the US - Benjamin Netanyahu spent some time in the Philadelphia area as a child, for example. And a little bit of research turns up Naftali Bennett, prime minister of Israel in 2021-22 - he was a US citizen (born in Israel to US citizen parents) until he had to renounce his US citizenship when elected to the Knesset.

Famously Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel (which is a largely ceremonial post), which presumably would have come with Israeli citizenship, but he turned it down.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> there may be more.

> Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City

[skissane]

Not a foreign sovereign - Boris Johnson was never head of state, only head of government - a distinction often forgotten in countries like the US which merge those two offices into one. (Which is not about the UK being a monarchy-parliamentary republics such as Ireland, Malta, Germany, Austria, Israel, keep the two distinct)

[itsmartapuntocm]

I believe King Rama IX was not technically a U.S. citizen because his parents were considered foreign diplomats. In any case he never tried to claim citizenship and was only ever considered Thai.

[skissane]

So, a foreign prince (not the King, his brother) enrols as a student at Harvard - would he be considered a “foreign diplomat”? He wasn’t formally acting as a diplomat, and unless he happened to be officially accredited to the State Department as one, I doubt he would have technically counted as one either. Was he present in the US on a diplomatic/consular visa, or a student visa?

Also, in most countries (the US included), one’s status as a citizen/national is legally independent of whether one tries to “claim” it.