For decades, Pakistan’s argument over dual nationals in public office was a seasonal quarrel rather than a serious policy debate. It flared during partisan clashes, then receded once political alignments shifted. Now an unexpected nudge from Washington has turned that familiar irritant into a more urgent question. A single proposal in the U.S. Senate–however unlikely its passage–has done more to expose our complacency than years of half-hearted petitions at home. The world is rethinking mobility, allegiance and citizenship. Pakistan, meanwhile, has allowed the issue to continue unaddressed.
The trigger was a new bill introduced in the US Congress, framed as a demand that Americans hold “exclusive allegiance.” It arrived in a climate of anxiety after a violent shooting in Washington, DC, involving an Afghan national. Whether the legislation succeeds is almost beside the point. The writing on the wall is unmistakable: questions of loyalty, identity and belonging have re-entered the American mainstream. Whenever Washington speaks in that register, immigrant communities feel the tremor first.
Among them are more than half a million Pakistani Americans who have built stable lives in the United States without abandoning ties to the country they or their parents left behind. Legally, US citizens are not required to relinquish any foreign nationality. But political winds often shift faster than statutes, and memories of how quickly administrative discretion can harden into exclusion are still fresh.
Seen from their vantage point, Pakistan’s own muddled debate on dual nationality looks even more nauseating. Successive governments have alternated between suspicion and opportunism. A minister’s foreign passport becomes a scandal until the coalition changes, and then the matter conveniently fades. Courts have examined the issue repeatedly, parties have weaponised it, and bureaucracy has quietly carried on. Everyone recognises the policy vacuum. No one fills it. The contradiction would matter less if the stakes were low. They are not. Pakistan’s six-million-strong overseas community sends home billions of dollars each year–money that cushions every fiscal shock. Families depend on the mobility that those passports provide. A generation of young Pakistanis builds its careers on the pathways created by earlier migrants. And yet the diaspora is often treated as a suspect class, blamed for divided loyalties while simultaneously asked to rescue the economy through remittances. The hypocrisy is not subtle, nor is it sustainable.
A minister’s foreign passport becomes a scandal until the coalition changes, and then the matter conveniently fades.
This disconnect fuels the unease many overseas Pakistanis feel when policy is made through slogans rather than clear rules. They know how other countries manage their expatriates. China, India and Turkey each maintain defined, if sometimes restrictive, frameworks. Pakistan offers uncertainty instead.
At the same time, the diaspora’s political behaviour demands a harder look. For all its economic value and cultural reach, it has too often displayed a shallow understanding of Pakistan’s political realities–most visibly during PTI-aligned protests abroad. What may feel cathartic in London or Washington translates into terrible optics at home: sloganeering that collapses complex crises into hashtags, demonstrations that invite foreign scrutiny without offering domestic solutions, and a style of politics that feeds polarisation without bearing any of its consequences. Diaspora activism is not illegitimate, but when it becomes performative rather than constructive, it weakens the very democratic space it intends to build.
The federal cabinet’s flirtation with a constitutional amendment banning dual citizenship deepened these anxieties. The proposal surfaced briefly and then stalled, but not before setting off a wave of concern among overseas Pakistanis who would be forced to choose between two futures. Many pointed out that Pakistan had only recently expanded pathways for citizens to retain nationality after naturalising abroad.
The irony is that other states with far stricter rules– Iran is a case in point– illustrate the limitations of harsh policy. Iranian nationality cannot be shed without government approval. India and China also restrict dual nationality, but they compensate by building structured relationships with their overseas communities. When states tighten rules without offering clarity or engagement, they merely trap people in legal and emotional limbo.
The US, for its part, is unlikely to adopt an all-or-nothing citizenship regime. Its own history makes such a move difficult to sustain. But the fact that the proposal exists–and finds an audience in moments of political unease–should prompt Islamabad to think ahead.
Pakistan needs a position anchored in its own interests, not borrowed anxieties. That begins with acknowledging three facts. First, the diaspora is not a peripheral constituency. It is central to Pakistan’s economic stability. Second, global attitudes toward migration and identity are hardening, and Pakistanis abroad will feel those pressures. Third, pretending that citizenship questions can be indefinitely deferred only deepens mistrust and fuels politicised theatrics at home. A clear framework would do more than reassure overseas Pakistanis. It would stabilise policymaking in Islamabad, reduce opportunities for selective outrage, and align Pakistan with global norms rather than leave it caught between extremes. Such a framework need not be rigid. What it requires is coherence: defined rights, clear obligations and a transparent process for holding public office. Parliament can begin with hearings that include testimony from overseas Pakistanis–not just politicians but students, workers and professionals who navigate dual systems daily. The Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis can produce a white paper outlining the legal and economic implications of various models. And Pakistan’s missions abroad can be instructed to communicate policy changes promptly and consistently, avoiding the ad-hoc responses that have so often bred confusion.
Citizenship today is not a zero-sum calculation. Pakistan should recognise that reality rather than resist it. The alternative serves neither the state nor the millions who continue to support it from afar.
The writer is OpEd Editor (Daily Times) and can be reached at durenayab786 @gmail.com. She tweets @DureAkram.