This paper assesses the justifications given for the right to revoke citizenship in democratic states and concludes that it has no place within them. I begin with a brief account of the right to revoke in contemporary democratic states. I then situate the alleged right to revoke within the broader migration theory. Open borders views, which recognize general the right to cross borders, have little room for revocation laws. More controversially, I argue that statist views, which grant significant discretion to states, also cannot justify revocation laws; their general commitment to protecting an internal egalitarianism that is inconsistent with the alleged right to revoke. I then argue that a commitment to equality undermines any possible positive case for revocation: they discriminate between citizens based on their citizenship status; they permit the application of harsher penalties on some and not others for the same crime; and they are inadequately justified.
