Mexico’s Senate Receives Reform to Prohibit Dual Nationality in Presidents and Governors

BySinEmbargo Editorial Staff

This article by the SinEmbargo editorial staff originally appeared in the August 30, 2026 edition of SinEmbargo, an independent Mexican news outlet.

Mexico City, August 30 (SinEmbargo).— The Senate of the Republic received this Sunday the Federal Executive‘s initiative to prevent people with dual nationality from aspiring to the Presidency, a governorship, or the Head of Government of Mexico City (CdMx).

Laura Itzel Castillo Juárez, president of the Senate, reported that the upper chamber received the reform bill for articles 82, 116, and 122 of the Political Constitution, with which the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo seeks to establish a single nationality for those who hold those offices.

“Let the highest interest be Mexico, no other country. It is that simple and that profound.”

Claudia Sheinbaum

“This constitutional reform seeks to guarantee that whoever holds the leadership of these Branches does not have dual nationality and, therefore, a conflict of interest with a foreign nation,” Castillo Juárez wrote on her X account.

Senator Castillo Juárez added that the initiative “will be forwarded to the Chamber of Deputies for its ruling,” so it must still go through the legislative process before it can become a constitutional reform.

The initiative sent to the Senate seeks to ensure that those who aspire to the Presidency, a governorship, or the Head of Government of CdMx hold only Mexican nationality. If they have another, they would have to renounce it before requesting their registration as candidates.

The initiative also proposes that, once in office, the person holding the Presidency, a governorship, or the Head of Government may not acquire or request another nationality.

President Sheinbaum Pardo announced this past Thursday, August 27, that she would send Congress a reform to establish this requirement and explained that the objective is to guarantee that those who govern represent only the interests of Mexico.

“Let the highest interest be Mexico, no other country. It is that simple and that profound,” the President responded when a reporter asked her what the concrete benefit would be of preventing a person with dual nationality from aspiring to these offices.

The Executive’s Legal Counsel, Luisa María Alcalde Luján, explained for her part that articles 82, 116, and 122 already establish that to hold these offices one must be Mexican by birth.

However, she pointed out that the current wording has generated interpretations about what happens when a person has another nationality.

The proposed text states: “Not to have or acquire another nationality and, if one has it, to renounce it before requesting registration as a candidate, and to have resided in the country for at least 20 years.”

In this way, Alcalde Luján reiterated that “whoever holds the office may not acquire or request another nationality, nor invoke before a foreign authority a nationality other than the Mexican one.”

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