What does fidelity mean?

Fidelity means faithfulness and loyalty; in the Oath of Allegiance the applicant promises to give up all fidelity to foreign sovereigns and to bear true faith and allegiance to the United States. The word appears in two clauses of the oath set out in 8 CFR section 337.1. In the first clause the new citizen renounces "all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty," abandoning prior loyalty. In the third clause the new citizen promises to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same" (meaning the Constitution and laws of the United States), affirming new loyalty.

Fidelity comes from the Latin fidelitas, meaning faithfulness, and is the root of words such as fidelity insurance, fiduciary duty, and the motto Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful) of the United States Marine Corps. In legal usage fidelity has long described the duty of loyalty owed by a subject to a sovereign or by an agent to a principal.

The pairing of fidelity with allegiance in the oath captures both the affective dimension (faithfulness as devotion or attachment) and the legal dimension (allegiance as the duty owed by a member of a political community). Fidelity to the Constitution, in this sense, means more than emotional attachment: it means actual, ongoing compliance with the supreme law of the land and refusal to support those who would overthrow it. The duty endures throughout the new citizen's life; section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act sets out the limited circumstances under which citizenship may be lost.