The sharp rise in non-exclusive citizenships in recent decades has been explained by citizenship scholars as a global shift towards instrumental attitudes about citizenship, a phenomenon described in the literature as “strategic citizenship” or “compensatory citizenship.” These theories suggest the rise in dual and multiple citizenships worldwide are best understood as enabling individuals greater access to mobility, security, and rights than that afforded by a single citizenship. Iranian dual citizens pose a challenge to this typology: as a result of geopolitics that has pit Iran against many Western states and vice versa, Iranian dual citizens in diaspora and in Iran may actually experience greater insecurity, immobility, and disruption of rights due to their multiple citizenships. Based on semi-structured interviews with Iranian dual citizens in diaspora as well as on legal scholarship and media reports, I demonstrate two related constraints facing Iranian dual citizens in Europe, North America, Australia, and in Iran itself. First, increased securitization both in Iran and in the West has tended to tighten restrictions on dual citizens’ rights, leading to greater surveillance, detention, and intimidation of Iranian dual citizens as well as heightened suspicion, discrimination, and social marginalization. The targeting of Iranian dual nationals in Iran for interrogation, intimidation, and imprisonment has been well-documented, and on-going. The restrictions placed on the U.S. Visa Waiver Program and its expansion in the Muslim Ban and Canada’s Bill C-24 (amended by C-6) are prime examples of these kinds of securitization efforts that led to Iranian dual citizens’ increased immobility and insecurity, respectively. Second, although technically permissible by Iranian law, the practical impossibility of renouncing Iranian citizenship leaves dual citizens in a Catch-22. When joined with Iran’s paternal jus sanguinis citizenship law, the inability to renounce leads to situations wherein individuals may not even realize they are technically considered a dual citizen, but are nevertheless targeted and affected by the aforementioned securitization efforts. These efforts not only have broad impacts on dual citizens’ rights, they also weigh heavily on their sense of self and belonging. As my interview data demonstrates, this is especially the case in experiences of discrimination (especially in employment settings), indefinite separation from family, and intimidation from security officials in either or both of the countries they call home.