Joel Laverne Slater (April 30, 1960 – March 26, 2008) was an American activist who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1987 in Australia, voluntarily making himself stateless to protest U.S. foreign policy. The Australian government soon afterward deported him back to the United States, and after six years of fruitless efforts aimed at finding another country to which he could be admitted as a refugee, Slater asked the State Department to reverse its earlier recognition of his renunciation, and had his U.S. citizenship restored.