If so, where and why?
I’m going to Ireland tomorrow and really looking forward to it. My last time over, I got a copy of my Grandfather’s birth certificate, and had the pleasure of meeting relatives and finally hearing true stories about him.
I’ve been toying with the idea of dual citizenship.
Can anyone give me the pros and cons of this? I’ve looked around online but value more what I read here.
Oops. Mods, I meant to put this in My Humble Opinion. Sorry!
I do, but I haven’t done anything about it.
My dad told me rather late in (his) life that by Irish law, I am an Irish citizen. He was born in Ireland, and he came to the US, renounced his Irish citizenship as part of getting American citizenship (I heard somewhere that the renunciation thing is no longer a requirement), and I was born later, with both my parents then being American citizens. Anyway, none of what he did to become American mattered as far as Irish law is concerned. A child of someone born in Ireland is an Irish citizen – period.
I found this so amazing, and difficult to believe, that I actually called the Irish embassy in DC to verify it, and the person I spoke to did indeed confirm it. There is no application I have to fill out to become an Irish citizen, I just AM one.
But I’m sure there would be some documentation I’d have to provide should I try to claim any benefits from the Irish government.
One benefit would be an Irish passport, which would become documentation for yet another benefit. Ireland is a member of the European Union, and I could work in any member country without any special work visa. Also, there are places in the world where it’s probably safer to travel as an Irishman rather than an American.
I’ve also thought that Ireland might serve as a last ditch health service. Should I become seriously ill while uninsured, maybe I could scrape up airfare to get there and be covered by their national health insurance. Dunno how practical or smart that is.
If I had learned this in my teens or 20s my whole life might have been different. But it’s a little late for me to go job hunting in Europe.
I was born in Pennsylvania. I recently found out that, because of the circumstances of my family history, I may be entitled to Hungarian citizenship. If true, that would make me a dual citizen. I haven’t looked into it any further.
I was born in England. My mother is Irish and she got me my first passport, Irish obviously - prior to that I was on hers. I’ve continued renewing it ever since. I’ve never had a British passport but now also hold Antigua & Barbuda citizenship and passport.
I hold both a Canadian and a US passport. I was supposed to give up the Canadian when I became a US citizen, but never did. I haven’t traveled on the Canadian one, but I want to keep it just in case.
You never know when it might be advantageous to be Canadian instead of American.
I’m an Australian and got my US citizenship when I moved here to be with my husband. As others have said, having the option of traveling under a non-US passport could be helpful. I’ll never give up my Australian citizenship since it entitles me to free health care (after a one year wait). I’m keeping Australia in mind as an option if I need to retire early.
I’d be very careful that any new citizenship you claim doesn’t require you to give up your other citizenship. The US wording is vague in this area and not really enforced, so plenty of people are dual citizens here. Australia openly says that it accepts dual citizenship.
Not only that, but you can work it down another generation too. My paternal grandfather was born in Ireland. My dad was born in Ohio, but as the son of an Irish citizen, he was an Irish citizen too. He obtained an official Irish passport and became registered as a foreign born Irish citizen at the Irish consulate in Chicago in the early 1990s. Myself, born in 1961, became a retroactive Irish citizen, as my parent was an Irish citizen. I jumped through the same hoops, and now have an Irish passport too.
I haven’t used the Irish passport yet - I’ve only traveled to Canada lately, and the US one worked just fine - but I’ve got in in reserve. 
So far we’re unanimous – no benefit that we’ve actually used, and the best theoretical benefit is to travel more or less disguised as a non-American.
But if the OP is young and looking to establish a home and/or career, depending on what citizenship you can claim, you may have a bunch more options because of it.
I’m both a British and a Chinese national. I got the British passport from my birth in Hong Kong when it was a British territory. The Chinese nationality got automatically added without any action on my part when the Chinese took over, although I’ve never applied for a Chinese passport. I can also apply for naturalization as an American citizen if I wish without any impact on my existing nationalities, although I’m not sure I can justify the cost and the hassles at this point.
I’m not, but six of my first cousins are dual citizens, three US/UK and three US/Mexico. (I think one off my Mexican cousins is also a UK citizen as well, as her husband is British.)
My Mexican cousins actually grew up until they were adults in Mexico, and their American citizenship has allowed them to live and work in the US as adults, which has benefited them quite a bit, I think. The youngest of them just graduated from college (in the US) and I think he plans on staying here. The eldest of them actually did lose his American citizenship briefly when he turned 18, as Mexico forced him to choose. But a few months later, they changed their laws to allow dual citizenship, so he got his American citizenship reinstated. Since he and his wife (who’s a Mexican national and has a green card through her husband’s citizenship) now live and work in the US, I’d say they definitely benefit from it.
My British cousins’ parents are both Americans, and although they were all born in the UK (which is how they acquired the citizenship in the first place), they were children when their parents returned to the US. The eldest of them did return to London for a few years after she graduated from college, but only for a couple years. Although I suppose they could live and work anywhere in the EU, they haven’t taken advantage of this.
They do also travel under their non-US passports from time to time. The elder two of my Mexican cousins went to Cuba a few years ago. One of my British cousins has traveled around in South America under her UK passport because she thinks people are nicer to her there than when she uses her US passport.
I qualify for Israeli citizenship, but I’ve never attempted to acquire it for a number of reasons. It would be cool to vote in Israeli elections, but that one benefit is outweighed by the negatives.
Dual Citizenship FAQ: Dual Nationality and United States Law
Yeah, I’m a Dual Citz.
I have both a US citizenship by virtue of my parents becoming US citizens when I was under 18, and an Egyptian citizenship because my parents are Egyptian. I was born in the UK, and theoretically could have had a british citizenship except for the fact that Britain makes you renounce all other citizenships.
There aren’t many advantages to dual citizenship, but most Egyptian tourist attractions are discounted for Egyptians. So, I get to pay less to see the pyramids, museums, etc.
My US-born wife had the option of going to the the Egyptian consulate with me, filling out some paperwork and becoming “Egyptian” since she is married to one. We never got around to visiting the consulate, so I tease her when she has to pay full price to visit an attraction in Egypt, and I pay the discounted rate. She could have paid the discounted rate as well if we would have brought out marriage certificate, but of course who remembers to pack that (I’m not even sure where it is).
Disadvantages? When I traveled to Egypt from the US when I was 19 or 20, there apparently was a slim chance I could have been drafted into the Egyptian Army.
Not a US citizen, but dual UK/South African citizen. We qualified after we’d lived in the UK for five years (my grandmother was UK-born, which got us in the door) and it didn’t cost too much and gave us the option to stay there forever if we chose (we came home a year later) and still gives us the option should (God-forbid) things go pear-shaped in South Africa.
Advantages would have been easier travel within Europe, as South Africans are required to apply for visas for virtually every country, but children arrived in that last year, so we didn’t take advantage as we might have done…
I know some people who have both Canadian and a european nationality and it helps with mundane stuff like border crossings. If you cross from Canada to the US (or the other way around) it can be a real pain as a non-Canadian/American with the retina scans, finger printing and personal questions about what you’re going to do, who you’re going to visit and why you didn’t bring any presents for these people (all from my most recent entry in the US this August). Candains and Americans are just waved though.
In Europe on the other hand it can be handy to have an EU pasport as it will be easier at pasport control (lines especially for EU citizens) and thing like admission to vissit national parliaments of EU countries, which is free for EU citizens but not neccesarily so for non-EU visitors.
I myself could get a second nationality if I wanted to (slovenian, while I already have the Dutch nationality) because my mom is Slovenian. My sister almost did this last year, because she was planning on doing a Masters in Slovenia and being Slovenian would give her all kinds of financial benefits; in the end she dropped the idea and thus also the second passport.
I have New Zealand and Australian citizenship. I was born in NZ and only got Aus citizenship because the government contract that I work on in Aus was being tendered and the rules had changed since I joined the company. Back then you only needed to be an Aus resident but it was later changed to an Aus citizen. On the off chance that another company got the contract I wanted to have all my ducks in a row for employment at the new company.
U.S. and Canadian. U.S. from my dad (and I was born in Maryland) and Canadian from my mother. When I formalized the Canadian, there were major hoops and hurdles to go through. Since then, a change in law has made it easier to claim, and all my brothers and sisters will have to do is send off birth certificates. (Only one is interested so far.)
Some here will remember my sojourn to Ottawa a few years ago.
While I may or may not try again to live in Canada while I’m still working, I’m 90% certain that I’ll retire there. (Only 90% because who knows what’ll happen to either country’s retirement and medical systems in the next 14 years.)
I’m early 30s and bored to death and would love to experience more of the world. I’d love to move to Ireland for a year, get a meaningless job and a good motorcycle and just ride and ride. Then maybe spend a few years roaming Europe.
I think I’ll look further into the citizenship process.
I’m US/UK. Born in the US and gained UK by living and working here for 5 years on work permits and permanent residents visas. I’ve been here 15 years now.
The biggest benefit is travel, standing in the short queue at passport control wherever I go.
I work for a software company that specialized in security software and some of our customers are UK government agencies. Without the British passport I wouldn’t be able to visit these customer’s offices.
If I decide to change jobs nearly all of Europe is open to me, not just the UK.
My husband has dual New Zealand/United Kingdom citizenship. He was able to get the UK citizenship through his mother, who is actually Polish, but was brought over to the UK during the war.
The advantage has been that it has allowed us to come over and settle in the UK (I was originally granted a one-year visa as his spouse, then completed the necessary tests to become a permanent resident).
I think, but I’m not 100% sure, that the advantage of keeping the NZ citizenship is that we can apply for green cards through that citizenship, but not through UK citizenship.