Here’s a thought that just occurred to me and I came to GQ and just started typing right away.
Which means you people should be able to tear holes in it immediately.
Seems to me that a person with dual citizenship could facilitate some nefarious deeds by doing a legal name change in one- but not the other- of the countries for which he holds citizenship. I mean, this person would have two legal identities. I’m thinking of bad guys in movies who have to get forged passports for their evil bad guy plans. Having two legitimate passports but with different names could be helpful, no?
Say U.S. Citizen Bennie Fraudster gets into a bit of trouble in Brasil. He manages to get himself out of Brasil but his evil business isn’t quite completed. So he comes back to Brasil as Seamus O’Fraudy with his legal legitimate Irish Passport.
The above is for you to delightfully poke holes in and tell me the million things I’m failing to consider.
The following is the actual factual General Question(s):
Can a person have two different legal identities in two different countries?
If not, is it illegal through international law?
Illegal through treaties between the two countries of citizenship?
Or separately illegal by the laws of each of the countries of citizenship?
For starters, Bennie/Seamus would have to certify that his name is valid whenever he renews his passport (at least for the U.S. passport, and probably for most countries.) So there’s a limit on the amount of time one could legally possess two valid passports with different names. Willfully concealing this information when one’s passport is renewed would probably be construed as perjury.
I see no reason I couldn’t change my name in Canada and get a passport under that name, why keeping my US passport in my old name (which is not, in fact, the name on my birth certificate). But changing one’s name for the purpose of committing fraud is always illegal. I know someone with a Slavic last name who was offered the possibility of changing his name when he became a US citizen. But I guess he could have gone back to Serbia and gotten a Serbian passport.
I don’t see what the practical problem would be with doing this. My identity in my two nationalities is separate, united by the coincidence of me. Any name-change process will provide the paper trail to connect the two identities for a diligent investigator.
You are not just a name–you are a number, too.
Most countries issue a permanent number for every person. In the US, this is the Social Security number; in most other countries it is simply known as your ID number, and is used on all official documents and passports.
When you change your name legally (which, of course, half the population does … marriage/divorce, ya know ) your number remains the same.
In the US, you can use any name you want without changing it legally, as long as it’s not for fraudulent purposes. You don’t even have to file a DBA, but that might make it easier to open a bank account.
My children have two separate legal names. They have dual Taiwanese and US citizenships, and different legal names for each country. It would be possible for them to change their names in just one country and not inform the other country.
The problem with doing this for the purpose in the OP is that it leaves a legal trail. It’s just much better to get good quality forged passports.
OTOH, unless you hang out with the right (wrong?) people, most people don’t know where to get forged passports.
Also, in the future, as government computer systems get more developed, it may be possible that they will start to do searches on biometrics for people who enter the country. Aliens have to be finger printed when they enter the country, but I don’t think they are actively checking records.
It’s perfectly possible to have two different names in the same country.
Your name is a matter of fact; it’s what people call you. And if different people call you by different names, well, you have two or more names. This isn’t uncommon.
The main obstacle to getting two passports in different names is not having two names; it’s having two citizenships. But if you have two citizenships, then having passports in two names is not that difficult.
And it’s easy to think of circumstances where it might arise. A woman may have changed her name on marriage and since renewed one passport that she holds, while still having another passport from another country which has not yet fallen due for renewal. Or, when it does fall due for renewal, she may not bother to have her new surname recorded.
As others have pointed out, using different names fraudulently is an offence in most countries. Denying that a name by which you are, in fact, known is your name is usually dishonest, and that takes you half-way to fraud. But simply having, and using, different names in different contexts is generally not.
We don’t have that over here (we do have a social security number, but it’s solely used for healthcare related issues and doesn’t appear anywhere else). Besides, even if you have, the other country wouldn’t have access to this data anyway. In the proposed scenario, Brazil would only know of Bennie Fraudster and even assuming that they somehow would know that Bennie Fraudster SS number is 123456789 (say, they have a copy of a document bearing this number), how could they connect it to Seamus O’Fraudy Irish ID number 987654321 ?
It seems to me that what the OP is describing would work
With different names and two countries with exit/entrance checking in place, how do you reconcile your airline ticket??
Case in point: When I leave Australia (using my Australian passport), Immigration checks my passport, my export card and airline ticket. All names must match. So when I eventually land at LAX or SFO, US Customs and Immigration checks my US Passport, my airline ticket and my Customs card. All names must match. How can I have two different names and one airline ticket?
? It has been a few years since I’ve entered the USA from an international flight, but I never presented a airline ticket. Just my passport, sure they had the info anyway.
Well, is there in practice anything to stop you entering the US on your Australian passport, and simply not mentioning that you also have, or at least are entitled to, a US passport?
And if, for some reason, that’s impossible, then could you not fly to (say) Canada using one passport, and then travel from Canada to the US using the other?
At present the United States does not require you to clear immigration as you leave. Nor do they pay much attention to passport stamps evidencing your travel while you were out of the country.
IIRC from a recent thread, US citizens entering the USA must have enter on their US passport. Someone mentioned an Israeli born in the USA to Israeli diplomats, who first tried to enter the USA 30 years later, to be turned away because he was also American so needed a US passport to enter. Your new Irish passport will still have your correct place of birth (and date), and if that’s the USA, then the customs alarm bells will go off - “why were you born here but don’t have a USA passport?”
I assume US customs is still doing thumbprints of anyone coming into the country not in NAFTA (Canada and Mexico exempt). Brazil was reciprocating by doing the same to US citizens. I assume this went into a database, was not for show. You need to keep that fake rubber thumb handy.
Alert Brazil customs may ask the same question if you arrive from the USA. Of course, flying to Brazil from Ireland without hitting the USA would be less likely to cause this issue to come to attention of Brazilian authorities.
My Canadian passport application, IIRC, asks what other countries I have citizenship/passport for. Not sure if the follow up with those countries, but should a police investigation be needed, I’m sure once authorities were interested they would quickly find out - presumably Ireland can respond to queries by finding your legal name change in their passport history files - even you never asked for an Irish passport until your name was changed, they would likely be able to find your new passport with a search of their database for your old name. That’s how I’d program it. After all, 50% of the population is liable to be changing their name at some point in their life.
The question is whether you’d raise alarm bells. Not sure the current process for getting visas to Brazil, at one point they were getting even with USA and Canada with reciprocal measures - “you make our citizens with visa applications provide proof of employment and recent bank accounts, letters of reference, and charge $60 - we’ll do the same for your citizens.” Sometimes these applications require job history, last 5 years’ addresses, etc. Basically, you will have difficulty being honest and not giving away the game.
I suppose you might fudge the facts if you were born after midnight in Ireland, say 11Pm in New York; then your birth date Irish time would be a day later. But then, they will want the NY birth certificate and use its time and date.
Not anymore. At least, not in most countries, where passports are now chipped. It is presumably possible to duplicate the RFID signature of a real passport but I’ve not heard of it being done.
Also, on international flights (to, from, or over USA or Canada) your name, and passport details, are entered into the manifest. Unless you drive out of the country (or use a boat, or evade reporting), the US customs can check if and when you left and returned.
not a big deal. You fly to Ireland, take the train to Belfast and a ferry to London, train to Paris or Amsterdam and fly out from there… It would be hard to connect Benny and Seamus that way.
Come to think of it, I have and did use my Canadian and British passports interchangeably and nobody gave me a hard time… in 1991. But then, entering Britain was a matter of selecting the “returning UK Citizens” line which did not even check passports sometimes. Lately, I use my Canadian passport so as to stay with my wife who does not have the UK passport - but I occasionally take it on international trips, it might come in handy. Of course, I haven’t changed my name.
Your passport identifies you by name, and date and place of birth. Unless you change your name or you are John Smith, that’s pretty distinct.
What is the benefit of doing this over just using forged passports? It seems to me that you’re doing something that leaves a bigger, easier to follow trail than a simple forgery for no net benefit. Bennie Fraudster may be able to get into Brazil with his legit Irish passport if no one has flagged it, but he’d be able to get in with a forged passport and not have to worry that someone connected his two real names. The Brazilians can still arrest him regardless of which passport he used to get into the country.