Someone close to me, a person with permanent residency (a green card) is applying for US citizenship. She would like to maintain her home country citizenship (so dual-citizenship). There is conflicting information about this online- so I’m interested in hearing from someone who has been naturalized recently- did they make you turn in your original passport? Thanks.
She will be required to turn in her Green Card, but she will not have to surrender her passport. The status of her previous citizenship is between her and her other country. The US does not get involved. If the other country allows her to have dual citizenship, she will maintain it.
Thanks. Do you know this from personal experience, or some other source? I only ask because of the conflicting information I’ve seen.
Paging Eva Luna.
If she’s a UK citizen she’ll have to turn in her passport unless she was born after December 1982 and/or in Hong Kong and some other things too.
She’s not a UK citizen (or from Hong Kong), and she was born after 1982.
I’ve had a lot of experience with the USCIS, but not specifically with the naturalization process. I have talked with USCIS personnel about it, though. What sites are you getting conflicting information from?
The USCIS defers the topic of dual citizenship to the State Department. The State Department has this to say on their website:
“U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another.”
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1753.html
There is also no mention of giving up a previous passport or renouncing another citizenship on the USCIS step-by-step guide to Naturalization.
As a general rule, the US does not concern itself with other, additional citizenship. A person is either a US citizen or is not. It is not relevant what other country he/she is a citizen of.
The U.S. really doesn’t care if she has another citizenship. And I’d be very surprised to find out that the U.K. does, because a friend and former co-worker of mine who is UK-born (well before 1982) and an immigration lawyer licensed in the U.S. and Canada currently holds three valid passports: UK (by birth), Canadian (by naturalization as a small child) and U.S. (by much more recent naturalization). My college roommate has 2 passports, and could have a third if she ever bothered (Salvadoran by birth, U.S. by naturalization - actually her parents’ naturalization while she was under 18, and she has been living in the U.K. as whatever the equivalent of a green card holder is for going on 15 years, but has never bothered to apply for citizenship because it’s so expensive).
I’ve known, personally and professionally, many many people who retained their foreign citizenship after naturalizing in the U.S.
Eva Luna, U.S. Immigration Paralegal
Thanks very much.
AIUI (I’m a British citizen) Britons generally lose their citizenship when they accede to new citizenship, but they don’t lose their right of abode.
If this is true, as a practical matter how does the UK government find out that its citizens have naturalized elsewhere? Also, if you have a citation I’d love to see it.
That seems to contradict this leaflet from the horse’s mouth. Or am I missing something?
Note that it distinguishes between “nationality” and “citizenship”. British law recognizes three different categories of people - nationals, citizens, and subjects. The latter overlaps with the first two in ways that differ depending on when you were born. As a practical matter, though, I guess there’s no way they would know you accepted foreign citizenship.
Also, there are some countries that won’t let you go. 
Italy for example. You can do or say anything you wish. Burn your passport in public. Shout it from the rooftops. whatever. If you want, you can always swing by the local Italian consulate and pick up another passport. I am not Italian, but I get this information from a good friend who was born in Italy and moved to the US in the 70s. Been here ever since and is a US citizen.
On the plus side, every Italian is entitled to Italian Social Security. If you haven’t lived there since you were born, it isn’t much, but it is yours.
A few years back a family member from France with American wife wanted US Passport, maybe citizenship too. They told him he had to give up the French passport.
I have heard (no cite) that residents of countries that are in the NAFTA agreement (Canada, USA and Mexico) can have both passports.
The United States has no requirement that you give up your foreign passport upon naturalization.
I have personal experience of this, I naturalized in the United States a few years ago. I still retain my South African citizenship and passport.
Other foreign countries might have different ideas on whether you’re allowed to retain their citizenship upon naturalization. But the United States itself will not require you to renounce your foreign citizenship.
Another former co-worker (Russian-born, U.S. immigration lawyer) tells me that when she was deciding whether to apply for U.S. citizenship, she checked with the Russian Consulate and discovered not only would she not automatically lose Russian citizenship - she would have to pay a large amount of money to renounce her Russian citizenship if she wanted to. Something like $1,000. I don’t know what the fees are these days, and unfortunately the link to the application form and instructions on hte website of the Russian Consulate are in Russian only (no link on the English version). If you want to take a crack at it, here you go. Last I heard, my friend had finally gotten her U.S. citizenship, but I don’t know whether she ever got around to renouncing her Russian citizenship. The application looks like a real PITA.
Not true at all. I was born in the UK, have been a Canadian citizen for 38 years and would have no problem getting a UK passport if I wanted one; heck even an EU passport.
My mother didn’t (born in Brazil in the 1930s, came to the US in the 1960s, now a passport carrying citizen of both countries).
An “EU passport” is just the passport of an EU member state. The EU itself doesn’t issue passports.
Are you sure of this? It directly contradicts what a colleague told me. Namely that she lost her Italian citizenship when she became a Canadian citizen, but since that happened after her children were born, it didn’t apply to them. They became Canadian citizens when she did, but were minors and took no oath.
FWIW I will mention that the US knows I have become a Canadian citizen, but I still get a US passport that I travel with (it lasts twice as long as a Canadian passport) and when I return to Canada, I show that and my citizenship card and no border agent has ever remarked on that. I did have to turn in my immigrant card when I became a citizen.