Hello all. I’m new here. My question is fairly simple I believe. I’ve been out of my home country so long that they don’t consider me a citizen and I’m not a citizen of the US yet either so if I have my travelling documents am I good to travel outside of the US? Will I have problems getting back in? Any answers would be appreciated and any links to helpful websites would be nice! Thanks all!
You need to speak with a qualified immigration attorney.
I’ve never heard of citizenship being lost simply from being outside the country too long. However, if that’s true, then it sounds as if the OP is stateless (i.e., is a citizen of no country). Being stateless may qualify the OP to apply for refugee status in the US, but, as robert_andrews, in complex immigration and citizenship matters, you need to talk to an expert.
Wait, are you saying that your country revoked your citizenship because you left the premises? I know of no country on earth that operates in this way. In addition to an immigration attorney, you should contact your country’s consulate in the U.S. and get your situation straightened out. Unless there’s some information you are withholding.
Perhaps his original country no longer exists and none of the successor states want him?
You are a citizen of whatever country you are from, until you become a citizen somewhere else. I have not heard of countries that normally, routinely revoke citizenship. If you cannot get travel documents from your home country (or don’t want to) then you definitely need professional advice.
If you don’t have some form of proof that you are a legal resident (green card?) then likely you won’t get back in. However, in most cases you will have trouble getting anywhere outside the USA without valid travel documents either.
Keep in mind that if you show up at the airport or border to most countries without valid papers, they will ship you home, even if you haven’t been there for 20 years.
A guy I know was travelling to the USA with some freinds. When they got to the airport in the USA (years ago, before 9/11 and all the passport rules) he decided to lie and say he was a Canadian citizen. In fact his parents brought him to Canada from Germany when he was 2 years old and he had never gotten his citizenship. Of course, the customs people could look this up, so he was interrogated for 5 hours then put on a plane. He phones his parents and says “guess what, I’m in Germany!”
Get serious professional help and be sure you have all the necessary documents before you leave the USA!!!
That is usually how statelessness arises.
OP your question is actually not simple at all. You need a qualified immigration attorney to even begin to answer it.
One thing I cannot stress enough: If you are not a US citizen and you have EVER been arrested, even for something that seems minor and trivial, or happened a long time ago, you absolutely MUST consult an attorney before leaving the country.
Also be sure your documents are valid for the country you plan to visit. talk to their embassies before you leave the USA. Be sure your US status is clear too.
If Britain or France or Japan or whatever deny you entry on immigration grounds, they will ship you home. The reason they will ship you to Elbonia or wherever you originate, rather than the USA, is because without proper documentation showing you are entitled to enter there, they would be just forwarding you to the same hassle in a different country. Countries don’t do that to each other.
Simpler to ship you to a country that MUST take you, then let you sort things out from there.
It is possible to be born stateless: it happened a lot in the aftermath of World War 2, with children of refugee parents not acquiring the citizenship of the country that they were born in or their parents’ citizenship. In addition, the break-up of states like the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia has caused problems for people who were national minorities in the new state where they resided: sometimes neither the state of their residence or the state of the nationality wanted them.
Need more information to answer your question.
- What type of “travelling documents” are you referring to?
- What is your country of origin? Do you still have a passport from that country?
Leaving the US is relatively easy. Sometimes the airlines will request to see your passport before allowing you to board an international flight leaving the US, but not always. The issuing country of your passport will determine your ease of entering another country and the visa and document requirements for entering that country. For example, US citizens are required to have a visa along with a US passport to enter Brazil, but German citizens are not required to have a visa, only a German passport to enter Brazil. Each country has unique requirements and restrictions. Your ability to return to the US will be dependent again upon the country that issued your passport. You may be able to gain entry as a tourist, with the verbal committment to leave the country within a specified amount of time. Your failure to depart the US within that timeframe would make you an illegal alien.
Based upon the description in your OP, it sounds like you are an illegal alien. If so, please take your trip and try and abide by our laws when and if you decide to return.
Well I don’t know everything. My dad is taking care of most of it. See we are from Ukraine. We have been in the US for 15 years. We had a trip planned to go home to Ukraine and see family but we are having troubles with the embassy (i guess). My dad said we had to spend $700 on traveling documents and that would take the place of us not having citizenship anywhere. He said we were not citizens anywhere now. Ukraine won’t recognize our citizenship and becoming a US citizen is not cheap and my parents don’t speak any english at all.
In my experience they always do, because the airline has to pay for the problem of a person arriving at a country with proper passport, visa, etc.
“Illegal alien” is such an ugly phrase. We don’t actually know from the description in the OP whether the illegal status arose from anything that was done unlawfully.
I’m assuming from this that you and your parents have green cards (permanent residence) in the U.S. In that case, becoming a U.S. citizen is probably the easiest thing for you to do, even though it does cost a lot. It will be harder for your parents if they don’t speak English. But you still need to talk to an immigration lawyer: that will cost you some money, but it should help you and your parents fix the difficult situation.
I would suggest that you spend whatever it takes to get US citizenship, at least for yourself. It will make things like travel incredibly simple compared to now.
My guess is that you do not want to leave the USA until all the legalities are sorted out. I would not trust anything anyone tells you unless it’s an official letter from the US government. Just because you pay some “consultant” a lot of money to tell you it’s OK to travel does not mean it really is OK to travel. The one thing that really is definite, is having your hands on a passport from the US giovernment.
If you are legal residents, you should become citizens, especially if the Ukraine is causing you problems.
If you are illegal aliens, then accept the fact that you are in one of the few countries that does not seem to automatically deport you; in fact, does not seem to care. But, if you leave the country you will not likely get back in again. Your lack of regular documentation will draw attention to you when travelling which will invite closer scrutiny.
Cannot repeat it enough - get professional help, be sure they are reliable, and be sure from other sources that what they are telling you is correct, unless you want to join the orange revolution for the long term.
We are definitely here legally. We all have greencards. Thanks for all the help guys. Me and my brothers and sisters will probably become citizens one day but I seriously doubt my parents will ever do that. Anyway I’ll look for an immigration lawyer in my area and call him for my dad.
Sucks though that we’ll probably miss out on Ukraine this year but… better than being stuck there forever I guess.
I travel frequently out of the country, and can recall numerous times in the past 3 years that I was not asked to provide a passport upon boarding my flight. This was the exception, but enough times that it sticks out in my memory.
Ugly phrase or not, the OP’s entry may not have been unlawful, but his current status may be that of an illegal alien.
Ombak, it is unclear whether you and your family have “resident alien” or green cards for permanent residence in the US, but not citizenship. If you have a permanent resident cards, then you should be able travel out of the US and return easily. If you do not have permanent resident cards, you will have difficulty returning to the US.
Look here for official information: http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/vacation/
Hm. It does say on the Consulate page you can lose your Ukrainian citizenship by living outside of the country for 7 years without notifying the consulate of your existence, without good reason. Bizarre.
http://www.ukrconsul.org/Citizenship_ukraine_EN.htm#15
Where do you live (city, state)? Do you have any religious affiliation? I might be able to point you to an immigration assistance organization.
also, take md2000’s advice. Naturalization is expensive, but in the long run its the least expensive option. If your parents will never naturalize they MUST retain enough ties to the Ukraine to be considered citizens there!
I still think you should consult a professional, but I wonder if there isn’t a miscommunication here. Reading between the lines (with some guessing), it sounds like perhaps your Ukrainian passports are so long expired that they are no longer recognized as valid travel documents. This probably means that while you are still Ukrainian citizens, you cannot easily prove it at the moment, and the $700 is for an expedited temporary solution until it can be straightened out. Usually, it’s easy to fix these if you have endless patience, but harder if you have travel plans.
If this (or anything close) is the case, working with the Ukrainian Consulate is probably your best bet. They would not have revoked your citizenship, but the burden may be on you to prove it. One way to do that may be to show the documents that allow you residency in the U.S.
ETA: Just saw the post above. Bizarre. There must be gazillions of stateless Ukrainians floating about, then, so I’m sure it’s a common problem.
Yeah, I had to research this issue not long ago for a client; Ukrainian law also states that if you were living outside Ukraine on the day Ukraine declared independence and/or the day the Ukrainian nationality law was passed, you lost Ukrainian citizenship. (We have 2 clietns who are, in effect, staetless for that reason.) We tried to confirm with the Ukrainian Consulate here, but they were totally non-responsive. Which is, in effect, the same thing - if your native country won’t do anything to acknowledge or document your citizenship, you might as well have no citizenship.
Every time I’ve tried to deal with the government of Ukraine for any reason, it’s been a huge PITA. Good luck, and naturalizing in the U.S. is likely to make your life MUCH simpler.
Eva Luna, U.S. Immigration Paralegal
It is possible for a stateless person to travel. There is a document called, IIRC, a Nansen passport (q.g.) that a stateless person can get (where?), but he will need a visa for every country he visits and (most likely) a reentry permit from the US (although a green card might qualify). I have a friend who left the US, draft notice in hand, in 1968, got an immigrant card in Canada and immediately went to a US consulate and renounced his citizenship. Until he became a Canadian citizen, that is what he had to do to travel. My advice is to become a US citizen ASAP.