I understand that a valid US passport isn’t needed to retain US citizenship. But isn’t a valid US passport needed to apply for dual US-Russian citizenship as Snowden is doing? Doesn’t he have to provide a valid US passport? His was cancelled in 2013 if I remember correctly. If he doesn’t have a valid US passport, what documents does he submit to become a dual citizen?
Edward Snowden is an American citizen because he was born in North Carolina. He doesn’t have to apply for American citizenship.
If he’s also applying for Russian citizenship then his application will be governed by Russian laws. If the Russians say he doesn’t need an American passport, the United States has no say in it.
Thanks Little Nemo. I’m fully aware that he is an American citizen. I am also aware that he can retain his US citizenship without a valid passport. If he doesn’t need to show a valid US passport to obtain Russian citizenship, would that be the norm in other countries ?
I’m guessing it’s probably not the norm in Russia. But if the Russian government chooses to waive this requirement (if it exists) there’s no authority that can tell the Russian government they can’t.
When I became a naturalized Canadian citizen, the only document I needed was the immigrant card. Why would they care about my US passport? It’s not as thought they were going to ask the US to cancel it. I now have two passports one of which I use to travel to the US and the other to return (although they will also admit me with the US passport and Canadian citizenship card, but it got too hard to convince airlines check-in agents of that).
I don’t specifically know the answer, because Google didn’t direct me to an obvious English language Russian government source. But that would be the way to answer this question.
Either answer is plausible to me. My limited understanding is that Russian citizenship, like many other countries, can be based on a certain number of years of being a permanent resident. Presumably he has Russian issued paperwork proving that. It’s plausible to me that would be sufficient documentation. There’s nothing particularly magical about a passport. If a country wanted you to prove your existing citizenship they could ask for a variety of documents (birth certificates, naturalization certificates, passports, etc.). It all depends on their needs and levels of bureaucracy.
Of course, that applies to normal, non-political cases. Presumably for Snowden the answer is more like “whatever the big man wants to do will be done”.
Isn’t it typical, though, that when one takes up a new citizenship, that act cancels one’s existing American citizenship? If Russia wants to make him a citizen, the US can’t stop that, but if he wants to be a citizen of both Russia and the US, that, the US can say no to.
Nope.
A U.S. citizen may naturalize in a foreign state without any risk to his or her U.S. citizenship. However, persons who acquire a foreign nationality after age 18 by applying for it may relinquish their U.S. nationality if they wish to do so.
Most other countries require you to have resided legally in the country for a certain period, so you may need to establish this by presenting your visa or residence card. Some countries reduce the residency period under certain conditions, such as being married to a citizen, so in that case you’d need to produce a marriage certificate and identity documents for your spouse. Some countries require you to pass a language or citizenship test, so you will need to present the results of those.
Note that many countries prohibit dual citizenship, so if you want to naturalize in one of them, you actually need to provide a document showing that you’ve renounced any and all former citizenships. This isn’t the case for Russia, but if it were, it would be a good example of why not having a valid US passport is a good thing.
It’;s wildly unlikely that one of the requirements for naturalisation under Russian law is “you must already be a citizen of another country with a currently valid passport”, and the same goes for any other country’s naturalisation laws. So I don’t see that the lack of a current passport would in itself be an impediment to naturalisation.
Typically you would have to demonstrate residence in your new country for the required period of time, and you would usually do this by producing your passport with entry and exit stamps, plus any required visas, so production of your passport would be a common element of naturalisation processesin many countries. But not an essential element.
In fact, IIRC relinquishing US citizenship is a bit of an ordeal, as some people have found out who sought to relinquish it for tax reasons, as the US is the only country in the world I believe that requires its citizens to file tax returns annually regardless of where they live. Relinquishing citizenship, at any rate, requires forms, fees, and waiting periods, somewhat like applying for a visa. It’s not something you can just announce.
That’s true. I naturalized as British in around 2001 and renounced US citizenship in 2014. I had to provide a birth certificate, my naturalization certificate, and fill out several forms. Then you get scheduled for a interview at the US embassy to make sure you really mean it, hand over your US passport and sign the final paperwork. The fee was around $2500. It took several months to get the final paperwork back.
Looking at Japan and Taiwan, unofficial cites show that a passport from the home country is a requirement for Taiwan but not for Japan, but residency cards are required for both. Foreigners are usually required to have a valid passport for a residency card for these countries, and I suspect that this is generally the case in many countries.
Whenever I’ve renewed my residency cards and visas, I’ve always had to show my US passport.
The US used to take away citizenship for anyone who naturalized in another country. In fact, it used to be the case that a woman who married a foreigner automatically lost her citizenship and a foreign woman who married an American acquired citizenship automatically. This persisted well into the 20th century; it ended before my time. When I got my first passport in 1964 it was for three years only, renewable for two more. This was to make it easy to administer the law said that a naturalized citizen who spent three years in their country or five years in any other country were denaturalized. There was a court case and SCOTUS ruled that there were no second class citizens, so that went by the boards. As recently as the early 80s my two older children naturalized in Canada while they were between 18 and 21s because Canada allowed naturalization at 18, while the US didn’t penalize anyone under 21. Since my son was 18 in 1985, this law was in effect at least till then. At some point it disappeared and my wife and I were naturalized in Canada in 2007.
I haven’t seen Eva Lunafor a while, but she could provide more detail.
This how I thought it still was, although I never had to think about it. I wonder if the rules changed when I was small kid (like in the late 50s), and I never realized it because it didn’t apply to me or anyone else I knew.
My brother lives in Costa Rica, and he has something like permanent residency there (he qualifies for their national health program), but he didn’t have to become an CR citizen or relinquish US citizenship. So, he wouldn’t be penalized by the US if he wanted to become a CR citizen?
I do not know specifically in regards to Costa Rica, but at least in regards to France, there is no penalty. I know of several Americans who are now also French. They received no penalty upon becoming French and simply use their US passport when entering and leaving the US.
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That’s cool! I always thought it was crazy that you would have to renounce your citizenship. My memory was colored by hearing that Liz Taylor had to renounce her US citizenship to marry Richard Burton…for some reason. I freely admit this could be something my child brain completely misinterpretted!
If a country strictly required a valid passport for naturalization, how would they handle refugees, asylum seekers, and defectors, whose passports are either nonexistent or declared invalid?
nitpick—the US ain’t the only country like that. There’s one other: North Korea.
So we’re in good company. 
As an overseas resident, my tax forms fill out 18-20 pages every year, and I have the simplest possible financial situation.(My only income is a simple regular paycheck, don’t own a business , don’t own any rental property, don’t make any transactions on the stock market.)
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By refusing entry, or concentrating them in camps. CF, Australia, America, etc.
I wouldn’t have had to ‘renounce’ my citizenship in 1975: loosing my American citizenship would have been a side effect of taking the affirmation for Australian citizenship. Unfortunately, by the time I acquired Australian citizenship, that was no longer true.