Are naturalized citizens in the US required to renounce their previous citizenship? Is this dependent on the other country involved?
If they do require it, how do they enforce it?
IIRC, the oath of citizenship includes a renunciation of any allegiance to another country. The thing is, the other country may not permit its citizens to abandon such citizenship. As to enforcing it, fairly easy: just don’t recognize the other country’s claim.
The US does not officially recognize dual citizenship, but neither do they do anything about it. Cecil addresses it in some more detail here.
So if someone becomes a naturalized US citizen, they would take an oath renouncing all foreign allegiances, but you wouldn’t have to turn over your passport, and they wouldnt call the consulate of Country X and say “Take Bob off your list - he’s ours now!”
Precisely. Here’s the State Department’s current official position, though case law over the past century or so has been all over the map. However, AFAIK there is no official central record of all countries’ citizens, so as a practical matter, it’s basically impossible to enforce a formal renunciation of allegiance to the country of one’s original nationality.
If I were to become a US citizen, would I give up my right to call on British Consular services (e.g. if I were arrested in the US)?
Would the arresting parties be able to deny me a consular visit (article 36b of the vienna convention, iirc) on the grounds that I’m a US citizen?
The US may not make you give up your second citizenship, but the other country can. My ex-wife was from Russia, and when she became a US citizen she had to turn her passport in. She was a bit upset about it at the time as now she has to get a visa to go back.
The US tolerates (and actively discourages dual citizenship). In my personal experience it is not illegal to be a dual citizen and one is not required to give up the other citizenship.
However, at least at the US consulates in China, they can be real pricks about actively discouraging dual citizenship. Practically speaking, how do they do this? Well, in case of my kids born in China to a Chinese National and US National, they are by birth Chinese citizens. They are also natural born American citizens but need to do the paperwork to prove it (consular report of birth abroad). China does not recognize dual citizenship. China also as immigration exit controls, which means you need a valid visa to leave China. US citizens of course are not eligible for a US visa because American citizens don’t need a visa to enter America.
So the US embassy is real helpful about issuing a “pro-forma visa” once to facilitate leaving China on the Chinese passport, then renouncing Chinese citizenship at a Chinese consulate abroad. However, if one tries to do this more than once in order to allow kids to actually reach an age and make their own nationality decision, then the active discouragement kicks in. Takes months to get a pro-forma visa, and they make the process unpleasant as possible.
Chinese consulates require any children applying for a Chinese visa to provide the birth certificate and prove they were born in the US.
Oddly enough, Russia apparently now makes it very difficult to give up Russian citizenship. One of my former co-workers is a Russian citizen who left there at age 16 (she is now in her late 20s and eligible to naturalize in the U.S.) She inquired into renouncing her Russian citizenship and was told she’d have to go through a horrendously protracted bureaucratic procedure and pay a $1,000 fee.
Much of the enforcement comes at customs. The US will pretty much ignore any other citizenship that you have, but whenever you enter the US it is absolutely required that you travel under your American citizenship. I’m not sure what can happen if you try to present your other passport upon entering the states, but it’s not pleasant.
Amusing conversation that my Canadian/American dual-citizenship friend had at customs upon driving into the US with her Ontario license plates but presenting an American passport:
Customs Officer: Are you American or Canadian?
Friend: Dual citizen
CO: Are you American or Canadian?
F: (thinking the CO hadn’t heard her): Dual citizen
CO: Are you American or Canadian?
F: American
CO: Ok, go on
A guy I worked with in Germany was a dual American and German citizen. He had to use his American passport when entering the US, and his German passport when entering the EU (though he probably could have gotten by with the US passport in the EU, it’s really silly, since European airports have faster lines for EU citizens.)
He once tried to present his German passport at US Customs, and they wouldn’t let him pass until he produced his US passport. How they knew he had a US passport? I don’t know…probably interlinked in the big passport databases. Who knows.
I acquired dual citizenship as an adult. I was born in the U.S., but I had a legal claim on another citizenship. At the time, my lawyer advised me that to make sure I didn’t swear allegiance to Country #2. That act would have revoked my U.S. citizenship. But they never asked — it was more a matter of registering my existence with them and paying a small fee than being naturalized. Technically I’d been a citizen of both countries since birth (they just hadn’t been informed), so it wasn’t a matter of choosing between them. It’s my understanding that, barring a couple of exceptional countries, that’s the only kind of dual citizenship that works, since the act of acquiring a second citizenship voids U. S. citizenship.
In practice, of course, people collect citizenships like stamps or cat-shaped knick-knacks.
A friend of the family who had dual US / UK citizenship renounced the US side to avoid any possibility of being drafted into the US military.
On the second half of Cecil’s classic How do I go about renouncing my U.S. citizenship? deals with dual citizenship.
In a year or two, I will become eligible to become a US citizen (provided I pass tests to prove that I spreakEnglish and understand the American system of government). If I do, I will not lose my Australian citizenship – until a few years I would have, but the law was changed in Australia.
Going the other way, Australia accepted that naturalised citizens could be dual citizens, and never forced them to give it up, unless they wanted to go into Parliament.