As noted above, the US recognizes dual citizenship whereas many countries don’t. It seems to me that that’s probably a legacy of our heavily-immigrant past. My girlfriend is 25 and holds dual French and American citizenship. She’s never paid French taxes, but holds a French passport and has been asked to attend French mandatory civil service training of some sort, although she got out of that because she was away at college.
The US only recognizes dual citizenship for those born with it. If you naturalize, you give up your previous citizenship(s). It’s formalized in law, but I think that the US Oath of Allegiance says it best:
On an unrelated note, the Oath of Allegiance is really fascinating; I wish I’d been exposed to that in a school setting. Naturalized citizens are asked to forswear a couple of rights that natural-born citizens retain. It’s fascinating to think about whether US citizenship ought to carry not only rights but duties.
There’s no difference I’m aware of between France and the USA in that regard. If your girlfriend was instead a boy, he would have to register for draft in the USA despite being a French citizen (by the way, it’s not “civil service training”, it’s a presentation of the French military, and draft registration. And she didn’t get out of it, in all likelihood. It’s probable her mandatory attendance was only delayed until the end of college/uni)
Also, if she was living in France, she would nevertheless have to fill for US taxes.
The fact she’s American is irrelevant from France’s point of view, and the fact she’s French is irrelevant from the USA’s point of view. There’s no difference here.
Selective Service, not draft. The difference is that there is basically no risk of conscription except in a hypothetical emergency. It’s been 12 years, but you just fill out a form or a card, maybe you can do it online now. Some may recall the draft being a major issue a few decades ago…
True. The operative term is “file” not necessarily “pay,” they give you some exemptions for part of your income, so you’re not completely double taxed. But the major disadvantage for US citizens is that they ask you to file no matter where your money is earned. Eritrea is the only other country I can find that does the same. Eduardo Saverin (Facebook guy) renounced his citizenship for tax purposes. He’s rich enough to make the choice easier/more possible, of course.
They may not know of it. But loss of German citizenship in these circumstances is not the result of a government act which depends on their knowing that they need to act; it’s automatic.
If she fails to make her choice by the required age, then she automatically ceases to be a German citizen. It may be some time before the German government becomes aware of this and in the meantime they may continue - erroneously - to issue her with a passport and otherwise treat her as a citizen. But, in fact, she isn’t a citizen.
Will they become aware of this? I don’t know, but you’d expect them to have procedures in place. When she applies for a passport, or applies to renew her passport, there will be a series of questions asked to establish that she is entitled to a passport, and if the series of questions is well-designed (and if she answers truthfully) then it will come to light that she is not a German citizen. And their could be other occasions when she has to answer such questions, e.g. when applying for or renewing a Personalausweis. There’s not much point in having a nationality law which provides for loss of citizenship unless you also have procedures in place so that, when citizenship is lost, the fact will come to light sooner or later.
A German friend of mine got a second nationality, thinking he’d just not tell Germany … he went to renew his German passport and they just took it off him.
At least from the German side, this is not true. If she has German citizenship through one of her parents she has permanent German citizenship and will not have to give it up or decide between two nationalities. In this case, ius sanguinis takes precedence over the German government’s dislike of dual citizenship.
As mentioned above, she would only have to chose (by the age of 23) if she was born to non-Germans living in Germany (and whose status fulfils some additional criteria).
I have two children born outside the US. The first one was born in Switzerland and acquired no rights in Switzerland thereby. He eventually naturalized as a Canadian citizen and so is a dual citizen since Canada does not require renunciation of previous citizenships. (My wife and I are also dual citizens in the same way). The younger one was born in a Canada and, as a matter of birthright is a dual citizen. We were repeatedly told that he would have to choose one or the other when he turned 18 or 21 or something. Totally false.
Now reading the thread above makes it sound like Germany takes a non-choice at age 23 as being equivalent to renunciation of German citizenship. I suppose it could be so, but I wonder.
My first child was born in Germany in 2003 and my second child was born in Germany in 2005. We were informed by the consulate of what was required for us to get our children registered as US citizens born abroad. The Germans told us these requirements since we were not allowed to register our child as a German citizen.
In 1980 your parents had the choice of making you a German citizen at the time of birth. Your parents optionally had the choice for dual citizenship since you were Naturalized in Germany and Naturalized in the US. Since they did not register your birth as a Naturalized citizen of both Germany and the US at the time of your birth, your only option is that you are a US citizen. Currently you do not have the option of naturalization as a German citizen.
Your friend is wrong based on how you worded what she said. Once a person with dual citizenship reaches the age of 23 and did not choose German citizenship they are no longer naturalized as a German citizen. An expired dual-citizenship does not gain a person the automatic ability to register as a German citizen if they once possessed dual citizenship.
Finally… Any and all US citizens can legally go about Germany’s immigration process to achieve German citizenship but they will then waive their citizenship in the US.
The new rule is if you were born after 1999 and one of your parents was a legal resident of Germany with a valid German residence at the time of your birth. If one of your parents was a German citizen (not resident) then you would be naturalized no matter when you were born and you would be forced to choose between being a German or US citizen by your 23 birthday. Since 1999 being born in Germany does not automatically naturalize you as a German citizen. This law was enacted to stop birth tourism.
It is so - but only in the case where your claim to German citizenship is founded solely on birth in Germany, and not on descent from a German citizen.
If you are born in German to non-German parents (who have been legitmately resident in Germany for a stipulated period) you are a German citizen from birth.
However to retain this citizenship, you must apply for retention before you turn 23. At that point you will be required to prove that you have no other citizenship, apart from (a) citizenship of another EU country, or (b) citizenship of a country whose laws do not enable renunciation of citizenship, or (c) certain other cases, e.g. you are a refugee from persecution in the other country whose citizenship you hold.
If you fail to apply for retention, or if you apply for retention but cannot satisfy that test, then your German citizenship will lapse when you turn 23.
There is a rule requiring the authorities to notify you, when you turn, 18, of the need to make an application before you turn 23. I imagine, but I do not know, that if through some error you never get that notification, there would be a procedure whereby you could get relief from the loss of citizenship, and an extended deadline within which to apply for retention.
However if your claim to German citizenship rests of the fact that either or both of your parents was a German citizen, none of this applies. Whether you were born in Germany or elsewhere, you have no need to apply for citizenship retention by age 23, and it makes no difference how many other citizenships you hold.
For US/German relations, It is so. You have to choose at 23 or you lose German naturalization rights.
Based on the German rules on dual nationality you have until the age of 21 to apply for dual citizenship if you cannot legally disown your parents nationality. As an example, a person born of a Saudi father will always legally be a Saudi through Saudi and international law. Because Germany recognizes the sovereignty of Saudi Arabia they will grant dual citizenship if the child applies for it by the age of 21. This option is not available to any naturalized US citizen as the US allows allows renunciation of the US citizenship
The info given here is mostly correct. But it has to be added that the German law concerning dual citizenship could change very soon. There were general election in Germany in September. At the moment coalition talks are going on between both largest parties in Germany, Chancellor Merkel’s CDU/CSU and social democrats SPD.
SPD want to allow dual citizenship, while CDU/CSU want to keep the current law. So this law might change depending on the outcome of these negotiations.
Norway currently makes you give up your former citizenship in order to become a naturalized citizen. However, if you are born a dual citizen, Norwegian law has no problem with you keeping both. If you were born with Norwegian citizenship and another citizenship, and you never lived in Norway, you will need to tell the local Norwegian consulate that you intend to keep your citizenship before you turn 23. But if you’ve ever lived in Norway before that, no problem.
The first part might change; I hope so. It used to be the case that Norwegian law allowed you to keep your citizenship when becoming naturalized. This was changed because the politicians who voted for it believed it would make people feel more Norwegian and less like their allegiance was split. The result seems to be that the people they hoped would feel more Norwegian, are simply not applying for citizenship at all.
Both the United States and Germany recognize the concept of multiple nationality.
A child born to an American parent and a German parent acquires both American and German citizenship at birth, regardless of place of birth, if the parents satisfy the jus soli or jus sanguinis requirements of their respective countries. […] Neither country requires a person born under these circumstances to choose between American and German citizenship, i.e., he/she may keep both citizenships his/her entire life.
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I would agree in the case of voluntary host nations. However, I’d argue Guantanamo Bay is for all practical purposes on U.S. soil, as Cuba has no mechanism by which it can ever legally make us leave. The U.S. controls the territory in perpetuity and has troops all over it. It’s only a legal fiction (used prominently during the GWoT) that Guantanamo Bay is anything but U.S. soil.
I’m reminded of the scene in The Lion in Winter when King Philip asks Henry by what right is the Vexin his, and Henry replies, “it’s full of my troops, and that makes it mine.”
Hmmm, I wonder what will happen with the children of a friend of mine. He’s a Norwegian citizen, but has never lived in the country and his children are Norwegian citizens because of him, but their also Thai citizens because of their mother and US citizens because they were born there and the family lives in Sweden.