Ask your questions about Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship and Certificates of Loss of Nationality.
Please note that the guidelines for this discussion are published here.
Ask your questions about Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship and Certificates of Loss of Nationality.
Please note that the guidelines for this discussion are published here.
omghe’sstillanamerican says: “My husband has always only travelled on a Canadian passport with no questioning at the airport. He became a Canadian citizen in 1980.”
Ditto for my wife, although a year ago she was specifically asked if she was a dual citizen, and she said no. A few people posting here have been told at the border that they should have a US passport to enter, and my suspicion is its only a matter of time before they start enforcing that. That means my wife would need either a US passport (which she absolutely refuses to even think about) or the CLN.
I think it’s only a matter of time before US born people without proof that they are not Americans will be turned back at the border.
@omghe’
I think Arrow is correct. The fact that your husband has travelled only with a Canadian passport and not been stopped, is not proof that the Americans do not believe him to be a “U.S. citizen”. Just as the Americans have been pretty well ignoring until now their requirement that U.S.citizens living elsewhere, need to file with the IRS, they have also been ignoring the passport issue. In the fifty years that I have lived in Canada, I have only been asked once, about 8 years ago, why I was not using a U.S.passport. At the time, I said I don’t have one. Unfortunately, I believe it is only a matter of time that “we” will either be turned away at the border or delayed long enough to miss our plane. And they won’t care a hoot about that!
They’ve also got something on their site that seems like a trap.
“Determination of dual nationality can only be made by applying for a U.S. passport or registration, not by phone or mail.”
If you apply for a US passport you’re reclaiming US citizenship. That’s the last thing you want to do. Why can’t they just tell you if you are or are not a dual citizen? They’re not going to make this easy.
@Arrow: I think you are smart to prepare a declaration ahead of time and bring the declaration with you. My wife and I didn’t and the woman we spoke to first sent us away with the recommendation that we take an hour while they typed our file up and write something out. She even gave us paper to write it out on! We brought it back and they included it in our file.
I think it’s only a matter of time before US born people without proof that they are not Americans will be turned back at the border.
NOT LIKELY, VIOLATION OF 14TH AMENDMENT.
My husband also has a NEXUS card which makes going to the US much easier. http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/trusted_traveler/nexus_prog/nexus.xml
The site says the NEXUS card has been approved as an alternative to the passport for air, land, and sea travel into the United States for US and Canadian citizens.
One of the benefits of having this card is that you can cross the border with a minimum of customs and immigration questioning.
You still have to bring your passport with you but usually the only people who look at it are the ticket agents.
Canada Border Services Agency – Join NEXUS
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/prog/nexus/application-demande-eng.html
Join NEXUS
Enrolment Process
Your membership is finalized at a NEXUS Enrolment Centre.
When you report to the enrolment centre, a review of your original documents and a full interview will occur.
You will be interviewed by a CBSA and/or U.S. CBP officer, who will do the following:
review the information you provided on your application form to make sure it is still valid;
verify your identity and review original documents such as proof of citizenship and residency documents, work permits and visas;
ensure that you meet all eligibility requirements for membership; and
take your fingerprints.
If you are accepted into NEXUS, the officer will do the following:
explain the terms and conditions of NEXUS;
ask to take a digital photograph of your irises to verify your identity each time you enter Canada or the United States in the air mode of transportation using the self-serve kiosks;
take a digital photograph of your face for your NEXUS membership card;
explain the Traveller Declaration Card (Form E601) process (for Canadian residents only);
explain how to cross the border in the air, land and marine modes of transportation using your NEXUS card and, where possible, show you how to use the self-serve kiosks in the air mode; and
inform you that you may be subject to an inspection any time you enter Canada or the United States.
@omghe
Yes, I agree the NEXUS card gets you through customs more smoothly. However, the NEXUS card also gives your place of birth in the information. And that is what most believe will cause the problem in the not too distant future.
Getting the NEXUS card sounds complicated but my husband says it was completely painless and well worth the effort. The border people who interviewed him were friendly and didn’t interrogate him about his US birth place. He breezes through the airport when he travels to the states.
The card lists his nationality as Canadian and there is no place to show place of birth.
I don’t plan on getting one myself since I hardly ever travel and don’t have any lingering US citizenship issues because I was born in India. My Canadian passport will work just fine for me. If I travel with my husband we’ll have to go through different lines since he gets to go through the express lane.
@OMG, Calgary and Others: Be wary of getting the Nexus card, especially now.
I got a Nexus card in 2004. The US immigration Officer who issued it looked at my Canadian citizenship and US birth certificate and insisted I was still a US citizen. That was the first I had heard that I might stilll be considered a US citizen.
I explained I became a Canadian citizen in 1973, before dual citizenship was accepted. I told her I renounced at that time. Despite that, she said unless I had confirmation from the consulate, I was still considered an American citizen.
She reluctantly agreed to issue my Nexus card to me as a Canadian because that was how i had applied. But, she told me I should always enter as a US citizen.
Despite that, I have always entered US as a Canadian. I did not renew my Nexus in 2009 because I didn’t want to have the discussion again and I did not want to be forced to get my Nexus card as a US citizen.
There were no further issues until last October. The border officer saw my US place of birth on my Canadian passport. He told me I should get a US passport. Rather than debate it, I simply smiled and went on my way.
I have no idea what will happen next month when I’m planning to visit my mother for her 89th birthday. I don’t think they’ll arrest me, but I hope they will let me in. If they don’t, the person they will really be penalizing will be my American mother who has lived in US her entire life.
But, they don’t seem to care who they hurt anymore.
@tiger, well if they’re going to start using your US birth place as the mark of the beast there’s not much we can do but hire a lawyer to prove he’s not American. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
@ Blaze
Thanks for that information re NEXUS. It was my understanding that the place of birth was embedded in the information on the NEXUS card, just as it is embedded in the information on an Enhanced Driver’s License. It would not make any sense for the Americans who are so obviously wanting to make the lives of Canadians who were born in the U.S. difficult, to give them a “free pass” by just issuing a NEXUS card.
@tiger, when they started the NEXUS program they were actually trying to make life easier for everybody who travels frequently to the US. It was a way of fast tracking regular business travelers while still taking the extra time to look over any potential terrorist threats. My husband renewed his card no problems.
omg: I agree Nexus was originally to make things easier in crossing. I think the Nexus officer was really trying to be helpful with information she gave me. She outlined the benefits to me of entering as a US citizen (i.e. I could stay as long as I wanted, didn’t have to give the purpose of my trip or where I was going, etc. I could even move back permanently! I don’t think it ever occurred to her that I would never be interested in that last point).
Despite all that, I had not considered myself a citizen since 1973 and had no desire to do anything that would make it appear I was one. Little did I know then how much more complicated my life would be now if I had followed her advice–which I believe was intended to be helpful.
If I had followed her advice, I think I would now be caught up in a very similar nightmare to Calgary411.
Tiger Ask your VP to read the draft regulations.
Tiger Ask your VP to read the draft regulations.
https://easyweb.tdcanadatrust.com/
pg286 287
(2) The account is subject to government regulation as a personal retirement account or is registered or regulated as an account for the provision of retirement or pension benefits under the laws of the country in which the FFI that maintains the account is established or in which it operates, and meets the following requirements–
(i) The account is tax-favored with regard to the jurisdiction in which the account is maintained;
(ii) All of the contributions to the account are employer, government, or employee contributions that are limited by reference to earned income under the law of the jurisdiction in which the account is maintained; and
(iii) Annual contributions (other than transfers from other accounts described in this paragraph (b)(2)(i)(A) or plans described in paragraph (f)(2)(ii) of this section or §1.1471-6(f)) are limited to $50,000 or less, and limits or penalties apply by law of the jurisdiction in which the account is maintained to withdrawals made before reaching a specified retirement age and to annual contributions exceeding $50,000 (other than transfers from other accounts described in this paragraph (b)(2)(i)(A) or plans described in paragraph (f)(2)(ii) of this section or §1.1471-6(f)).
@KalC
Believe me, I prefer to think that RRSP’s will not be included. However, I pointed out the above pages to the VP and he showed me another area where it was quite specific regarding “no beneficiary can hold more than a 5% interest in the plan”. That is when he explained those regulations were meant to cover “Define Contribution Plans” that more and more businesses are setting up for their employees.
I hope you are correct and he is wrong.
Personal retirement account sounds like rasp to me.
Arrow, tiger, johnnb, etc – It seems well demonstrated, most recently by rivka88, that there is little consistency from one local consulate/embassy to another, even within Canada.
As far as I can see, all are “front office” CYA projects, intended only to shuffle paper from relinquisher/renunciant to central HQ. A feckless agent plopped in the middle, except for attempt to ensure that the forwarded file is technically complete. Perhaps failing even at that mundane task in some cases?
Curiosity item for johnnb – Did you complete both a DS-4079 and a DS-4081? If only the former, that offers minor evidence of local discretion exercised in at least your case.
The opacity experienced by Arrow suits agendas of both CYA and intimidation.
I’m cross-posting the following from the class-action thread, because it’s too important to get buried there.
Usxcanada very helpfully pointed out (March 4 post in class action thread at 9:52pm) the importance of the 1986 date for those claiming relinquishment by having become Canadian (or any other non-US) citizens prior to 1986.
The State Department Consular Affairs Manual chapter at this link
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/109065.pdf
says on page 7-8 (under 7 FAM 1214 b(4)) that Section 349(a) of 8 USC 1481 was amended in 1986 to add the words “voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality:” after “shall lose his nationality by”
What this means is that, prior to 1986, Section 349 (a) began by saying “A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by
1. obtaining naturalization in a foreign state …”
In other words, under the law prior to 1986, you did in fact automatically lose your US nationality by becoming a foreign citizen on your own application after attaining the age of 18 years. Prior to 1986, volition and intent to relinquish wasn’t mentioned in the law at all – you did this, you lost your US citizenship. Though State did send out letters (if they found out you’d become a foreign citizen, however they might have found that out) to give you a chance to argue your way out of losing your US citizenship if you wanted to take that chance, the letters made it clear the argument would have to be pretty compelling and supported by evidence. If you didn’t reply to the letter within a specified period of time, they issued you a CLN.
Quite apart from the letter that Ladybug kindly provided to us on this website (see July 25 1980 letter thread), this reference in State’s own procedures manual confirms that loss of US citizenship was automatic if you took out foreign citizenship before 1986, unless you provided to State a compelling argument against losing your nationality. Though obviously before 1986, and even today, taking out foreign citizenship voluntarily and with intent to relinquish US citizenship will always cause you to get a CLN. However, today you need to swear volition and intent and provide some sort of substantiating argument. Then, you didn’t, and I believe legally that if you took out foreign citizenship before 1986 they pretty-much have to issue you a CLN if you ask for it, as long as you’ve done nothing since then to exercise or assert US citizenship (get a US passport, vote in US election, FILE TAX RETURNS TO THE IRS, etc.) You shouldn’t even have to argue volition and intent, though it won’t hurt to do so and you might as well do so.
This reference is important, because on the internet you won’t find the pre-1986 law posted, what you’ll find is the current version. At least I haven’t been able to find a posting of the pre-1986 law. So don’t lose this reference, if you did become Canadian (or other nationality) before 1986, and State gives you any grief at all when you apply for a CLN today. They have absolutely no choice but to issue you a CLN if you ask for it, and it has to be dated from the day you took out foreign citizenship.
@Schubert1975
This explains why Davis and Company at the seminar they held at U.B.C. on Feb. 1,2012, they stated that for those individuals who had become Canadian citizens, pre 1986, they were no longer American citizens.
Thank you Schubert for putting it in such concise terms.
Tiger I looked for and found the 5% reference. It refers to FFIs not to accounts. For example you have a RRSP. It is an exempt account.
10 people get together to form a retirement plan. It would not be an exempt FFI because 1 or more of them would have more than 5%.
I’m not just making this up. I showed it to my accountant who opined that it was clear that RSPs are exempt as the rules are drafted. I hope they don’t change them again.
I wish someone would take their US passport, and a notary-stampled declaration of “disallegiance” to the US and mail it to their closest consulate. I’d like to see if they get their CLN.
The “hoops” that they US makes makes one jump through are just ridiculous and they devalue US citizenship itself, likening it more to a 3rd world bureaucratic process.
@KalC
Thanks for taking the time to do that research. Obviously, even the “officers” of FFI’s are confused and don’t understand FATCA.
A client of mine showed me a fact sheet put out by one of Canada’s largest banks for their employees regarding FATCA Regulations and what they meant. The first statement on it was: “If you were born in the U.S.A. you are a U.S. citizen”. I pointed out to my client that the first statement was not correct. I said what is should have said was: “If you were born in the U.S.A., you may be a U.S. citizen”. This is frightening to me as it means none of us will necessarily be treated correctly by our banks.
@usxcanada: We filled out 4079 and 4081 and affirmed to 4081. From what we read here it really seems like how you are treated depends on which consulate/embassy you go to and which person you speak with. I think I’m glad We went to Halifax.