Petros asks, What if a prominent dual citizen was required by his second nationality to serve his nation. What then?
Since the recent escalation of the war against rebels in East Timor, the Indonesian government has decided to conscript their most prominent dual citizen, President Barack Obama, into their armed forces. Furthermore, they have demanded that Barack Obama employ the full military might of the United States to aid them in their fight against the rebels.
Barack Obama’s Indonesian step-father moved him and his mother to the country when he was six years old. Obama also has a sister who is an Indonesian citizen. His citizen name in Indonesia was “Barry Soetoro”. The official reply from Barack Obama is that he only lived there as a small child and never really intended on keeping Indonesian citizenship. He has therefore declined to fulfill his military obligation. The Indonesians declared that if he wished to relinquish his citizenship, he had to do so at one of their consulates between the ages of eighteen years and eighteen years and six months. Since he never took this step, the Indonesians maintain their right to press him into military service. They have now taken the further step of trying him in a national court in abstentia. The court found him guilty of failure to fulfil his military duty. The conviction has resulted in a $100,000 fine per year of recalcitrance and a five-year mandatory prison sentence.
International law experts say that this conviction has no merit whatsoever. Furthermore, they claim that if President Obama never again visits Indonesia, he would not have to pay the fine nor serve his prison sentence. Secretary of the State Hilary Clinton said, “It is absolutely ridiculous that the Indonesians believe that they have any claim over President Obama. He left the country when he was nine years old and has only ever been back there one time. He only has a child’s knowledge of their language, and he was never really a citizen in the first place.” The Indonesians claim, however, that his father registered him as a citizen in a local school, and that makes him a citizen for life. They are not budging from their stance.
President Obama’s chief of staff said in a press conference, when reporters asked about Obama’s conviction and prison sentence, “Get a life. Next question?”
Love It!
Is this for real? I know it happens elsewhere, An naturalized US citizen friend here in Miami traveledd back to Argentina using her Argentine passport with her American-born son with a US passport.. Both handed their passports together to the Argentine immigration officer who then ask if he was her son. Replying yes, he infomed tham that born outside of Argentina to an Argentine citizen parent under Argentine law he was an Argentine Citizen. He was inducted into the Argentine Army and served one year of obligatory military service before he was permitted to return to is home in the US.
US law requries that US citizens must formally renounce their US citrizenship before a US consular official; in a foreign country, in order to lose US citizenship. Argentina does not recognize the renuncialton of citizenship by its citizens. It is not a surprise that Indonesia has specific laws with respect to loss of its citizenship. I am aware of no country that considers you to be no longer a citizen just because you moved away and never came back.
@roger: this is a “what if” scenario–though not totally implausible. I don’t know Indonesian law–they have a volunteer army at the moment (according to Wikipedia), nor the penalties for failure to serve. The scenario points to the absurdity of US citizenship laws, by showing that any country in the world can make up laws and obligations, with fines and prison sentences for not fulfilling those obligations. In my mind, this is hardly more ridiculous than FBAR.
A friend of mine from Morocco said the same thing about his country. He is married to a Belgian woman of Moroccan origin. He was born in Spain and his parents were also from Morocco. Their daughter who was born in Belgium is Moroccan and Belgian and for all I know perhaps Spanish too. (see chqpter 2 article 6 of the Moroccan nationality code which says “Est Marocain, l’enfant né d’un père marocain ou d’une mère marocaine.”)
Morocco is still a “royaume” so I don’t think it is possible for someone to give up citizenship. I think that is still the king’s decision. 🙂 The code is here:
http://www.justice.gov.ma/fr/legislation/legislation_.aspx?ty=2&id_l=154
Actually, Indonesia indeed says in its 2006 citizenship law, Article 23, that if you live outside the country for five years without registering at the consulate your intention to remain an Indonesian citizen, you lose citizenship. However, it is very easy to get citizenship back in that case (you apply for a temporary travel permit for aliens called “SPLP” and go back to Indonesia where you can finish the procedure for restoration of nationality).
@Eric I live simultaneously in the multiverse, experiencing many alternate realities. It is a special talent. 🙂
Actually, this scenario occurs very regularly.
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_756985.html
If you do a search for “renounce citizenship Singapore”, you will see that 1,000 people renounce citizenship there yearly to avoid conscription. When you consider how small the population there is, that is a big number.
Great post…This is actually all too common a problem:
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_756985.html
Do a search for “Singapore renounce citizenship” and you will see that 1000 people renounce citizenship there each year to avoid being conscripted. Big number for such a small country.
I don’t see the post as being too fanciful either. The US might not have conscription, but they have the database to enact it overnight. ..
See this website on Indonesian citizenshp – who is an Indonesian Citizen and how an Indonesian can renounce or be deprived of Indonesian cititezenship:
http://www.google.com/search?q=acquiring+indonesian+citizenship&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADFA_enUS376.
From this information the chid of an Indonesian father and a foreign citizen mother is an Indonesian citizen. Since Obama was adopted by his Indonesian father it would appear that this automatically made him an Indonesian citizen, so to have stated his nationality as Indonesian when he was enrolled in school there would appear to have been totally correct.
There are various ways an Indonesian can lose his citizenship. One of them is to take an oath to a foreign government. Obama undoubtedly took such an oath when was sworn in as a US senator, so it would appear that act caused him to lose his Indonesian citizenship, if he had done any of the other citizenship-loosing things that would have caused him to perhaps had already lost prior to the time he was sworn in as a US senator. As far as the US is concerned he might still be considered as a dual Indonesian – US citizen, but that is not really material because there is nothing in the US constitution that excluds natural born US citizens from qualifying for president if they also hold citizenship in another country.
Indonesia does not recognize dual nationality, but the US does, so while Indonesia considered him to be only an Indonesian citizen when adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, that did not cause him to lose his US citizenship in accordance with US law. So when he returned to US territory after leaving Indonesia he indeed was considered by the US to be a US citizen.
I’m not a lawyer, but that’s my reading of the situation.
By the way, it is quite possible and in fact probable that Romney is a dual US – Mexican citizen. His father was born in Mexico to US citizen parents,so he had dual nationalities. Children born outside of Mexico as was candidate Romney to a Mexican father are considered by Mexico to be Mexican citizens at birth. As near as I can find out on the Mexican Government citizenship does not have a procedure whereby a Mexican can renounce Mexican citizenship. It does list several actions, however, that a Mexican citizen can take which would automatically cause him to lose Mexican citizenship.
By the way, neither Mexico or Indonesia subject their citizens living abroad to home-country taxation.
Chinese citizenship law is very simple. No dual citizenship at all. By the time a Chinese citizen becomes a foreign citizen, he/she loses his/her Chinese. Kids born in US to Chinese citizen parents would not enjoy Chinese citizenship if. one of the parents has green card in US or one of the parents is a foreign citizen.
If both Chinese parents live in US on visa (no green card), the US born would not allow enter China on Chinese visa, it would have to take same kind entry permit that issues to people from HK and Taiwan, Basically this US born baby would not be recognized by Chinese authority as a US citizen (even US Constitution grants his/her US citizenship).
Now, given the complicated tax problem for dual US citizenship, I do not know how the US/China tax treaty can resolve this problem. I have a few Chinese friends (they came to US as visa workers) went back to China with US born babies. After 20 years, it will become an issue if one of those babies become rich in China.
Peter, I understand the FUNDAMENTAL message you are sending here, and I agree. 100%.
I kind of laugh now when I think back to that Obama “birth certificate”. His mother was American so he is AMERICAN, according to US Law. It’s crazy to think the media made such a big deal about that last year.
There are HUGE conflicts with people living in other countries, like I mentioned here on other posts. On Roger’s post tonight, I commented to the extent that I think the Dual or “multiple” citzenship is DEAD. Eventually, you have to decide where your loyalties are and where you want to live for the rest of your life.
This is due, for the most part, to the USA; Thanks to the USA!!!! Yeah right.. there are no problems with other countries!
Geeez,
If you become a Brazilian citizen and renounce your US citizenship then for you dual citizenship will be dead. If you don’t renounce it you will still be a US citizens for USA tax purposes.
The US allows you to renounce your US citizenship. It is a complicated process and if you have over $2 million in assets anywhere in the world it is a very expensive process since this is the threshold that triggers a steep exit tax that has to be paid before your renunciation is officially accepted, the renunciation certificate is issued and your US tax liability ends.
But for citizens of some countries dual citizenship does not die. Citizens of Argentina and Cuba, for example cannot renounce their citizenship even though they become citizens of another country, and like it or not, The same thing is true of their children born ouside of Cuba and Argentina. I am sure there are other countries with the same citizenship laws, but these are the only two with which I am familiar..
I recall during the Reagan administation a US Ambassador was appointe to Brazi, I have forgotten his name. He had been born and raised in Brazil when his American parents were expats with an American company there. He spoke Portuguese fluentlhy which was a positive factor in his selection. Brazil refused to accept him as the US Ambassador until he formally renounced his Brazilian chitizenship, which he did of course. The reason was that Brazil would not accept an ambassador of a foreign nation who held Brazilian citizenship.
@roger Thanks for the info about Indonesia citizenship.
I once heard that Wilt Chamberlain caused the NBA to change a bunch of their rules, including no one is allowed to dunk a free throw. The current Indonesia rules do not rule out the “what-if” scenario provided that the Indonesia’s were to change their rules just so that they could draft President Obama. This is not at all unlike the manner that the United States is now pressing people who lost their citizenship thirty years ago by becoming Canadian. Now they are forcing citizenship upon them so as to intimidate them into paying US tax. But the Obama administration must believe that there are millions of un-filed FBARs and potential for raking in billions for Canada, or else why would they do this?
Unless, another possibility comes to mind: It has been suggested that Obama seethed at the privileges that other Americans in Indonesia had, while his father was a simple bureaucrat and his mother the poor wife of a normal Indonesian. They apparently lived in humble circumstances compared to other Expats. So this perhaps this is payback. There is the thesis of Dinesh D’Souza, that Obama suffers from anti-colonial bitterness.
Just because one country does not recognize dual citizenship, that does not cause the other country to not recognize it. This can conceiveably lead to conflicts. Here is what is preinted in my US passport:
“DUAL CITIZENS: A person who has the citizenship of of more than one country at the same time is considered a dual citizen. A dual citizen may be subject to the laws of the other country that considers that person its citizen while in that country’s jurisdiction, including conscription for military service. Dual citizenship may hamper efforts to provide US consular protection to the dual citizen in the foreign country of the other nationality. Dual citizens who encounter problems should contact the nearest US embassy or consulate.”
What this statement fails to state is that dual US citizens who are present in the jurisdictdion of the other country of citizenship are also subject to the jurisdiction of the the US with respect to US income tax laws, and they better not forget it because there can be dire consequences. There is also another statement printed in my US Passport which reads as follows:
US TAXES: All US citizens working and residing abroad are required to file and report on their worldwide income. Consult IRS publication 54 “Tax Guide for USCitizens and Resident Aliens Abroad” available at http///irs.gov.publicatons/p54/index.htm/”
Again, what this statement fails to include is that it also includes retirees living abroad.
I am aware of two cases of draft-age children of naturalized US citizens, born in the US, who traveling with their US passports went to Argentina with a parent to visit grandparents and were in fact conscripted for military servie and therefore could not return to the US until their obligatory one year of service had terminated. So indeed there are risks, especially when you are in the other counttry of citizenship of which you must be ware. If you travel with a Chinese passport, China being a country that does not recognize dual nationality, and you tell the citizen of they other country “no, I am a citizen of China which does not recognize dual nationality, this will not get you off the hook. That may be the situation in China but when you are in this country it is the laws of this country, not China, which confirm that you indeed are a citizen of this country. Most countries of which you are a dual citizen require that you use the passport of that country to enter and leave. So when you travel from your current home country of which you are a citizen you must use your passport issued by that country, but when you arrive in the other country you must use the passport of that country to enter and leave. Some countries, on the other hand, Peru is an example, will allow Peruvians who have become naturalized citizens of another country to use the passport of that other country to enter and leave Peru. They are still considered Peruvian citizens and are allowed to vote in Peruvian elections at Peruvian consulates in the country abroad where they live. Voting in Peru is obligatory so they must vote or they are subject to a fine for failing to vote They cannot open a bank account in Peru unless there is a stamp in ther libreta electoral (Election Document) that they have voted or paid the fine for failing to vote.
@Peter, interesting theory on Obama. It may play into the equation, but these “Anti-American Abroad” laws have always been around and steadily gotten worse. These laws are conjured up by the “people bend the curtain” that was never see. My theory is the policy advisors that keep their positions from one administration to the next. Rumsfeld is a GREAT example. Look at how many administrations he served under!! There are MANY just like Rumsfeld, but I can’t recall their names. I kind of think this takes away 50% of the benefits associated with having a two-term restriction. The President changes, but the actual government never changes.
@Roger, it’s a hassle, but I have no problem renouncing “my responsibilities” to America. It’s very clear to me that the US doesn’t want people abroad. I don’t agree with “irrevocable” citizenship, but keep in mind that ** Argentina doesn’t make their citizens’ lives overseas difficult.** I wouldn’t be surprised though, in US eventually goes to irrevocable citizenship. At that point, American citizens overseas will be a in world of hurt.
@geeeez This is not a theory about Obama. This is a reductio ad absurdum argument. I imagine a scenario which shows the position of the United States government to be absurd. When Nathan went to David, he told David a parable–when David became outraged, and said that the man who stole the lamb from the poor person should die, Nathan said, “The man is you!” (See 2 Sam 12:10). When people say that my little story of Obama’s conviction in Indonesia court is ridiculous, that it could never happen to a anyone, nobody is that ridiculous, it would give us an opportunity to say, look at what the United States has done to US Expats abroad. Is that any less ridiculous? I think not.
You may be right about policy advisers. But I just want to say again that something has really changed since Obama came to power. Yes these rules existed. FBAR has been around since 1970. Only the overzealous witch hunt of FATCA didn’t exist. The difference is the extreme zeal with which they are coming after us; and in particular, the Overseas Voluntary Disclosure programs and the use of border guards on the Canadian border to enforce income taxes–the job has been traditionally to enforce immigration rules and customs, not income tax. This job creep by the border guards, where they enforce the income tax is a sinister game changer. And finally, the assertion of retroactive citizenship on so many Canadians is just flat evil. This is causing so many of our people extreme and absolutely unnecessary angst.
The Obama administration was obviously not satisfied with level of non-compliance that all previous administrations had tolerated. I read once that Hitler was the first German politician who promised to deal with Jewish problem–but he was the first to keep his promise. So also, it is the current administration that has decided to zealously enforce bad laws in a inappropriate manner, so as to increase compliance and to decrease the so-called “tax gap”.
@geeeez – dual citizenship is, I think, here to stay. In fact I think we will see more and more cases of not only dual but plural nationality. I had a colleague whose daughter had three passports, US, UK and French. All three citizenships were acquired at birth through the combination of jus solis and jus sanguinis laws of these three countries.
Because all countries have the right to make their own citizenship laws and because there is nearly no coordination at an international level to make these laws coherent these laws will overlap and contradict each other for some time to come. Countries certainly could indulge themselves in battles over, for example, the child I mentioned above (she’s British! No, she’s American! No, she’s French!) but no one seems prepared to go so far as to pick a fight. As a result the trend is toward greater and greater tolerance of dual nationality. Even the Germans revised their strict no-dual’s rules. Even Japan is thinking about it. Clearly nation-states hate this state of affairs (and many of their citizens concur) but no one has come up with a better solution.
I also personally know 3 persons I worked with who had and traveled with 3 passports. It depended on where they were leaving from and where they were going which passports they used leaving and arriving at their destination.
Italy is country very generous in issuing passports to persons of Italian lineage even many generations after their ancestors immigrated. About 50% of Argentina’s population has Italian lineage. Since Italy is part of the EU and citizens of EU countries do not require visas to visit the US, but Argentines do, they got around this visa requirement by taking out Italian passports so, even though they lived in Argentina and most of them had never ever visited Italy, that made it much simpler to visit the US using thier Italian passports. In many Latin countries the waiting time fort the personal interview at a US consulate that is mandatory today to be issued a US visa is about 30 days, and they must travel many times long distances from where they live for that interview. Brazil, a country larger than the US, has only 4 US consulates, so Braziians must sometimes travel 1000 miles or more to visit a US consulate. Lots of Brazilians of German descent also have German passports, of Japanese or Italian descent, have those passports. All of these countries, and quite a few others, have very liberal laws on bestowing ctzenship on descendants of their emigrants who sometimes left 100 years ago.
Where there is a will, there is a relative, as they used to say.
I’m reading two books right now on citizenship that I’m greatly enjoying. Both propose to radically change the citizenship model – disconnecting it from jus sanguinis and jus soli.
States without Nations: Citizenship for Mortals by Jacqueline Stevens
The Future of Gouvernance of Citizenship by Dora Kostakopoulou
Both seem to be proposing something based on residency or domicile. This harkens back to an earlier time when a king was able to declare that anyone living in his territory was a subject. Very interesting but not I think something states would be ready to implement anytime soon.
A bit of a comment on Roger Conklin’s excellent post:
Well, I’m Italian and, yes, a very large number of Italian citizens don’t live in Italy. Argentina has a million Italian citizens alone. Lots more in Brazil, Canada, the US and all over the EU. The rules are a bit tighter though than simply having Italian descendants, since if anyone in the timeline acquired citizenship of another country before the next generation was born then the “Italian bloodline” died out. Argentina is a special case because they signed an agreement with Italy to allow dual citizenship, which is why lots of Argentinians are eligible for citizenship as their parents and grandparents never technically lost it.
I think that Italian citizenship laws can look really lax to outsiders, especially those from Canada/USA, but the citizenship policies aren’t really that much different from most other European countries: Ireland, Spain and Switzerland allow you claim citizenship if a grandparent was from there. The UK issues an “Ancestry” visa which can lead to permanent residency and citizenship for those with a UK-born grandparent. Russia has a programme to grant immediate permanent residence to those of Russian descent with no limit on generations. Poland, Croatia, Slovenia and others allow descendants to claim citizenship. Germany, Austria, the Nordic countries and the Benelux are the only ones with a rigid citizenship structure really.
Italy is only different in that it allows descendants to go back many generations as long as the last descendant left Italy after 1870s (Beforehand there was no Italian nation, so hence no Italian citizenship). However, in Italy our government loves forms and bureaucracy, so good luck proving that your great-great-great-great grandfather was an Italian citizen since you would have to find the birth and marriage certificates of all those people in the ancestral line.
Personally, I don’t have an issue with people claiming citizenship if they had an Italian born grandparent or maybe great-grandparent as long as they can prove Italian language competency. This is because, unlike most countries, Italians are represented in the Italian political system since we elect MPs from the expat community community to represent us in Italy. I think that the difference in attitude between North American and European citizenship laws (and their respective priorities) can really be seen with regards to marriage: for a US citizen’s spouse to become a US citizen they have to move to the US (no language competency required). In contrast, it is possible for the spouse of a French citizen to gain citizenship whilst residing outside of France so long as he or she can speak French.
@Don – might be easier to prove than you think if all the ancestors were Roman Catholics. I was married in the church so I had to get my baptismal certificate from a small town in Washington state and, sure enough, they had it. I also saw a copy of a document my great-grandfather signed agreeing to raise the children as Catholics when he married my great-grandmother, Celeste. And if that weren’t enough a family member has a document from Normandy signed by my ancestor who left France in the 17th century for Canada. The Church is definitely on top of this. 🙂
ij mentioned the situation of the Chinese citizen who returned to China and observed that China may likely become very interested in the US citizenship if they are successful and become millionaires when they get into their twenties.
Living in China, be they Chinese or citizens of a foreign country they will be subject on Chinese taxes which are based on residence rather than citizenship.
What they really need to be concerned about is their tax liability to the US. Residents of China can remit up to $50,000 per year out of China with no questions asked. But if their high incomes result in a US tax liability that exceeds $50,000 then they are likely to run into problems in legally converting their Chinese currency income into US dollars to pay their US tax obligation. The IRS will only accept US dollars.
Today there are some 30 countries of the world with controls on the conversion of their currencies into a foreign currency to take or send out of the country. Some of them are rather bland, but others have strict regulations, which they enforce, that make it illegal to convert local currency into another currency to may payments abroad, except with approval of the Currency Control Authorities. Generally such strict control countries, such as Venezuela and Cuba and several more, such applications are rejected on the basis that the nation does not recognize that any other nation has any right whatsoever to levy and collect taxes within that country. This leaves the US citizen with the problem of violating US law by not paying US taxes or violating local law by obtaining dollars illegally on the black market and smuggling them out of the country. The fines and penalties can even result in forfeiture of everything the US citizen owns in such a country, fines and imprisionment.
But the IRS position is “that’s your problem.” You can defer paying your your US tax obligation until such time as the foreign income becomes unblocked, but if you use any of it for “personal expenditures” like food, clothing, rent, etc., then the tax cannot be deferred and must be paid immediatly. The IRS has no explanation on how this magically turns a blocked currency into dollars.
When I asked the head of the IRS office in Chicago back in 1976 how this could possibly work, she ordered me out of her office saying “You must be an idiot for living in a country like that. Get out and quit wasting my time.”
Later I took this up with the Tax Advocate and, after some research was told that indeed it was unworkable.
Not even the Tax Advocate has an explanation.
@Don, I’m pretty sure that if I renounce now, any future kids could get US Citizenship through my parents or their grandparents. (I wouldn’t recommend it, that’s for sure!)
Remember, the US wants everyone and anyone who is ELIGIBLE to get citizenship. Last time I went to the consulate, I was amazed at the number of people trying to get citizenship, passports renewed, or passports for their kids. They obviously don’t know these rules. I felt like telling a few of them, but most of them are probably just trying to get on Welfare in American anyway, so why bother!
Geeeze,
With a close US citizen relative, foreigners usually have a preference in being admitted into the US, but this is not a short-cut to US citzenship. In order for a foreign citizen to become a US citizen, he or she must have lived in the US legally for a minimum of 5 years. Then they are eligible to apply for US citizenship. Time living in the US as an illegal immigrant does not count.
Newt Gingrich was incorrect in suggesting a few days ago that illegals in this country “go back home and in line for US citizenship.” There is no such line. You can get in line for a visa to immigrate to the US, but that is not a Citizenship line. You have to comply with the minimum legal residency requirement in order to apply for US citizenship, and you can’t do that when you are living abroad.
There are special considerations for foreign citizens that volunteer and serve in the US military that can reduce this 5 year period. But that is about the only short cut.
@geeeez
I think I read that the US has a really low naturalisation rate. When I lived there for a few years most people on work visas that I met there and even lots of permanent residents told me that they never had any intention of getting US citizenship. This was before I knew anything about the tax situation though so I don’t know why this was the case. In contrast I have rarely met any immigrants anywhere in the EU who have told me that they didn’t want to get citizenship and most seem to apply the moment that they can. The only people that I have met who refuse to do so were a couple of Americans and Canadians in Germany who didn’t want to renounce their citizenship (Germany makes everyone renounce citizenship unlike most EU countries). One of the US citizens has since renounced US citizenship and adopted German citizenship after having lived over 30 years in Germany. The cause for the change? – FATCA!
I think that the American “Welfare” system is a bit of a joke though, don’t you think? I can’t compare it to Brazil, but compared to most EU countries it is nowhere near as comprehensive. If I were a lazy immigrant who didn’t want to work I certainly wouldn’t move to the US – I would (unfortunately for us in the EU) choose somewhere like the UK…