I thought it would interesting to post a link to DFAIT (Canada’s ministry of Foreign Affairs) info section on dual nationality.
http://www.voyage.gc.ca/publications/dual-citizenship_double-citoyennete-eng
Some interesting points they make:
You are a dual citizen if you are recognized by more than one country as a citizen. In some cases, you may not be aware that you are a citizen of another country. Dual, or multiple, citizenship may occur by choice or default and result from:
an application for foreign citizenship
your place of birth
family connections, including place of birth of one of your parents or even grandparents
marriage to a foreign national
extended residency in a foreign country
Other comments:
You may be legally required to register for military service and to respond to call-up orders in the country of your other nationality. This obligation may be enforced even if you are just visiting that country and permanently reside in Canada. Some countries do not accept ignorance as an excuse for failure to comply. The consequences could be imprisonment or immediate induction into military service the next time you arrive in the country or attempt to leave. Even dual citizens who have passed the age for military service may be considered defaulters for failing to report at the required time. (My Note: Roger is probably more of expert on this than me but US Citizen males of certain ages are still required to “register” with the Selective Service Administration)
You could have tax obligations not only in Canada but also in the country of your second citizenship. Taxation arrangements between countries are complex, and you should discuss these obligations with your financial and/or legal advisers.
But they give an interesting piece of advice:
Always use your Canadian passport if possible, especially when entering the country of your second citizenship. Note that you cannot use a Certificate of Canadian Citizenship instead of a Canadian passport to travel abroad. A Certificate of Canadian Citizenship is not a travel document. A Canadian passport is the only reliable and universally accepted travel and identification document available to Canadians for the purpose of international travel. Canadian citizens returning to Canada who present other documents, such as a Certificate of Canadian Citizenship, birth certificate, provincial driver’s licence or foreign passport, instead of a Canadian passport, may face delays or be denied boarding by transport companies.
Using your Canadian passport may provide the basis under which Canada can provide you with consular assistance if you run into problems. You should also obtain a visa, if that is required for entry by Canadian citizens, and always present yourself as a Canadian when dealing with local authorities.
Now of course from what we have discussed the US is not very fond of people in these circumstances entering on Canadian passports(and I believe if you go to DFAIT’s travel information sheet on the US this is mentioned). However, I think this is a very good advice especially as to third countries.
@Tim, The US information on dual citizenship is very similar to that of Canada.
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1753.html
The Canadian information suggests that Canadian dual nationals use their Canadian passport when entering the other nation since this may help in providing some counsular assistance in case of a problem. The US site states that “most” US citizens who are dual nationals MUST use their US passport when entering the US, but the use of the world “most” suggests there may be exceptions; but they are not identified. I am not sure about the US but some countries absolutely do not recognize dual citizenship and will not permit its citizens who are considered by their other country to be citizens of that country to enter with a foreign passport. Argentina is one such country. Cuba is another with respect to its citizens who have become US citizens subsequent to a specific cutoff date. China likewise does not recognize dual nationality.
As both the Canadian and US websites clearly state there may be risks for persons with another nationaly when they travel to the other country. US passports contain a statement that dual nationality may hamper efforts to provide US consular protection, and that certainly is true. Generally consular officials of the other country can do nothing.
US law requires that male US citizens must register with Selective Serivce within 30 days of their 18th birthday regardless of where they reside, inside of the US or abroad. Likewise some males termporarily in the US on student visas, and some others, are also obligated to register. The website does not describe any penalties for failing to register, but notes that registration must take place before reaching 26 years of age. There currenty is no obligatory military service in the US, but this registration is for the purpose of being ready should such obligatory service requirement be enacted.
“(My Note: Roger is probably more of expert on this than me but US Citizen males of certain ages are still required to “register” with the Selective Service Administration)”
That’s correct. FWIW I was a draft-age male when I got my US passport at the Toronto consulate, and I have to say that the staff there could have taken ten seconds and pointed out that I was supposed to register. Actually a colleague of mine (US-Canadian dual raised in Canada) was denied a student loan in California because he hadn’t registered (he was 26 at the time, so no way of doing it). This was the first he’d heard of it, but explaining that did no good at all.
And, if this person who doesnt know they are a US citizen, no US birthplace but perhaps relatives who are born in US…they are going to find out how?? One often wonders if they plan on questioning every person who enters the US with a list of questions just to see if they are US Citizens..then detain them and report them to military service and the IRS..this is just outrageous the lengths a country will go to.. to track and imprison people who no fault of their own “can claim US Citizenship”. They really need to take a good look at their laws as no one will evenutally cross the border if they will be treated as criminals like this. I can only imagine how many people have the right to claim US citizenship but do not want it and will never register and claim it. Probably millions in canada.
I’ll try to post more details later but at least from the headlines I have seen their have definately been cases of US dual citizens being inducted into military service in countries such as Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore with the US unable apparently to raise significatant objections. One thing I would be curious if Roger knows is whether ACA keeps track of how many American citizens abroad are charged with crimes or were victims of crime and what level of assistence did the US government provide them. Back to military service just from what I have reading it seems to be a big issue right now in terms of renounciations in countries like Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan etc.
@Tim, correct you are in that last statement. Every time I talk to the federales here, they mention asians naturalizing here to try to get out of military service.
I’m a Swiss / US dual national and came to Switzerland after highschool. I registered with US consulat upon arriving and as soon as I turned 18 I recieved a letter from the selective service administration asking me to register for the draft. A few months later the Swiss gov. recuited me for their mandatory military service. The US consulat said there was no problem from their standpoint, just as long as I don’t obtain an rank as an officer.
Hi all. Just to add to little fuel to the fire:
If you go to this US government website
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/oathofcitizen.htm
you will find the current oath that all New Americans are required to swear upon becoming American citizens. The following is a cut-and-paste from THE VERY BEGINNING of that webpage:
“The following United States Oath of Citizenship must be taken by all immigrants who wish to become naturalized citizens of the United States:
I hereby declare, on oath,
•that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;”
So, the VERY FIRST WORDS a new American utters on becoming an American is a compulsory renunciation of his/her previous nationality. Even today. Never mind back in the 1970s and 1980s when many of us became Canadian citizens and thought in good faith we had thereby lost our US nationality and welcomed that fact. In spite of its gobbledegook on its website, the bottom line is that Department of State and the US DO NOT ALLOW DUAL CITIZENSHIP for anyone becoming an American, even in 2012, never mind back in 1975 when I became a Canadian or 1977 when my wife did.
Now then. Canada also used to require new Canadians to renounce their previous nationality during the citizenship ceremony, but ended that practice in April 1973.
To this day, the US requires new Americans to renounce their previous nationality. Yet the IRS and Congress appear to insist, to this day, that if you became a foreign national no matter how many years ago, FOR TAX PURPOSES your loss of US nationality dates from when you tell the US about it NOT WHEN YOU ACTUALLY COMMITTED THE ACT and therefore you are liable for US taxes, back taxes, Form 8854, possible exit tax, the whole nine yards …
Can you pronounce the words “sanctimonious blatent hypocrisy,” Uncle Sam? Do you even begin to comprehend the meaning of those words? Do you wonder why so many people outside your borders hate you and have no respect for you? And why so many of your foreign citizens living abroad are tripping over themselves rushing to renounce/relinquish/or just plain deny and hide their US birth and debatable US citizenship?
… and I won’t repeat here what has been flagged on another thread on this website, that the US has been pressing the UN to get Etrirea to stop trying to tax its emigrants who have gone to other countries and taken up citizenship and residence in those other countries, as a violation of human rights. Etrirea is only doing what the US is doing to its emigrants to other countries, all over the world and not just in Canada.
Again, blatent sanctimonious hypocrisy.
And it’s not new. Read Mark Twain on the Spanish American War. (Read even Ulysses S. Grant on the war with Mexico in 1845, not to mention Henry David Thoreau on that subject.) Read H. L. Mencken. Hypocrisy is historically endemic to the US national political and popular culture, and even some famous Americans have recognized this. Not to mention of course interesting parallels between the “taxation without representation” issue that sparked the US Declaration of Indepedence, and what the US itself is now doing to its “citizens” who live overseas — exactly the same as what the British Empire was doing to its overseas colonists whom it considered its citizens, too.
@Inanightmare, Probably most persons born in the Canada to a US parent will not have their US citizenship detected when they cross the border. But sometimes an innocent answer could result in it being revealed when immigration officer politelhy asks “what is the purpose of your visit to the US?” If you answer “to visit my mother in a nursing home,” could result in the next question being “Is your mother a US citizen?” With an honest answer to that question the tax trap couuld be sprung.
By the way, it is not a matter of “claiming” US citizenship. If you were born outside of the US to one US parent then you ARE a US citizen, period. Confirmation of your citizenship is provided with a written document if a parent registers you with a US consulate, but whether registered or not you are a US citizen, even though you may not realize it.
The US requires you renounce your foreign citizenship when you become a US citizen, but that renunciation has no affect on your foreign citizenship unless the other country – as a few of them do – cause you to lose that citizenship if you become a citizen of another country, Likewise if you swear allegiance to another country and “renounce” your US citizenship as part of that process, it has no effect as far as the US is concerned. By US law you are still a US citizen unless you renounce your US citizenship before a US consular or Embassy official outside of the US. That is the only act that counts.
@tim, you ask if ACA has statistics on US citizens who commit crimes abroad. The answer is no. It does not receive or attempt to collect this information since it is an organization staffed by volunteers whose operating funds are very limitred, mostly coming from its very modest membership dues from its members in some one hundred or so countries around the world. ACA is concerned about protecting the rights of US citizens living abroad and works very hard on things like this.
@Roger
I was just curious as to whether there was any sense in terms of what US citizens actually get for their money in terms of consular services. I know things like passport renewal are done at above cost but I was more curious about things such as more generic consular assistance. I know if you look at the Travel Information Sheets DFAIT publishes they are quite clear that Canadian citizens outside of Canada are subject to the laws of the country they are within and there is really very little a Canadian Embassy or Consulate can do to help them if they get into trouble. I know in the US their are cases such as that of that American girl who was charged and later acquited of murder in Italy that got a lot of attention in the US but my hunch was that the vast majority of legal cases involving US citizens abroad get very little attention back in the mainland US.
Roger: Above you say one remains a US citizen unless you sign before a Consular or Embassy officer. Does that just apply to those who took out other citizenship before 1995?
I and many others who became Canadian citizens in the late 1960s or early 1970s were told by US Consulate we were renouncing our American citizenship by becoming Canadian citizens. We were also told (well, at least I was) that our children would also have no right to US citizenship if we voluntarily became Canadian citizens.
Based on what we were told, we have all believed for 40 years that the termination of our US citizenship was legal, final and binding. We were never told of the need to sign anything–although I recall a US Consular Official came to my ceremony and I did sign a document.
How can the rules change so dramatically, suddenly and retroactively after four decades?
@Tim – “from the headlines I have seen their have definately been cases of US dual citizens being inducted into military service in countries such as Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore with the US unable apparently to raise significatant objections.”
I would be very interested in reading what you come up with on this. In terms of crime, it appears that Mexico and the UK are real trouble spots for American. Interesting enough I have an acquaintance who was actually in jail here in France (he is a dual) for a short time. He said he was also jailed when he was living in the US. I don’t know the entire story (or really want to know more than that) but it was a fascinating conversation. 🙂
@blaze
I, too, would be interested in hearing a reply to your questions. From what I can gather from your other posts, my situation almost mirrors yours – became a Canadian in 1978 & worked for Ontario government starting in 1980. I was informed that I lost my US citizenship when I took out my Canadian citizenship. I don’t recall being informed that I had to notify the US government that I was no longer a citizen when they were telling ME that I was no longer considered a citizen by becoming a Canadian!!??!! That’s like telling them “hey, I’m no longer an American because you told me I’m no longer an American!” Sheesh, how ridiculous is that?