The up-to-date database resides in Part 2 (link at the bottom of this page).
Above is a link to data we are compiling on Relinquishments and Renunciations — a work in progress. This corresponds with the Consulate Report Directory (in sticky post below), tracking individual experiences for each Consulate, along with a timeline chart.
Note: We are using numbers instead of blog names for this public posting so there will be no compromise of private information. Your facts will help give a snapshot of relinquishment and renunciation activity and where that occurs.
Please submit information in the comments here (or someone can contact you privately). Thanks for all your help on this.
COMMENTS ARE CLOSED FOR Relinquishment and Renunciation Data (as reported on Isaac Brock), Part 1.
Part 2 is now open for your comments. Thank you.
*AMENDMENT TO 2ND VANCOUVER INTERVIEW
Thanks to all those who have commented on my report.
Leaving out a key part of my citizenship story was an editorial decision, and I knew there would be those who would wonder about it and for whom that part of the story may have been useful. I apologize for that. I felt that blip in my tale would have been rather like a carbuncle on the larger piece of writing, which was already in no need for further hints of disgust.
Here is that part of the story:
I came to Canada in 1968 and settled in Victoria as a landed immigrant. I give little or no thought to citizenship at the time, although my purpose in moving here was to stop paying war taxes. It was that simple: if I weren’t earning in the states, I wouldn’t be contributing to the war in Vietnam. I had been briefly in Saigon, had lived
in Japan, was a quasi Buddhist (the quasi is no more), and was apprised of what really transpired in Indo China principally through the French press via Ramparts Magazine. The US media in collusion with the US government was filling me with fury. I saw no point in going to jail like Joan Baez or messing up my life like Ellsberg and so many others did, although I would have joined with the draft dodgers had I been of that age. The draft was not an issue with me because I had already spent two years in the army.
So. I worked away for five years in Victoria, built a house, moved into it and had to increase my earnings substantially to pay the bills. To do that I took a government job, two requirements of which were for me to acquire a BC registration to practice architecture and my Canadian citizenship.
Those didn’t take too long, and there I was—a fully-fledged Canadian. It felt just fine, especially since the American scene seemed to go nowhere but down. The personal ties I had had in the states, i.e., family and friends, by then regarded me as Canadian—a bit odd, but then that’s what ducks are—although after five years I still felt more gringo than some form of northern wildlife. But that didn’t matter at all: I was a fully confirmed Canadian and that meant I was no longer American, i.e., a citizen of the United States. That’s what I had learned in the seventh grade and still thought in 1974.
I had been filing 1040s during my five years in Canada, although having no US earnings, I paid no US taxes, thereby satisfying my original reason for being here; however, now, in 1974 with Canadian citizenship under my belt, I would no longer have to file 1040s. (This was my belief at the time, just as it was in my head that dual citizenship with the US did not and could not exist.)
So with considerable glee my last 1040 was filed with a letter stating my new status, underscoring my Canadian income only, and saying that I would no longer be sending in income tax returns. And I didn’t, not until two years ago, when the latest American splat went out to infect the world.
Now here’s the blip in this too long-winded story: In 1987 or thereabouts, I learned for the first time that I was probably still a US citizen, simply because I had not formally renounced in writing. It was possible to be dual and probably I was such, whether I knew it or not. Check it out, man! Well, okay, why not be dual? I can vote; maybe I can collect social security one day; I can have two passports, have the possible advantages of being dual and still pay no US taxes. I hadn’t heard from the IRS in many years (the IRS NEVER contradicted, nor otherwise corrected, my letter of 1974 AND they had stopped sending me yearly tax forms), so that was no problem. Sure go for it.
Going for it meant sending a letter to the US Consulate in Vancouver, stating my wish to retain my US citizenship and at the same time applying for and receiving a US passport to close the deal.
It was done and that was that. I now had two valid passports and two valid citizenships. The cost of doing that has been large (as of two years ago) and the task now is to contain the damage, which every reader on this site will know about. In fact it’s fucking ghastly—and in more ways than anyone not caught by it can possible appreciate. For some of us, being born American has been made a curse.
So that’s my blip, the reason I could not relinquish and the reason I had to renounce.
Because of several questions within the Request for Determination of Possible Loss of US Citizenship document, which is very carefully gone over during the second interview, this reconfirmation episode from the 80s caused a lot of trouble and considerable last-moment anxiety.
I was standing at Window #7 with the wonderful Maria, the caseworker handling my documents, and was trying to get across the fact that my actions were belief-based, and that, because I had the facts wrong, several of the questions simply could not apply to me. It was surprisingly difficult because the honest answers were coming out as both true and false. For a few minutes I think Maria thought I was fudging in some way. She then revealed that I had already answered those same questions on this same document back in ’87. Maria knew this, not because she had a copy of my document, but because she was working in the consulate at that time and knows the process.
At that point I was agitated because I had no copy of that document and did not know what I had written in 1987. Maria was back-and-forthing from my window to the inner office, the print machine, etc. until, finally, my problem clicked with her, she lit up a little and became extraordinarily helpful in suggesting how I could put the words down so that they would not conflict with whatever the State Department has on file.
And that’s how I got through it. I stood at that window for 75 minutes whilst all this was going on. Whew! The State Department will never know—and will care a great deal less even that that!
Wow Cir, that is yet another permutation on this. Thank the powers that be for that serendipitous intervention. Happily you are now free again.
(BTW, and off the topic: until recently, had a stack of a parent’s Ramparts magazine collection – subscribed to from Canada faithfully til they stopped publishing – for similar reasons that you cited. In honour of my parent’s memory, we saved them, until we could find an appreciative home for them. A sibling once used them to do an unwelcome school presentation on the Vietnam war.). Have not thought of them in decades, or met another reader till now.
Take care.
*Thanks, Badger, for you comments. Ramparts and almost simultaneously the New York Review of Books, together with I.F. Stone and maybe The Nation, were almost instrumental in fanning the anti-war flames of America”s youth during the mid sixties. I doubt it was wholly intentional, but those publicatons brought knowledge and intelligence to an otherwise scene of not much more than drugs and music only.I don’t know whether the American media has always been significantly composed of deceivers and liars or not, but it wilted into such during the sixties and appears never to have sent out many blooms since. Today we still have the NY Review and the Nation but little else on this side of the Atlantic. We do still have individual journalists whose heads and hearts know where they belong. One is Mark Danner, who teaches at Berkeley, the other is Glenn Greenwald, who writes for the Guardian. Greenwald is phenomenal.
*Cir, that’s for sharing. It’s fascinating to learn about the situation from the view of others.
Ah yes, I remember Ramparts magazine and subscribed to it for the year or so before I left the US and came to Canada (due toVietnam and draft). I remember at the time thinking some of the claims in some Ramparts articles were off the wall, but then when the Ellsberg Papers came out being amazed and even more justified in my decision (I was in Canada by the time Ellsberg leaked his documents to the NY Times) to discover that in fact Ramparts was absolutely right, the US government was in fact systematically lying to the American people about all sorts of things in the war, and the military and CIA were lying to the government or at least engaging in utterly unjustifiable wishful thinking (see also WMD as “justification” for the invasion of Iraq, nothing has changed). God Bless Ramparts, where are they and Izzy Stone and their ilk in the US these days? The ultra right controls the MSM in the US, has done for decades, and still they follow the Goebbels Big Lie principle of claiming it’s all lefties and socialists who run the media repeatedly until Americans believe them.
*Cir, yours is quite a story. Thanks for sharing it, and best wishes.
I, too, became a Canadian partly as a result of reading I.F. Stone’s Weekly and Ramparts in the ’60s. I still have some old copies in my archives. Like most of us who took Canadian citizenship in the 1970s, I thought that ended my U.S. citizenship, but it has turned into a curse that is hard to shake. This current torment and a lot of recent U.S. history has only confirmed my original decision to expatriate.
*AnonAnon: Isn’t (will someone please fix the punctuation mark problems on this blog?) it somewhat amazing how many of us did something virtually unheard of at about the same time all those years ago and still live to applaud it? We were visionaries! It hasn’t changed America, but there is still hope that it will effect Canada in meaningful ways. Perhaps it already has. Here on the westcoast, an extraordinary battle over shipping crude through the rainforest is going on between the Enbridge/Harper oil forces in Alberta/China and the BC public, including heavy pressure from aboriginal bands across the province. In addition to the First Nations groups, the major environmental faction in this mix is headed by an exCalifornian with help from other expats and native born Canadians, some of whom are first-rate scientists, writers, and activists engaging in cross-border lectures, research and environmental education.There are also a number of US foundations interested in what we do here and which have provided substantial funding to do it.Some of us think the best part of this story is yet to come: Enbridge and Harper are going to lose the battle. If they do, it will be a world event.Stay tuned!
I’ve got another story too and it’s short: an American expat (or maybe the son of an expat) has the ambition of turning the entire Okanagan Valley into a biodynamic zone.
Isn’t that a concept!?
@Cir,
Thanks for amending your “story”. Very interesting the stories of those who came in the late 60’s and 70’s!
I’m trying to find the punctuation problem you want fixed (not that I can fix it).
Thanks for writing your story, Cir, really interesting. Struck a few personal chords with me, too. Ramparts, that’s a blast from the past! I remember my cousin had a subscription to it. And another cousin, recently deceased, was an architect like yourself and friends with Daniel Ellsberg. That was a long time at the counter at your consulate visit — I’m really glad you and Maria got everything straightened out … and now your life can get back to normal!
*The longer I wait for the U.S. to acknowledge my 30+-year-old relinquishment of citizenship, the more irritated I’m getting with this continuing imposition on my peace of mind. Meanwhile, here’s a draft of a Pledge of Non-Allegiance to be recited daily while I wait for their “Certificate” of my “Loss of Nationality”:
[For decades now,]
I no longer pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America,
nor to the imperiousness for which it stands,
just one muddling nation among many,
but with arrogant self-importance aplenty.
🙁
*
AnonAnon, have you writ your case up on this thread? I”d like to know about it.You don’t really mean you’ve been at this for 30 years, do you?
Cir
*Cir, I thought I was no longer a US citizen when I became a Canadian citizen over 30 years ago, only to find out last year that US may still think I belong to them. Now, like others at this site, I’ve been waiting for months after my consular appointment for the CLN to arrive. I haven’t written up my whole story yet, but I did document my visit to the Toronto consulate last summer.
*AnonAnon, please write up your story because, as a relinquisher, it will apply to many, who, like you, thought just as I did, but perhaps also to many children who may or may not have been born in the states, yet are US citizens anyway.I have a son of that status and several friends with grown children in similar strait states.You apparently had only one interview…?
Don”t bother to be alarmed about your situation, unless you suspect they have reason to withhold your constitutional right to relinquish. The worst that can happen to most of us is having to file 1040s for another year and that of course will depend on how deeply the IRS has penetrated the orifices of the State Department, although our suspicions could well be wrong. Bureaucracies are fundamentally dumb and, although there is plenty of intelligence inside them, it rises to the top and neither cares much nor has time to investigate what goes on far below, such as where we are.
Cir
Anon,Anon
I know how you feel. But in my case, I ‘relinquished’ 40+ years ago and because I am dealing with the Vancouver consulate, I am still awaiting the 2nd appointment. Now I know the consulate here has been told to do ‘relinquishments’ in one appointment, and perhaps that is their plan for the future. But there are some, like me, that send emails requesting the 2nd appointment and it is like it goes into a deep abyss. No one answers. Did they receive it? Will this ever come to an end? And so the questions go on and on.
My oath of Canadian citizenship contained a renunciatory oath, in addition to the oath of allegiance to the Queen and her heirs. I have never done anything to negate that relinquishment of U.S. citizenship, such as, voting, passport, taxes etc. How could anyone possibly think of me as ‘an American’. I want out. And I want out sooner rather than later.
*tiger, I’ve been following your case, and I find it baffling and infuriating how the Vancouver consulate has been treating you. I don’t know of any reason why a second appointment should be required for a 40-year-old relinquishment. As I understand from reports here, even renunciations are being done at some consulates with one appointment.
*Tiger and AnonAnon: Vancouver still! What goes with that place? Am I the only one who wrote to Sylvia Johnson, complaining of the long wait period and the no-answer acid baths? Surely a few well-placed words will do no harm, especially for relinquishers like you two.30 and 40 years has just got to impress her—because it”s impressive!
Cir
@AnonAnon, and Cir,
Yes, renunciations are being done with only one appointment at some consulates. Ms. Johnson has said that Vancouver is to switch to a 1 appt system for relinquishments. And perhaps from now on, any appts for relinquishment will be only one appt. In the meantime, people like myself could ‘slip through the cracks’ as it does not look like they have opened up more appointments, at least as yet.
I have written and requested the 2nd appt. and have offered to go to Calgary or Toronto if Vancouver is unable to accomodate me, but my emails go unanswered. Exactly as what happened to you, Cir. Ms. Johnson did say things hopefully, would change come December. In the meantime, I will try to remain patient.
Although it would be annoying to have to incur airfare when the Vancouver consulate is a 20 minute bus ride away (and as a senior the fare is inexpensive); I am quite sincere when I say that I would be willing to fly to either Calgary or Toronto to put an end to the uncertainty. In so many ways, I feel like I have lost a year of my life, since last Christmas when I first was made aware of this awful mess. No one, absolutely no one, not even my four American siblings and their families, have thought of me as anything but a Canadian for 40+ years. Some of those relatives are very smart people, individuals who have served in the U.S government in very high positions; and they can make no sense of how I can be re-claimed, particularly when I swore a renunciatory oath and was told, not once, but twice by the U.S. consulate in Toronto that my loss of citizenship was ‘permanent and irrevocable’.
*Tiger: you have renounced by oath in Toronto (?) , yet wait for a second interview in Vancouver? Please explain. When was your first interview?
Cir
@Cir,
When I became a Canadian citizen in 1972, the Canadian citizenship oath (because Canada did not allow dual citizenship) required you to swear both and oath of allegiance to the Queen and her heirs and a ‘renunciatory’ oath giving up ‘allegiance to any foreign sovereign or state’. The Canadian citizenship oath changed in April, 1973 when they no longer required that renunciatory oath. Prior to my citizenship ceremony in 1972, I phoned the consulate in Toronto (I was living in Toronto at the time) and informed them that i was becoming a Canadian citizen. The told me that ‘your loss of U.S. citizenship will be permanent and irrevocable’ if you become a Canadian. Being determined to fully participate in Canadian society (I had been here by that time 11 years – 3 years on a student visa, 8 years landed immigrant), I went ahead with the Canadian citizenship ceremony and phoned the consulate again after the fact. NEVER did they tell me that I had to apply for a CLN, nor did they ever send me any forms to document to them what I had done. They just repeated what they had told me in the pre citizenship phone call ‘permanent and irrevocable’ loss of U.S. citizenship.
So do I resent what is going on now. You bet! I don’t blame the state department for this, but I do blame the IRS and alot of elected officials.
@Cir,
I did not answer the second part of your question to me. My initial interview (to apply for the back dated CLN) with the Vancouver consulate was in September. They required additional documents and those were forwarded to them early in October.
So I certainly have not as yet waited as long as you were forced to wait. However, the fact that Vancouver is now suppose to be doing these relinquishments in one interview and also the fact that the online calendar (although not what I would use to book the 2nd appt.) and the fact that requests go unanswered, my fear is that I will ‘slip through the cracks’.
As I have mentioned before, I am more than happy to have my file moved to either Calgary or Toronto. Both of those consulates seem to have many appointments available and also individuals report being treated well at those consulates. In order to move the file, I would think that Vancouver would have to agree – a start would be to answer my emails. But I feel the emails might just go into a dark abyss.
@Cir
Tiger had a relinquishment (not renunciation) appointment in Vancouver on September 21, 2012. It should have been over in one interview but Vancouver made her jump through documentation hoops. She had to get “more acceptable” (to them) copies of her US birth certificate and marriage license. She has submitted the “more acceptable” documents I believe but she has not been able to schedule another interview in Vancouver to conclude the whole process. That’s why she is willing to go to Calgary or Toronto to expedite things if she has to. Hopefully she’ll get that second interview soon and won’t have to incur some pretty significant extra costs for flying to another city. Did I get that right, Tiger? … And while I was writing this Tiger picked up the ball. 🙂
*Tiger: I think you are incorrect about the citizenship oath changing in April of 1973. We took it in January, 1974 and it did still then include renouncing other citizenships. During the individual interviews with the citizenship judge immediately prior to the ceremony, he was VERY clear to point out that we would be losing our US citizenship upon taking the oath. I wonder if the changes were implemented at different times in various parts of the country?
Also, I would like to obtain a copy of the old oathe that we took. Anyone know how to get it?
@Tiger,
Unless policy has changed, Consulate 1 doesn’t have to agree to transferring a file to Consulate 2. You’d bring all your original documentation to Consulate 2 (who undoubtedly wouldn’t want 4 different original copies of your birth certificate or 2 original marriage certficates either!). Does Consulate 1 have your 4079? No problem. It’s not signed. Just print out two more copies, bring them to Consulate 2, where you’ll sign them.
According to RenunciationGuide.com, all consulates can access your renunciation file. But I’d bring everything with me to Consulate 2 anyway. Which I did. I treated it as a process de novo. They did too. They made photocopies of my id documents (which I think Consulate 1 had done, too). The procedure was as if I’d never been to Consulate 1 and it very simple and straightforward.
There’s no way I could see Consulate 1 objecting, or even caring. I can’t think there is any legal reason they could. And if they’re so overworked they can’t cope, if they cared at all, it’d probably be “Yay, one less customer!”
… and when my then-husband and I became Canadian citizens in April of 1975, we were told that we would be relinquishing US citizenship. No mention of what a CLN was, etc. We just lived as Canadians, me still (and now, of course, having gone through hell and renunciation) — my ex-husband until his passing ten years ago, not having any idea about any of this mess.
*@Woofy, I became a Canadian citizen in 1971, renouncing my US citizenship in the process. This is the oath I swore at that time:
“I hereby renounce all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign sovereign or state of whom or which I may at this time be a subject or citizen.
I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.
So help me God.”