Confirming reports passed on by commenters at the Isaac Brock Society, DiploPundit points to a State Department interim rule just placed on public inspection for printing in tomorrow’s Federal Register, which raises the fee for renunciation of U.S. citizenship (but apparently not relinquishment) to US$2,350, more than twenty times the average level in other high-income countries. As they state:
[D]emand for the service has increased dramatically, consuming far more consular officer time and resources, as reflected in the 2012 Overseas Time Survey and increased workload data. Because the Department believes there is no public benefit or other reason for setting this fee below cost, the Department is increasing this fee to reflect the full cost of providing the service. Therefore the increased fee reflects both the increased cost of the provision of service as well as the determination to now charge the full cost.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”, while the Expatriation Act of 1868 says that renunciation of citizenship is “a natural and inherent right of all people” and that “any declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any officers of this government which restricts, impairs, or questions the right of expatriation, is hereby declared inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this government”.
As of press time, the State Department has not yet commented on whether it sees “public benefit” in other human rights such as freedom of election or freedom of marriage, or whether anyone seriously believes that charging people a month’s salary to get a ballot paper or a marriage certificate would not restrict or impair those rights.
Practical effects
Because this fee hike apparently does not apply to relinquishments, ex-Americans who naturalise in most other countries will still be able to obtain a Certificate of Loss of Nationality from the U.S. government for no more than the cost of taking a day off work and driving or flying halfway across the country to the nearest consulate which isn’t backed up for months with renunciation appointments. (“Most other countries” means those which allow dual citizenship, like Canada and France, or those which forbid dual citizenship but allow new citizens to submit proof of loss of their former citizenship after the naturalisation ceremony, like Japan.)
However, Americans seeking to naturalise in countries which require new citizens to give up their former citizenship before the naturalisation ceremony, like Taiwan, or those who have been foreign citizens for decades or all their lives and never exercised any benefits of U.S. citizenship but now need to acquire a formal CLN (for example because their bank will discriminate against them if they don’t have one), will feel the full impact of the new fee hike, and also have to wait for months or even longer than a year for the State Department to give them a CLN before they can get on with their lives.
What changed?
The State Department has always claimed that processing renunciations has a high cost, but four years ago when they first introduced the renunciation fee, they at least pretended to take a very different attitude to the cost:
The CoSS demonstrated that documenting a U.S. citizen’s renunciation of citizenship is extremely costly, requiring American consular officers overseas to spend substantial amounts of time to accept, process, and adjudicate cases. A new fee of $450 will be established to help defray a portion of the total cost to the U.S. Government of documenting the renunciation of citizenship. While the Department decided to set the fee at $450, this fee represents less than 25 percent of the cost to the U.S. Government. The Department has determined that it must recoup at least a portion of its costs of providing this very costly service but set the fee lower than the cost of service in order to lessen the impact on those who need this service and not discourage the utilization of the service, a development the Department feels would be detrimental to national interests. See 31 U.S.C. 9701(b)(2).
They also note the per-hour cost they use to calculate the new fee:
The Department previously charged a consular time fee of $231 per hour, per employee. This fee is charged when indicated on the Schedule of Fees or when services are performed away from the office or outside regular business hours. The CoSM estimated that the hourly consular time charge is now lower. Accordingly, the Department is lowering this fee to $135 per hour.
This implies that they take about seventeen employee-hours to process each renunciation (assuming that none of the fee goes to other expenses such as travel or printing). Oddly enough, in their 2012 Paperwork Reduction Act filings on Form DS-4079 (which is filled out by both renunciants and relinquishers), the State Department indicated that the cost for processing the form was just $33 per hour. I don’t understand how these two estimates relate to each other.
To explain the new fee hike, the State Department point to procedures (such as the pointless and repetitive double in-person appointment system) which are required neither by the Immigration and Nationality Act nor the Foreign Affairs Manual, nor used by any other countries:
For example, consular officers must confirm that the potential renunciant fully understands the consequences of renunciation, including losing the right to reside in the United States without documentation as an alien. Other steps include verifying that the renunciant is a U.S. citizen, conducting a minimum of two intensive interviews with the potential renunciant, and reviewing at least three consular systems before administering the oath of renunciation. The final approval of the loss of nationality must be done by law within the Directorate of Overseas Citizens Services in Washington, D.C., after which the case is returned to the consular officer overseas for final delivery of the Certificate of Loss of Nationality to the renunciant. These steps further add to the time and labor that must be involved in the process.
As demonstrated by the experience of other countries, the State Department could greatly lower their costs by simplifying their procedures, but apparently such a common-sense step has not occurred to them.
But look on the bright side! 31 USC § 9701 says that “[e]ach charge shall be … based on … (A) the costs to the Government; (B) the value of the service or thing to the recipient; (C) public policy or interest served; and (D) other relevant facts.” Given how valuable a CLN has become these days, imagine how high a fee they could charge for it if they set the price based on its value.
Timeline for fee hike and comments period
The State Department ends with an excuse for why they can’t be bothered to tell us about the fee hike more than two weeks in advance, while keeping renunciants waiting for dozens of times that long to get the CLNs in the first place:
The Department intends to implement this interim final rule, and initiate collection of the fees set forth herein, effective 15 days after publication of this rule in the Federal Register …. The Department is publishing this rule as an interim final rule, with a 60-day provision for post promulgation comments and with an effective date less than 30 days from the date of publication, based on the “good cause” exceptions set forth at 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(3)(B) and 553(d)(3). Delaying implementation of this rule would be contrary to the public interest because the fees in this rule fund consular services that are critical to national security, including screening visa applicants.
You have until 4 October to submit a written comment on this rule. I will update this post with a link to the docket page on Regulations.gov once the fee hike is officially published.
@Neil, a report came out that a majority of homelanders can not scrape together $400 for an emergency.
I relinquished but my children bear the “mark of Cain (USA)” because they had the misfortune of being born in the USA.
My children have no ties and no memories of the USA. When they reach 18 they want to ditch their US Citizenship.
So in addition to taking on mounds of debt to attend University, they now need to get a loan to renounce something they never asked for nor wanted?
My Country, my childrens Country, sold my children down the river with a FATCA IGA.
Pre FATCA it didn’t mean a damn thing if they had a CLN or not, but now renouncing is their only option and who knows how high the fee will be when they are 18?
For our children, do we need a tax favored USA Renouncing Citizenship fund? You know along with a college fund?
I though I understood Calgary and her feelings, guess what I am a lot farther on her path now!!
My Country signed a law that requires a US issued CLN for my children to escape the talons of the USA. Its not my problem, its their problem and they need to fix it.
An anonymous comment at the Flophouse;
“2) They are giving the Canadian people who initiated the lawsuit against the government of Canada the silver bullet to strike the IGA down.”
This massive fee increase needs to be shown to the legal team ASAP.
It needs to be pointed out how this would likely require ten percent of a young persons after tax Canadian income just to renounce something they never wanted!!
To be brutally honest can’t we just give away this “blessing” to some illegal migrant who actually wants it?
It’s kind of like having to stay in a run down hotel which is charging exorbitant room rates, enforcing indecipherable “guest” regulations and providing absolutely no services. You decide you’ve had enough and want to leave but then they lock the lobby doors and tell you they won’t open them unless you fork up $2350. Outrageous!
@Calgary411 @Eric
Thanks for the replies. I still do not understand the reason for the 2 “effective” dates, but at least you both agreed with my interpretation that the Sep 6 date was not when the actual fee would begin to be charged.
I wonder if there is a chance that they will rescind this. Years ago there was a call for charging “actual costs” for passports, which would have increased the cost about 10x, but it was scuttled. Unfortunately, not too much sympathy for renouncers in the US right now.
Regardless of what it actually costs to process, I’m surprised that there is not a rule against “precipitous” fee increases.
TokyoRose,
There’s no rule against what PUNITIVE old U.S. Congressmen are able to do (though there are a few U.S. Congresswomen in agreement as well). We can dream on!
@George,
I am sorry but you have it easy. I can’t vote, can get thrown out of the country at any time and if they throw me out they can subject me to the exit tax and take a bunch of my money.
When I pay taxes I have to actually write a check to the IRS and it’s very big numbers. The IRS is not a revenue source for me as it is for a huge number of citizens.
When I was a kid we had to walk to school uphill both ways!
A passport for a new adult applicant is $135 while a CLN is $2,350. I get that the US government will perceive that there is a “public benefit” for issuing a passport and willing to eat part of the cost but do they really want people drawing the conclusion that a CLN is 17x more valuable than a US passport? That makes just way too good of a headline. I hope someone who speaks to Patrick Cain mentions this.
Just called the Calgary Herald and had a long chat with the news department about this. I think they’ll be following up on this with a story. Anybody willing to talk to them? I left them my name and phone number.
Thanks.
ps….I would encourage everyone on this blog to pick up the phone and contact the news outlets in your city to let them know this is happening and how it’s affecting you and your families. This is a story of national interest and importance. Think of all the money this new fee will be pulling out of our economy, all the further financial stress it will be creating, all of the human rights it will be violating. The more people who contact the media about this, the more likely we’ll see coverage across the country.
before the Civil War rather than abolishing slavery the US imposed increasingly severe punishment to people trying to escape an evil system, and anybody helping them
I just happen to be meeting with our Liberal candidate in about a half and hour. She’s running against John “thrilled about FATCA” Weston in the next federal election. Any messages I can add to my own?
molly,
Done!
I’ll send your good observation to Patrick Cain right now, Edelweiss — that a US Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) @ US$2,350 is 17X more valuable than a US passport @ US$135.
i would be willing to attend a protest in front of the u.s consulate in vancouver
any ideas on what stunt could be done that would be considered harsh enough to get us kicked out of america?
@Calgary. I believe it costs $680.00 to apply for USC, but $2,350.00 to unload. Seems to me that there is much more to granting the USC than cancelling. Surely there are background checks, tests, interviews (?), etc….so a CLN is 4 x more valuable than the citizenship itself??
Man- its like one abomination after another.
@Only a Canadian says,
Sounds about right on the money as we just started this. You have to get fingerprinted and they will do a background check. Then an in person interview that I haven’t gotten to yet.
Only a Canadian,
One would think they would do all you state, be more than fussy, regarding letting someone get the US “entitlement” to their citizenship. I have given Patrick Cain the link to this thread of comments to see the fury and the thoughts we have on this latest assault.
@Only a Canadian. I think DOS is taking into account that it does technically cost more per passport to process one at an Embassy/Consulate than domestically at a passport acceptance agency. Maintaining an Embassy/Consulate overseas costs significantly more per facility than a domestic agency, but the agency can distribute the average costs of passport issuance among all passport applicants, and the majority of passports are issued domestically, so the average cost is lower. Since all Renunciations happen overseas, they probably see, the per instance / per hour cost significantly higher to process. Also, only a division chief can approve a CLN. Albeit, that is more of a matter of DOS policy than law. I wonder how much they figure once of the Chief’s salaries and time is worth? FOIA request anyone?
How much do ILLEGAL MIGRANTS pay in processing fees to become legal under the Dream Act?
$465.00
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/3/dream-act-students-will-pay-465-fee-legal-status-d/?page=all
FIVE times the expense to process out a LEGAL EMMIGRANT than an ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT!!!!!!
And of course, not a single piece of renunciation news can pass without the Pavlovian dogs of the Homeland standing up on their hind legs, drooling, and barking out “don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out”
https://twitter.com/jamesgibney/status/505023589335449600
Singling out this one because he’s an ex-Foreign Service Officer. Another shining example of the State Department’s respect for Americans who actually exercise their human right to live in foreign countries.
http://www.theatlantic.com/james-gibney/
Forbes picked it up: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/08/28/u-s-hikes-fee-to-renounce-citizenship-by-422/?utm_source=followingimmediate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20140828
I think the article needs some “enlightenment” as to how the process could be much less stressful and time consuming to the US.
@TokyoRose
“Years ago there was a call for charging “actual costs” for passports, which would have increased the cost about 10x, but it was scuttled. ”
Not sure if the “actual costs” are really 10x higher than the amount charged. The following website seems to suggest the “actual costs” for UK passports are just £65:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/18/cost-government-transactions-open-data
@somewhere
“I think DOS is taking into account that it does technically cost more per passport to process one at an Embassy/Consulate than domestically at a passport acceptance agency.”
While it might cost slightly more, we shouldn’t be talking about thousands of dollars to process basic paperwork. Maybe if it were some obscure consulate in a remote part of the world, the cost per transaction would be quite high. But at well traveled locations such as Toronto, which deals with multiple transactions such as passports, visas, and renunciations, the extra overhead per transaction should be no more than a few dollars.
Robert W. Wood at Forbes Magazine has published the story of the rate increase. Brockers should make some noise over there. Just sayin….
US DOS just issued a press release. The effective date of the massive fee hike will be September 12th.
http://m.state.gov/md231128.htm