Let’s try this again:
Assume that you, a long-time citizen and resident of France, were born in the U.S. and left U.S. at age four hours after birth, never to return AND you never developed any ties (passport whatever) with U.S. AND never wanted, and do not want, and refuse to accept imposition of U.S. citizenship on your French citizen person — notwithstanding a birth citizenship law of a foreign country (the U.S.).
A lot of people in this post want to define you as an “Accidental American Citizen”, apparently because they feel that this is a useful, easy to digest and understand, term.
But you say: “No way people — I don’t accept U.S. imposition of non-meaningful citizenship that I don’t want and I TELL YOU THAT I AM NOT AN AMERICAN CITIZEN I AM ONLY A CITIZEN OF FRANCE”.
So given the scenario above and your position as a human person, is it accurate or not to say that you are an American citizen?
Does the majority vote that you must defer to a foreign citizenship law that trumps your right to say no way?
So the questions should be:
Is Jus Sanguinis fair in the United States in the following cases:
1. where a child is born on foreign soil to one American parent and one foreign parent.
2. where a foreign child is born on American soil.
My answer is this;
1. NO…the United States has no business taxing the off-spring of a US citizen born on foreign soil who has not set foot in the United States to reside but resides in the foreign country deriving his benefits from that said foreign country and earning his living in that foreign country.
2. NO, This is as Norman Diamond said, tributary slavery. The belief that just because a foreign national has used your resources to be brought into this world. The fact that insurance has covered all medical expenses means that their debt to United States society has been paid in full and if they have returned to the country in which their parents originated, there should no longer be any need for taxing this child’s income.
So, WhatAmI, Citizenship IS at the crux of this matter. MY children have been deemed US citizens (though we have kept our mouths shut about it to the US authorities – namely have not registered our children at the Consulate and thank goodness for that), through jus sanguinis. And that is the unfair situation: that children can be born on foreign soil to one SINGLE US parent and be deemed US tax slaves for life. ON FOREIGN SOIL!
You’d think that someone who doesn’t identify with being a US citizen would be of little value to the US – that is unless the US uses the excuse of citizenship ALONE to impose taxes on them. I say alone because it’s their sole justification, and a pretty weak one at that.
Is citizenship a reason or excuse to impose taxes on its citizens? Considering the rest of the world doesn’t find a reason to, I’d say it’s just an excuse. No one seems to actually know why the US decided to tax its citizens based on their worldwide income. In this paper, Montano Cabezas suggests that “If citizenship taxation is to continue, then it would be helpful if Congress or the Executive Branch explained the reasons for its continued use to combat the perception of unfairness.”…
…”Citizenship-based taxation of nonresidents’ worldwide income began in 1864.37 In contrast with the earlier 1861 and 1862 legislation, however, nonresidents were now assessed at the same rates as residents.38 In other words, the tax system had moved from penalizing the U.S.-sourced income of nonresident citizens, by assessing that income at a higher marginal rate and denying income exemptions, to taxing all sources of a citizen’s income, regardless of residence, at the same marginal rates. The rationale for moving to the worldwide taxation of a nonresident citizen’s income, as opposed to a punitive level of tax on a nonresident’s U.S.-source income, as seen in the 1861 and 1862 legislation, is not clear. The Congressional Globe records Senator
Collamer stating that he did “not know exactly upon what ground” Congress was basing its reasons for proposing the worldwide taxation of nonresident citizens.39″…
…”One of the most interesting aspects of the post–Cook v. Tait discourse is that the conversation resumes the trend started after the Civil War whereby the government moved away from discussing citizenship taxation itself, and instead concentrated on finding solutions or “patches” to the discrete equitable and commercial problems that arose from taxing nonresident citizens on their worldwide income.”…
What excuse does the US have for still trying to perfect CBT, when it’s clearly unworkable?
…”The Supreme Court’s decision in Cook v. Tait affirmed the constitutional validity of citizenship-based taxation. Accordingly, due to the difficulty of reversing a Supreme Court precedent, future challenges to the system would have to be made in the political, instead of the legal, sphere.71″…
…”Taken by itself, without any supporting reasons, the proposition of one country taxing a person’s income without a jurisdiction based on either source or residence appears unjust. Due to this prima facie injustice, governments that exercise the right to tax based on citizenship would likely alleviate controversy and increase taxpayer morale by declaring their reasons for doing so.”…
…”The lack of consensus on the actual nature of citizenship means that any tax imposed purely on that basis, such as the taxation of nonresident citizens on their non-U.S.-source income, would greatly benefit from an explanation of why such a practice is valid.”…
…”Of note is the fact that, post–Cook v. Tate, the debate about citizenship-based taxation itself ended. Instead, the conversation in Congress turned to fixing the problems associated with citizenship-based taxation through patches, instead of evaluating the substance of this method of taxation. I posited that if the government is to rely on the Cook v. Tait inherent-benefits- received reasoning, then the government ought to set out which benefits it deems to be valuable enough to justify its unique practice of citizenship-based taxation.”…
Worth a read in its entirety with quite a few familiar names:
http://www.pennstatelawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ARTICLE-3-CABEZAS.pdf
Kelly: “And if it becomes ruled that people have a right to “self-identify” their gender, then people should be able to “self-identify” with not being a U.S. citizen.”
Me: Then should I be able to identify with being a citizen of whatever country or countries I want? Even those which don’t want me…?
(In real life there has been discussion of whether people who identify as some sort of non-human creature ought to be able to put that on their official documents.)
My “self-identification” idea was that you should have the right to reject a citizenship you don’t want, not that you could say that you ARE a citizen of a country that you aren’t.
Impressment Americans.
Impressment was the practice by the British Navy to board ships on the high seas and claim certain persons into service of the British Navy. This was one of the main causes of the War of 1812.
The story goes the British Navy would board American ships and look for persons born in England/or anyone who was a sailor then claim them to work for the British Navy.
This story sounds similar to Accidentals, yet the term Impressment Americans would confuse most. Perhaps in the story of Accidentals this comparison may be made to the British practice of Impressment and that being a cause for the War of 1812. It is very useful and important to ‘grab the U.S. flag’ first before the opposition. It is all Un-American!
“Are you referring to Princess Margriet of the Netherlands? Royalty is exceptional … no surprise there.”
Hmm, maybe she would have had only Canadian citizenship if her hospital room had been located above Canadian soil or something like that. That’s because royals aren’t citizens of their own countries, right? Princess Mako is engaged to become a citizen of Japan. Prince Harry doesn’t have Canadian citizenship, so if he and (hypothetically) Princess Meghan have a baby the new prince or princess will be solely a US citizen. The late king of Thailand was solely a US citizen. If they renounced their US citizenship betwen ages 18 and 18.5 they wouldn’t have been exempt from the exit tax.
Current methods for acquiring US citizenship at birth still seem quite reasonable to me. The true practical issues are getting rid of it and CBT. Of course these issues are deeply connected and only came to light because of CBT enforcement, the homelander view being that people should not be able to easily “escape”, a stark irony from the “land of the free”.
Remember however that acquiring citizenship at birth in the US is a good thing for the vast majority. There is no “foreign” child born in the US – to be contrasted with the situation of young people who were brought in after birth and who risk deportation despite having no other country to speak of. Birth abroad is less of an issue because without a US birthplace and with another citizenship one is, in practice, often free to ignore one’s US citizenship.
If both parents are FOREIGN citizens, then the only circumstance is that child is as much foreign as the parents as he/she goes back to their parent’s country. The US should let the child go. There should be NO further ties binding that child to the United States. Unless YOU SUPPORT INDENTURED TAX SLAVERY.
Isnt it kind of insane to look for resident tax cheats in say Switzerland, but not look for those same tax cheats in Delaware?
I saw this Federal Register entry where the State department is looking for ways to reduce regulation and costs. I submitted a comment explaining that they ought to reduce or eliminate the $2,350 fee to renounce or relinquish, and suggested they find a way to streamline the processing of such if they feel that the processing time justifies such an exorbitant fee. (I also mentioned how the high fee probably violates one’s constitutional and legal rights.)
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/07/14/2017-14620/reducing-regulation-and-public-burden-and-controlling-cost?utm_campaign=subscription%20mailing%20list&utm_source=federalregister.gov&utm_medium=email
That link had some “extras” in it from when I copied-and-pasted it (came from an e-mail subscription). Here’s the shorter version:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/07/14/2017-14620/reducing-regulation-and-public-burden-and-controlling-cost
To answer the question, yes, I believe those born in the US are Americans. If they are born there and leave in early childhood I believe the term Accidental American is appropriate because it is clear and makes the concept easy to grasp. I also think they should be free to easily jettison their US citizenship.
Note that in the past many people were happy to give birth in the US, and even did this on purpose in order to give their child US citizenship. A Belgian (or other) in this situation might currently consider the US to be distasteful and uninteresting and need to unburden themselves from FATCA and call themselves not American or Accidentals. But if the situation becomes like 1940 again, or if they decide that opportunity beckons in California that same Accidental will be quite happy to brandish the little blue book at the border.
People in the 21st century are now free to decide what sex they are. If they can decide something so basic why should they not be able to decide what citizenship they hold (as long as the country of the desired citizenship will have them)?
As for the term “Accidental American”; it’s a bit like “citizenship-based taxation”. It’s a term that isn’t perfect but we all know what it means. I’m not offended by it’s use despite its inaccuracy in many cases.
I agree with Fred B that the term makes the concept easy to grasp.
“But if the situation becomes like 1940 again, or if they decide that opportunity beckons in California that same Accidental will be quite happy to brandish the little blue book at the border.”
There are some of us (my kids) who will never be THAT gullible again. The US is not a place that we will ever visit IN OUR LIFETIMES, let alone choose to reside in.
You say you are an expat (Fred B) but you think like a homelander with the same US exceptionality that a homelander displays. I for one am an ANTI-American and I reside in Canada and could care less what a “homelander” thinks no matter where he currently resides, especially not when your HOMELAND is pointing a gun at my wife’s head saying “Comply or ELSE!”
@Fred (B)
Note that in the past many people were happy to give birth in the US, and even did this on purpose in order to give their child US citizenship.
There are still people who do this. They generally come from countries much less well off than Canada or Western Europe, though, and I believe it is becoming less common ever in the case of less privileged countries than it used to be.
The_Animal: Relax, mate. I was just trying to give my opinion as requested by Stephen Kish. We’re on the same side here. Time for a Scotch I’d say 😉
It is within the realm of possibility that if Donald Trump gets to nominate two more Supreme Court Justices of a far-Right persuasion that the position of the Federation for American Immigration Reform http://www.fairus.org/ (that the 14th Amendment does not apply to offspring born in the USA to undocumented and temporary residents) will be adopted and that there is, in fact, no such thing as an Accidental American by reason of birth on U.S. soil. (Such a decision will create an interesting question as to retroactivity; one can suggest by analogy to Revenue Rulings and State Department practice that those who have exercised attributes of U.S. citizenship before such a judgment would keep that status.)
andy05: interesting. One does wonder what the effect of 2 more right-wing judges would be on citizenship issues, or even on our plight abroad. However I think “jus soli” is just what the USA is, in its DNA so to speak. Reversing it would be so hugely controversial that I expect justice Roberts, perhaps justice Gorsuch to oppose changing it. Lest we think the USA is the only country that does this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli is interesting. Of note is France, where being born in France (to foreign parents) means one is foreign until the age of 18, age at which, if one documents residency in France, one can obtain citizenship.
@Fred (B) Yes and no. Jus soli in the American sense comes from the English concept of “allegiance” here: http://www.uniset.ca/naty/parry.htm and here: http://uniset.ca/naty/maternity/ligeance.htm The French and Latin American origins are different. Canada has jus soli too but lacks the hysterically nationalistic aspect of the American version. In the present day, and what do I care since I’m long gone from the country, the U.S. Supreme Court has become yet another political (or politicised) arm (or branch) of Government.
The problem here is that the US uses jus sanguinis to stake its claim on children born to one US person & one foreign person while abroad based on a period after they turned 14 years of age. If it was just jus soli, then the child would have to be born on US soil or on US territory to even be considered a US citizen.
The fact that the US seems to choose between right of soil and right of blood arbitrarily depending on where one was born means that they are using this as a means of creating more tributary tax SLAVES.
Correction: Transmittal of United States Citizenship from the US parent is BASED on a period of time that the US parent remained on US soil AFTER the age of fourteen. So in my wife’s case, she was living in the States after the age of 14 whereupon she departed the CONUS at the age of 24, was a visitor in Canada for a certain period of time and officially “landed” in Canada at the age of 25 in November of that year. Thus like a contagion, she qualified to pass her “disease” of US citizenship on to OUR children who were born IN Canada.
Despite my harsh words and comparing my wife’s situation to a communicable disease, it’s not that I don’t love her dearly (which I do), I do so because I am enraged at the United States (and filled with anger and hatred towards the sycophantic citizens who excuse this outright theft. I would defend her and my children with my life and in that regards, I can EASILY see myself in Khadr’s position should the United States choose to invade Canada. I would fight and I would kill Americans who chose to INVADE my country by military force. And that is the scary part of this whole thing. That certain Brockers would consider me a traitor and a terrorist because I would raise my hand to an American soldier who chose to come here; to inflict untold suffering to my people. Well let me enlighten you. If you, as an invader, choose to invade my country by force, do not be surprised to see some who would sooner see you dead.
AMERICA is NOBODY’S FRIEND.
“It is within the realm of possibility that if Donald Trump gets to nominate two more Supreme Court Justices of a far-Right persuasion that the position of the Federation for American Immigration Reform http://www.fairus.org/ (that the 14th Amendment does not apply to offspring born in the USA to undocumented and temporary residents) will be adopted”
That would give undocumented and temporary residents exemption from the substantial presence test so they wouldn’t be subject to US tax law. There’s no chance they’d let that pass.
“and that there is, in fact, no such thing as an Accidental American by reason of birth on U.S. soil”
That wouldn’t help Calgary411’s son.