August 13, 2020: On the one hand (at least in Toronto) U.S. Citizen Services are opening up …
U.S. DIPLOMATIC MISSION TO CANADA
Message to U.S. Citizens in Canada: U.S. Consulate General Toronto resumes most American citizen services
AUGUST 13, 2020
Location: Toronto
Event: U.S. Consulate General Toronto resumes public appointments for American citizen services
BEGIN Message for U.S. Citizens
The U.S. Consulate General Toronto is now accepting a limited number of appointments for most U.S. citizen services. You can request an appointment for routine and emergency passport services, Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) services, and adult citizenship claims by emailing us at TorontoPassport@state.gov. Please note that appointment numbers are limited to prevent crowding, and therefore wait times for appointments will be longer than normal. We appreciate your patience and support for our mutual efforts to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.
We are not offering routine visa services at this time. For information on visa appointments, visit https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-ca/niv.
August 15, 2020: On the other hand renunciation appointments are closed down with no reopening in sight …
The health and safety of those who work at and visit the Embassy and Consulates is our highest priority. In response to the global pandemic COVID-19, and in line with the Canadian government’s call to increase social distancing, the CLN Processing Center has suspended Loss of Nationality services until further notice. We will resume routine services as soon as possible but are unable to provide a specific date at this time.
Please be advised that at this time, appointments through the end of July have already been canceled and we have yet to determine if further cancelations are to be made. Canceled appointments will be rescheduled prior to scheduling new appointments from the current queue when we eventually resume with this service. Please note that we have suspended scheduling and rescheduling for the foreseeable future and will resume when we have returned to normal routine operations. It will take several months to recover from the backlog, however your place in the queue remains unchanged.
We regret any inconvenience caused by the suspension of this service and appreciate your support for our efforts to safeguard U.S. facilities and prevent the further spread of COVID-19 in Canada.
@Zla’od I think it is not really clear what services they are offering, they state that:
Because of public health measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, effective March 20, 2020, the U.S. Department of State began to limit passport operations. Effective April 2, the Department further limited its ability to offer routine passport and citizenship services abroad.
https://www.ait.org.tw/u-s-citizen-services/
And then go on to explain which services they are offering and how (seems like it is only passport, birth registrations and urgent notarial services). I would be surprised if they are doing renunciations.
Clarity on which services are running seems to vary from consulate to consulate.
On top of coronavirus, it also seems like they are overloaded with cases from the first half of the year!
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/09/us/us-citizenship-renounced-data-trnd/index.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-citizenship-renounce-trump-coronavirus-tax-a9663791.html
The French embassy confirms the information on the website of the London consulate; the suspension is worldwide:
Due to COVID-19, renunciation services have been suspended world-wide until further notice. We apologize for the inconvenience.
https://fr.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/citizenship-services/renounce-u-s-citizenship
@Squirrel
Those news stories about renunciation numbers are misleading nonsense. The high numbers in the first half of the year are probably renunciations from 2019 that took this long to process. It’s possible that some would have happened in the first 3 months of 2020, before everything shut down.
Thanks for confirming that it’s a global shutdown. That’s what I assumed based on the notice from the embassy in Canada, but the language was not precise and left some doubt.
“We apologize for the inconvenience”. Almost spat my coffee out on that one.
I checked with the AIT, the US pseudo-embassy, and here is what they said:
“Our office is processing renunciations but the number of cases we can process every month is quite limited. The renunciant must appear in person in front of a Consular Officer to take the oath of renunciation. The entire process takes about 4 – 6 months to complete from the date of renunciation. While the applicant doesn’t have to remain in Taiwan to wait for the results, s/he should be able to retrieve the documents afterwards. We offer the option of in-person pick-up or cash-on delivery courier service (applicant pays for the delivery).”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/us-expats-cant-renounce-their-citizenship-fast-enough/2020/08/31/19185870-eb60-11ea-bd08-1b10132b458f_story.html
also
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-08-31/why-thousands-of-u-s-expats-are-renouncing-their-citizenship
Nice to see that someone finally corrected that idiotic bit of misinformation around renunciations this year, which started with a press release from some tax accountants. This is a good piece, though I wish he’d mentioned a couple of points: the near-impossibility of punishment, and the role of the tax-compliance industry in scaring the bejeezus out of potential marks.
For what it’s worth, last year I had a short e-mail exchange with the author of the Bloomberg piece after they used the unfortunate headline “tax crackdown” with respect to expats. I will do so again. It doesn’t always work, but quietly clarifying things for journalists is something we should engage in.