Consulate Report Directory (Brockers Describe their Consulate Meetings) and CLN Delivery Time Chart Part 2
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Wonder what really happens at the consulates? Find out in the Isaac Brock Society’s Consulate Report Directory, currently 279 pages of first-hand accounts of renunciation/relinquishment appointments, arranged by consulate location, along with further information and links to the required Dept of State forms and the Dept of State manuals used by the consulates in processing CLN applications, with an appendix containing a timeline chart (booking-meeting-CLN) as reported by consulate location.
The Directory is updated as consulate visit stories are posted on the website.
You can post here or elsewhere on the site (we’ll keep an eye out for them). Some comments may be excerpted or condensed slightly in the consulate reports. The original posts and comments remain on their threads are not edited.
Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences…and keep ’em coming! It’s a new experience for everyone and your information is really helpful.
To change or delete your report in the Directory, you can post the change as a comment on this thread or e-mail Pacifica@isaacbrocksociety.ca
Click here for the Consulate Report Directory
Notes:
Consulates are listed alphabetically by country and the Directory’s table of contents links to each section (they don’t look like links, but they are.)
This thread is a continuation of Consulate Report Directory Part 1, which contains earlier discussion on this topic, 929 comments from its inception in March 2012 through February 2013.
To Book an Appointment and/or Request Information from your Local Consulate:
This post by Eric, Almost No US Citizenship Renunciation Appointments Left During 2016 in Dublin, contains a chart of links to the consulates’ website pages on renunciation/relinquishment, for info on booking appointments and/or requesting information at your location. (The title highlights Dublin, but the charts, article and discussion cover consulates around the world.)
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IRC, Germany doesn’t allow dual citizenship….so I’d bet that is it.
@BenPloni, it is allowed under certain circumstances:
If he/she is an EU or Swiss citizen during naturalization.
If he/she is a refugee and holds a 1951 travel document during naturalization.
where a child born to German parents acquires another citizenship at birth (e.g. based on place of birth, or descent from one parent)
where a naturalized German citizen, or a child born to non-German parents (non-EU or Swiss) in Germany, request and obtain a permission to keep his foreign nationality.
where a German citizen acquires a foreign nationality with the permission of the German government (e.g. existing relative ties or property in Germany or in the other country or if the occupation abroad requires domestic citizenship for execution)
@Pacifica777, when I did my renouncement at Bern recently they wanted copies of all passports that I held so I expect it’s probably the same at other embassies. I sent them copies of my American and British passports.
I can update on two consulates based on experiences this month of people I know:
1) The consulate in Jerusalem is requiring two meetings. Waiting time is currently about two weeks for the first appointment. Staff was reported to be friendly, but the person I know was surprised when after the first meeting one week was given “to think about it”.
2) Sweden is now booking renunciation appointments for September.
@Not that Lisa! Not that surprised about Jerusalem…Kirk told me “to think about” my relinquishment request on my second appointment (first meeting with him)…
Joseph Zernik, I see that Pacifica has well answered your question and highlighted that yours is the first renunciation we have reported at Isaac Brock that has been reversed into a relinquishment. I know you are very surprised — I hope you are also pleasantly surprised. Our congratulations to you and the twist in the outcome for you — and to Mr. Kirk for scaling the learning curve. He, as an official conducting renunciation and relinquishment appointments, is to be commended. I hope this same education is taking place for all US consulate officials.
In London, they just recently moved from a phone interview and an in-person visit to completing an “informal renunciation acknowledgement” sent together with the rest of your documentation and an in-person visit. Nevertheless, from the time I contacted them to the time I had my appointment was 2.5 months. I suspect that the vast majority of that waiting time had nothing to do with a lack of capacity to process my renunciation but more with mandatory procedural delays to ensure I had sufficient time to reconsider my decision. After all, the paperwork can’t take much more than 20 mins per person and the oath itself far less.
It would seem to me that very few reach such a decision lightly. Contacting the embassy or consulate is likely the last step in a long preparation process. I suspect that there are few that book such an appointment but then change their mind. I therefore don’t see the point in the mandatory waiting periods.
The case was much more convoluted, and I detailed it here before… with the US “Jerusalem, Jerusalem Consulate” (that what they call it), being a place similar to Guantanamo Bay, outside of any recognizable law.
One possible interpretation is that as I claimed all along, the Jerusalem Jerusalem US Consulate deliberately conducted a false and deliberately misleading renunciation procedure in my case (no witnesses, false certification of the papers). Therefore, based on the papers that were created, there was no lawful way to execute the renunciation.
However, given the involvement of the German Consul in Israel in my case, the US Consulate may have decided to part ways with me, and relinquishment was the practical solution under the circumstances.
The day after my visit to the US Consulate I also asked for the refund of renunciation fees, since the US Consul did not perform honest services for the money charged, Now the Consul (who perpetrated the conduct) is now promising to refund my money.
Anyway, I hope this will soon come to an end, but no reason to commend the US Consul for any of it…. The opposite is true. My only salvation in a very difficult situation was the German Consult to Israel!
Joseph Zernik
@Edelweiss, I doubt many do reconsider during the wait, but it is easy to envisage someone booking an appointment in the heat of the moment and only later finding the downsides.
We had a case on Brock (can’t recall who) of someone who cancelled their appointment because they uncovered some ugly exit tax issues. Had they just gone ahead they would have faced a big tax bill next April. This gives them time to find ways around it — reduce through gifting, expatriation trusts, that sort of thing — before perhaps re-booking and then taking the leap.
I posted here before a strange exchange with the US Consulate Jerusalem Jerusalem, where they tried to ask for the details of my German passport. It is illegal in my opinion, and to your detriment to provide the US gov any such information…
Instead, I sent a request to the US Consul in Jerusalem Jerusalem to explain the legal foundation for asking for my German passport, AFTER I fulfilled my duties relative to renunciation of US citizenship. (and copied it to the German Consul in Israel).
After that, I never heard back from the US Consulate, until today, when they emailed me that they will process relinquishment of my citizenship.
Your persistence, Joseph Zernik, was likely part of the Jerusalem US Consulate’s steep learning curve.
@Joseph
If/When you receive your CLN, it should say under what reason they decided to relinquish your citizenship…section 1,2, 3, 4. etc. It might say “by virtue of 349(a)(1) acquiring Israeli (or German) citizenship. If you could let us know what it says, we’d appreciate it.
@Jospeh, I say again the consulate did not mislead you regarding the renunciation procedure. No witnesses are needed, nor was there any falsification of the papers. You stated and signed the Oath and the Statement of Understanding as did the Consul – that was all that was required for renunciation. A request to see evidence (passport usually, but could also be a naturalisation certificate) that someone renouncing has another nationality is normal. The only “error” was in charging you for renouncing, but they couldn’t have known at the time that you would quite surprisingly turn out to be relinquishing instead. They are therefore going to, quite rightly, refund your money.
This has been commented on before after your initial posts, yet you persist in your erroneous claims. As someone who supposedly values truth and fights to achieve it, spreading lies and falsehoods yourself is only to your detriment.
@Edelweiss – When told to think about it for a week, the person I know said, ” Now I have to be American for another week.”
Watcher writes:
@Watcher,
Can you (or anyone) elaborate on “expatriation trust” – this is the first I’ve heard of it.
TIA
…which is good news indeed. Again, congratulations on your successful and legal relinquishment of US citizenship, Joseph Zernik. Your experience will help others along their way at the Jerusalem US Consulate. Thanks for reporting the outcome of your story here at Isaac Brock.
@tdott
There is more in this article. It looks awfully complicated, and so probably expensive. With trusts it is quite easy to lose more in lawyering fees than you save in tax. But… depending on your circumstance it might be worth it. Especially as the exit tax is really nasty if you hit it.
@Joseph Zernik
Belated congratulations on your experience! This really is one for the record books; as others have noted, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a US consular officer realizing that someone had actually relinquished and didn’t need to renounce, and corrected the error and even arranged for a refund of the $450 fee. Let’s hope consular officers elsewhere clue into this as well, since the distinction often isn’t clear for many so-called US persons confronting it (not surprising, given some US consular officers don’t seem to get the distinction either). The US legislation and website documentation doesn’t make it any easier for people to figure out, without getting some feedback from websites like IBS. Even some journalists covering this story have trouble getting their heads around the distinction, though I guess that shouldn’t be surprising at least for those “journalists” who mainly rely on US government press releases and websites for their “research” into the issue.
@Yitzi,,,question
…when you sent in your documents, did you mention the lawsuit and “coach” the embassy in Tel-Aviv? Or were they aware of the fox v. clinton matter already and were recognizing relinquishment (s.1) via aliyah?
I’m asking, because when I mentioned it to Kirk Smith at my renunciation meeting (May 7 — third visit), he said they were taking a long time in Washington DC to decide my original s.1 request b/c they were trying to figure out if aliyah qualified as naturalization for s.1 purposes. I thought that was odd, but Jack Goehr said they might recognize it, but possibly not despite the lawsuit—specifically saying you can’t be sure about such things.
Still haven’t received a CLN yet.
@ BenPloni
The lawsuit was not mentioned during my contacts or visit with them. I had printed out a copy and had it in a folder incase I needed to refer / show it to them. I did explain to them in my 4079 that we applied for a visa to make aliyah and requested citizenship via the Israeli consulate in the US. My family did not have pre-existing status by birth as Jews. We had converted a number of years prior, and we had to provide documentation in several forms and get approval prior to the issuance of the aliyah visa for the purpose of taking citizenship as Israelis.
It would seem that since DoS lost the Fox case and the Appeal on the Fox case that the precedent is set which should imply that any Jew can claim relinquishment under the first section. That was going to be my backup argument if the question of my presumed Jewish status and application via the consulate in the US did not work.
I initially applied for a relinquishment to the Embassy in Israel for an appointment and got a reply about renouncement. A number of emails ensued and I laid out the forms, DoS procedures and steps to the staff at the embassy (learned from this site) after which they accepted my 4079 and related paperwork by email saying that they would get back to me after consulting with DoS in Washington.
Three days later they emailed and said that the applications had been reviewed in Washington, and approved for processing. The appointment for relinquishment was made for about 10 days later. We had an uneventful and relaxed document signing at the embassy. We were told our CLNs would arrive in two weeks. The approved and sealed CLNs did arrive in exactly two weeks to the day. They were back dated to 2005 when we gained Israeli citizenship.
@Yitzi,
Toda. Seems like they weren’t so obtuse on the matter at Tel-Aviv, and they were pleasant to deal with. I doubt your giyur issue would have been relevant. From the fox suit, it seemed the DoS presumed that aliyah was automatic in that you just apply, prove your status as a Jew (usually by getting a letter from a rabbi on the interior ministry’s approved list) and are guaranteed citizenship, but the law is quite clear that there is an approval process by the ministry in that one can be rejected for various reasons such as a criminal background, disease, or their catch-all “security risk” reasons.
I think that was the court of appeals basis for determining that it isn’t automatic since the misrad hapnim has a final say on the approval. Interestingly, I remember the shaliach specifically telling me when I went down to meet him in the aliyah center in Miami (this was before NbN was around) that “you’re application was approved”..emphasizing it wasn’t just an automatic instance
Back to my case of course, the Consul didn’t even seem familiar with section 1 or 2 in general, so it felt like I was dealing with an incompetent, defensive bureaucrat (and Zernik’s complaints didn’t instill any more confidence in me getting him to understand more complex issues like the suit), so it seemed pointless to argue with him.
I’m still not impressed that he rarely answers my e-mail inquiries to him–especially the ones I asked him about the kids status if we never register. I got a response from Toronto the same day confirming. It would be nice if he actually responded to my inquiries that he was at least trying to find out, but it seems to me that despite the pleasant smiles in person, they are living up to their more familar reputation: http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2012/03/the-state-departments-jerusale.php
@BenPlinoi
You make some great points
As an update to my situation:
Today I received my official CLN from Halifax. It was stamped on June 4th at Department of State. This is about a month sooner than expected.
For your info:
I e-mailed Halifax Consulate for an appointment on March 27th 2013.
I received a call on April 5th for an appointment.
Went at the consulate for my meeting on April 8th.
Received CLN on June 17th 2013.
I am very excited because this went very well from start to finish (less than 3 months). I feel very grateful for all the help I received from so many on this site. I was very fortunate to have taken an Allegiance to the Queen and Canada back 41 years ago (fortunate to have read somebody’s story about this on IBS and fortunate to have remembered that I had done it, also fortunate to have found it in Archives in Ottawa in my personal file from my Gov’t job).
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH AGAIN EVERYBODY
Congratulations Authentic1213! That’s terrific that your CLN arrived ahead of expected! Thanks for providing your timeline. Sure you’ll have an extra-special Canada Day this year!
@Authentic1213,
Congratulations. That is about 10 weeks. Quite good!!!
My final meeting was on April 5th @ Vancouver. No CLN yet but hopefully soon. as Pacifica said, your Canada Day should be extra special this year.
Congrats to you Authentic1213. Good news indeed and really fast turnaround. Makes you wonder how many they’re dealing with if they’re having to process them so fast.