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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@YItzi,
Perhaps part of Kipling’s poem “The Dawn Wind” is now relevant for you:
“So when the world is asleep, and there seems no hope of her waking
Out of some long, bad dream that makes her mutter and moan,
Suddenly, all men arise to the noise of fetters breaking,
And every one smiles at his neighbour and tells him his soul is his own!”
@pacifica777
Thanks, based on my experience and that of others here in Israel and the rest of the world for that matter. I would advise potential relinquishers to learn all you can, invest the time to read the DOS procedures, study the forms, and read as much of the Brock site as you can, especially the consular reports BEFORE you make first contact with the Embassy. Knowledge is empowerment, if you are challenged and you KNOW the procedures you will avoid a lot of problems.
@ Benploni,
He should read Brock. 🙂
Seriously on this topic – the way I feel in general about all staff of all consulates, as I commented earlier, is if they don’t know everything, the important thing is they know that they don’t know and they find out the correct answer. That happens to me on my job. I recall, as well as Yitzi’s recent Tel Aviv experience, that last fall Consul Blunt in Vancouver contacted DC for guidance on the relevance of a passport in a particular s. (1) case. Though Vancouver’s not my favourite consulate (scheduling/procedural matters), I give them full points for that.
I also feel that some aspects of s. (1)s, that some consulate staff are not up to speed on, are very basic. It’s disconcerting, to say the least, that an ACS officer anywhere should have problems with basic concepts. It should be in their training and, if not specifically so, they should be able to figure it out faster than we amateurs collectively have pieced things together. But it’s obvious that does not always happen, so it’s a good thing we have each other!
I think that Yitzi, in his above comment (quoted in part below), gives very good advice for all and especially when dealing with a consulate that we know nothing about or if there’s something bit out of the ordinary in your case —
@IRSCompliantForever
What a great piece of poetry, thanks for that.
Yitzi
I agree, Yitzi. That was beautiful for many of us here. Thanks, IRSCompliantForever!
@IRSCompliantForever,
Me too! Thanks! I must have missed seeing your comment earlier as I was posting at the same time.
That is a really beautiful quotation, so appropriate!
@ Ben Ploni
You mentioned that your wife went to the Consulate with you to inquire as to the status of your unregistered at birth kids. Would you mind sharing what the response was to that question?
@therapist604 — Basically he said “if you pass the tests for transmission, they have a claim for U.S. citizenship and are U.S. Citizens” but until they are registered as such “we (the government) are unaware of them”. So my wife said “so if we never register them, they are recognized as such”, and he said “it’s a technicality…”
@BenPloni,
That is more encouraging news for me and for my son, who I will never register with the US. It isn’t exactly what I was told, but it is what I will go with and the decision I have made — since the Parents, Guardians, Trustees of developmentally delayed adult children do not have the right to renounce that person’s US citizenship on their behalf, even when they deem it to be in their best interests, even with a court order. That is more what it should be — a choice. My choice was, in the first place, never to register my children. Thanks for passing that on; even though a “technicality.”
At the risk of nit-picking, this seems contradictory. Are they US citizens *or* do they have a claim to US citizenship? E.g., a person born in Canada may have a claim to UK citizenship if their parents were born in the UK, but AFAIK said person is not a UK citizen until the claim is exercised. Is that how it is with the US? I.e., the child is not a US citizen until the claim is exercised? I had thought the child was automatically a US citizen regardless of not being registered.
@tdott, this is what Wiki says:
Statue, by parentage:
Under certain circumstances, children may acquire U.S. citizenship from their parents. The following conditions affect children born outside the U.S. and its outlying possessions to married parents (special conditions affect children born out of wedlock: see below):[6]
If both parents are U.S. citizens, the child is a citizen if either of the parents has ever had a residence in the U.S. prior to the child’s birth
If one parent is a U.S. citizen and the other parent is a U.S. national, the child is a citizen if the U.S. citizen parent has lived in the U.S. for a continuous period of at least one year prior to the child’s birth
If one parent is a U.S. citizen and the other parent is not, the child is a citizen if the U.S. citizen parent has been “physically present”[7] in the U.S. before the child’s birth for a total period of at least five years, and
at least two of those five years were after the U.S. citizen parent’s fourteenth birthday.
It used to be the case when I was a kid that a child born of an American citizen was automatically also a citizen. My cousin, although born in the UK had an American father and a British mother so she is dual. However, the law has been changed over the years, placing more restrictions on who can and cannot claim it.
@tdott, Medea, Calgary:
See http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86757.pdf
It mentions that administratively, the department has a preponderance of evidence level on citizenship claims for Jus Sanguinis.
Specifically:
7 FAM 1133.6 Evidence of Claim to U.S. Citizenship
Under Sections 301 and 309 INA
(CT:CON-367; 04-08-2011)
a. The evidence to establish citizenship claims is described briefly in 22 CFR 50.2-
50.5 and in more detail in 22 CFR 51.42 and 22 CFR 51.43. 22 CFR 51.45
specifies that an applicant may be required “to submit other evidence deemed
necessary to establish his or her U.S. citizenship or nationality.”
b. Evidence in support of a claim to U.S. citizenship through birth abroad to one or
both U.S. citizen parents under the provisions of sections 301 and/or 309 INA
includes but is not limited to:
(1) A birth certificate or other proof of the child’s birth to a U.S. citizen mother,
father, or both;
(2) The parents’ marriage certificate, if the child was born in wedlock or if the
child claims legitimation through the marriage of the parent;
(3) Form DS-5507 or other evidence of the child’s legitimacy or legitimation, if
the child was born out of wedlock (unless the claim is through the mother
under section 309(c));
(4) Evidence that at least one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of the
child’s birth; and
5) Evidence of that parent’s physical presence in the United States, in
qualifying employment abroad, or as the dependent unmarried son or
daughter and a member of the household of a person so employed, prior to
the child’s birth for the length of time required by the section of law under
which the child is claiming U.S. citizenship.
c. Those persons born before October 10, 1952, who acquired U.S. citizenship
pursuant to section 301(a)(7), as made applicable by the Act of March 16,
1956, must also prove that they complied with or were exempted from the
applicable retention requirements (see 7 FAM 1100 Appendix L).
d. Adults wishing to have their citizenship status adjudicated should complete
Form DS-11 and Form DS-4079, Questionnaire Information for Determining
Possible Loss of U.S. Citizenship. Citizenship claims of a person under the age
of 18 may be adjudicated on the basis of a passport/registration application
signed, as appropriate, by the applicant, a parent, legal guardian, or person
acting in loco parentis or on the basis of an application for a Report of Birth
completed by a parent or legal guardian.
§ 50.2
Determination of U.S. nationality of persons abroad.
The Department shall determine claims to United States nationality when made by persons abroad on the basis of an application for registration, for a passport, or for a Consular Report of Birth Abroad of a Citizen of the United States of America. Such determinations of nationality may be made abroad by a consular officer or a designated nationality examiner. A designated nationality examiner may accept and approve/disapprove applications for registration and accept and approve/disapprove applications for passports and issue passports. Under the supervision of a consular officer, designated nationality examiners shall accept, adjudicate, disapprove and provisionally approve applications for the Consular Report of Birth Abroad. A Consular Report of Birth Abroad may only be issued by a consular officer, who will review a designated nationality examiner’s provisional approval of an application for such report and issue the report if satisfied that the claim to nationality has been established.
[31 FR 13537, Oct. 20, 1966, as amended at 61 FR 43311, Aug. 22, 1996]
§ 51.45
Department discretion to require evidence of U.S. citizenship or non-citizen nationality.
The Department may require an applicant to provide any evidence that it deems necessary to establish that he or she is a U.S. citizen or non-citizen national, including evidence in addition to the evidence specified in 22 CFR 51.42 through 51.44.
It seems to me, status is just a claim until proven, then if proven is retroactive to date of birth.
Thank you for your comment and information, RMA. More information for my mind that the US (or my bank?) will have to prove that my son has US citizenship. That’s all I can do. My husband, my adult daughter any I willin the next days, hopefully, will have filed with our final 1040’s our 8854’s that states that we are compliant with US taxes for five years (actually more than that for all of us) and will have proved we are not “covered expatriates.”
For my peace of mind the rest of my life (as a parent and trustee), I would like that same resolution with a guarantee of renunciation of US citizenship of my developmentally delayed adult son. However, the US Department of State says I do not have the right to renounce US citizenship on his behalf when I deem it in his best interest and he can not do this as he does not understand the concept of citizenship or the consequences for retaining or renouncing that citizenship. Your thoughts are the same as mine in that I will just have to give that job of proving my Canadian-born son’s US citizenship to the US and/or my bank! (in which I hold my son’s Registered Disability Savings Plan, which the US considers a “foreign trust.”) I’m OK with what I’ve decided on how I will deal with this conundrum, but I’ll never agree it is just for me or for any other such parent or our children.
Calgary411, look at it this way. Because your son is not able to understand the concept of citizenship, I would say it’s almost impossible for the US government to be able to prove he “knowingly” wants to claim that citizenship. He is Canadian born and if there are no official US records, i.e. American birth registered abroad, then they do not have a leg to stand on. The burden of proof would be on them to show that he wants to take up the claim and that is patently not possible.
Thanks, Medea. That is a sane way to look at it (with the niggling realization that I am trustee for all of his financial dealings and obligations, which absurdly, I guess, includes IRS compliance). Circular non-resolution.
I know you’ve been arguing for him to be able to renounce, but how much financial reporting for him have you done so far? If none, or very little, I’d chance it and drop reporting of his financial arrangements. After all, he’s not proven as American and hasn’t taken up his claim. Let them chase after shadows.
NONE, not a lick to the US for him. There were queries to the US Consulate who “educated” me that I could not renounce on my son’s behalf but I didn’t pursue any more than that. Unfortunately, I have listed (for 2012 the last time) my son’s Canadian RDSP account in my FBARs and 3520 and 3520A’s, as it is a financial account for which I am responsible. Having done all the things I legally need to do to check out of the US is the thing that may bite me in the butt.
All necessary reporting for him I’ve done with the Canadian Revenue Agency as he is Canadian.
@ BenPloni and Calgary411
Thank you for sharing the details of the Consulates response to your wife. Most, if not all, of the Consulate websites use a language that appears to imply that, if the “dual at birth” child has not been registered at birth or before the age of 18, the onus is now on that individual to initiate the required process by appearing before the appropriate official at the Consulate who has been designated the authority to say “yea or nay” to the claim. The words “may claim” preface most if not all of the instructions outlining the process of how to go about “making a claim”. Further, one cannot just verbally claim themselves to be a US citizen if it is not so as this is also breaking the law.
In summary, while being a”dual at birth” may in fact be true, in order to be “official” it must be claimed and then officially approved of by the designated authority. I have not seen it stated that an undocumented/unregistered “dual at birth” “MUST” act on this ” claim”. Until citizenship is “claimed” and “approved”, is it true in “real time? This of course has been my dilemma since I first had the sickening awareness that my loved ones may be regarded as a “dual at birth”. This doesn’t even begin to take into account the issue of “dominant nationality”.
In many ways, it is just semantics. There is a significant “burden of proof” that has to be met first and making a first move appears to be left in the hands of the individual “wanting” to initiate such a claim.
Calgayr411, you wrote that your “adult daughter” has come into compliance. Was she documented/registered at birth or did she need to initiate this process as an adult? I would appreciate it if you would share the rationale used to help you/her make the decision to “make a claim” if you feel comfortable with putting this out there.
Thanks for the responses, Medea and RMA.
So, to summarize:
– child born abroad to US parent, and was not registered at birth as a US citizen, has a claim to US citizenship.
– child is not automatically a US citizen.
– a number of hoops must be jumped through in order for child to obtain US citizenship based on the claim.
Seems reasonable and is a best case outcome – US citizenship is obtainable if desired, but is not forced on the individual.
Hi, therapist604.
My adult daughter did claim her US citizenship. In her early adult days, she moved from Calgary to Vancouver where, although she worked full-time, she struggled to make a good living and actually lived there in her van for a period. That was a worrying time for me, but she did OK.
In that period she realized that she now lived close to the Seattle area where she could better utilize her skills. She knew that her mom and dad were from the US. She “claimed” her US citizenship — and it was quite a process. She loved living in Seattle which had opportunity for her as a computer programmer. She lived there for about seven years and may still be there had she not had a bad car accident and hit the ceiling of her workplace healthcare insurance — then using her VISA for continuing medical costs. She made the big move back to Calgary and worked as a consultant in the oil and gas industry for a couple of years, but her residual slight brain damage from the accident was there.
She next decided to go back to school — two years in a therapeutic massage program at Mount Royal University, following her dream of her using her interests of massage and essential oils (she should have been a child of the 60’s). She is out of the ‘corporate world’ and has now started and is growing her own business — and loving it.
My daughter has been compliant with the US all along. She was, in fact, the person gave me my “OMG” moment when she asked me who did my US taxes and I told her that I didn’t ‘do US taxes’ as I was a Canadian. We all know the process after that OMG moment. That has been another stress for me — as she took on guilt that she was the one who encouraged me to educate myself and find out what I should do. Unfortunately, I consulted a cross-border accounting firm and started IRS compliance. I should have instead first talked with the immigration lawyer I eventually did. If that was the case, I would have claimed my relinquishment of my US citizenship when I became a Canadian citizen in 1975. I made so many mistakes that I hope others here can learn from, but I digress.
It has been daunting for me — and as well for her. Her small business as a US Person Abroad has been an aspect of US citizenship that I didn’t have and she had to move her company IRA from the US to Canada. She did it incorrectly and this year will owe the US for moving that. Hopefully, she too will soon be able to put all this behind her and thrive enjoying where her journey has taken her.
Where our lives take us is certainly not always the same as we think it will. All of my family now knows that the luckiest part of our lives was when my then-husband and I crossed the US border to live in Canada.
[ As an aside, you will note I also talk of my husband renouncing his US citizenship. My first husband, my children’s father is now deceased, some time after we divorced in 1984. From that time until 2003 I lived single. It is such a fluke that my present very supportive and understanding husband (could any other have lived with me during this?) became a US citizen in 2001, before I met him. He was (is) a musician who did not have a company pension or good savings for his retirement so he claimed his US citizenship and was going to ‘play music’ in the much bigger music playground of the US until he died and then perhaps retire in Mexico or Guatemala where the cost of living was less. He found out from a fellow musician that he would be able and did claim US citizenship as his dad was born in North Dakota but moved with his family to Saskatchewan where my husband was born in 1940. His dad died never realizing his US citizenship. My now dual citizen husband never carried out his plans — instead is still in Canada continuing his life with me, one of those many in Canada “US Citizens.” He, too, has renounced that US citizenship. Our family’s story is interesting if nothing else. ]
Well look at it this way…the courts have said the same thing about relinquishment. Until a claim is made and approved, no loss of nationality occurs. If approved. it’s retroactive to the date of the act. I can’t see how it’s any different for claiming US citizenship Jus Sanguinis — until approved, they aren’t recognized as such.
e.g. with relinquishment:
Werner T. HEUER, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE, Defendant-Appellee.
https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/20/20.F3d.424.93-4574.html
Moreover, the presence of administrative proceedings is made evident by virtue of the fact that the Department of State must ultimately and necessarily determine when to approve and issue a CLN. Until a CLN is approved and issued, any act of expatriation, whether or not intentional, is simply an act without significance to nationality or status.We emphasize that until such an approval and issuance by the Department of State occurs, the United States national is recognized as such, regardless of what act of expatriation is involved, even if he wishes to disavow American nationality.
@tdott:
If I had to guess, we’ll never know for sure unless someone challenges it in the courts. I’d suppose that for that to happen, someone would have to fail in some obligation to US citizens (e.g. selective service registration, taxes, etc), then the department would have to go after them (affirmatively), then it would have to land in court. But it seems highly unlikely that they’d be aware of a US citizen even existed inasmuch to trigger such a case unless an affirmative act was taken to make themselves known.
@therapist604 — It seems pretty clear, from the Foreign affairs manual that a citizenship claim has a burden of proof that has to be met for any claim to be recognized and is therefore not automatic. Although this may be more a question of administrative policy than law.
To extend the idea even further:
The law itself 8 USC 1401 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1401 lists the law.
The CFR (Code of federal regulations) quoted in the FAM determines that a finding must occur. (Administrative law)
The courts basically give the executive branch (e.g. Heuer vs. State) wide latitude to interpret the law as they want, so I’d suspect administratively, they aren’t US citizens until recognized as such (whearas by plain reading of the statute they are)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Federal_Regulations
Background [edit]
Every regulation in the CFR must have an “enabling statute”, or statutory authority. The United States Code (U.S. Code) precedes the CFR and contains statutes enacted by Congress. The CFR contains regulations, which spell out in further detail how the executive branch will interpret the law.[1] The two documents represent different stages in the legislative process. The U.S. Code is a codification of legislation, while the CFR serves as administrative law. Administrative law exists because the Congress often grants broad authority to executive branch agencies to interpret the statutes in the U.S. Code (and in uncodified statutes) which the agencies are entrusted with enforcing. Congress may be too busy, congested, or gridlocked to micromanage the jurisdiction of those agencies by writing statutes that cover every possible detail, or Congress may determine that the technical specialists at the agency are best equipped to develop detailed applications of statutes to particular fact patterns as they arise.
Under the Administrative Procedure Act, the agencies are permitted to promulgate detailed rules and regulations through a public “rulemaking” process where the public is allowed to comment, known as public information. After a period of time, the rules and regulations are usually published in the Federal Register.
The Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules in the index to the CFR correlates laws with their regulations using U.S. Code citations, Statutes at Large citations, and Public Law numbers.[2]
The code was started in 1938.
@RMA, Medea, tdott, therapist604 — I just want to let you know that I really appreciate this conversation!!!