Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship: Discussion thread (Ask your questions) Part Two
Ask your questions about Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship and Certificates of Loss of Nationality.
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NB: This discussion is a continuation of an older discussion that became too large for our software to handle well. See Renunciation and Relinquishment of United States Citizenship: Discussion thread (Ask your questions) Part One
@monalisa, you will be able to visit your parents. You will receive your CLN from DOS and have that to show to any over-zealous border official. It is not their decision — the Department of State has made the decision and your CLN, which you will receive!!!, will prove that. Being aware beforehand of how you will handle such a border situation, on the small chance it will happen to you, is your control. Don’t lose sleep over it.
maybe we are overeacting??????
it happened once.
but on a prior visit no problem at all.
so maybe it was just an occasional exception .
and final result was just a 1 hour delay so now that I think about it maybe
I also overrected.
No, you didn’t over-react, alex. Those possibilities of being detained are realistic. If they should happen, we should know how we, individually, will deal with the situation. We have legally renounced or relinquished. The decision has been made and it is NOT up to the border guard to intimidate us for our expatriations.
Thanks for your continued search for this, Lagoon. Our recollections of what we were told decades ago when we became Canadian citizens are all similar.
I had an appointment for April 17 for relinquishment in Calgary. The appointment was booked on line in the notary category. I have just been informed that they do not book relinquishment appointments on line, hence they canceled the appointment, sent some forms and said that they are booking into July and will get back re a date. Their website says nothing about having to email them directly for an appointment rather than doing it on line. Glad that I had not yet booked the flight to Calgary.
@Joe Zinga, Joe sorry to hear that the appointment’s been cancelled on you. That’s the problem with most of the embassies, they all seem to have different ways of doing things. The only US embassy that I know of that has a specific section for renunciations on it’s website is the one here in Bern. As you say though, good thing you hadn’t booked the flight yet. Damned annoying if you had, especially if you couldn’t get your money back. Here’s hoping they get back to you soon.
@Joe Zinga
I also booked using the online process for a relinquishment appointment in Calgary. My appointment was on a Friday, and I was told by someone else that they don’t do relinquishments on Fridays. I had to rebook, using email as the contact. They asked from some biographical data, and then sent me a form to fill in and return.
Here is their email to me:
Unfortunately we are not able to see you on the April 5th appointment date. We are already fully booked as we have inherited many, many cases from Vancouver’s consular district. We are booking appointments the mornings of Tuesdays, Wednesday, and Thursdays. We have appointments open beginning the morning of May 8th. You can pick any morning from then on excluding the third Thursday of every month. Please indicate which morning you’d prefer and we’ll make every effort to book you in.
The email address to contact them is not on their website. This is the email address I have been using to communicate with them:
Calgary-ACS@state.gov
good luck
@joe zinga
Sorry, I had not read all of the newer posts before I responded. I had already booked and paid for a flight to Calgary, but that didn’t matter. I was able to get an appointment for early May. If you can’t get in until July it sounds like Calgary is getting back up now.
Appointment now made for June 27 in Calgary. They asked for some biographical data including full legal name, date of birth, place of birth and phone number. They sent two forms one of which was a DS4079 but did not answer the question as to whether they were to be filled out on-line and submitted or just completed and brought in for the appointment.
@Joe Zinga
I completed the short form and returned it, and will take the 4079 with me to my appointment.
Glad to here you got an appointment.
@alex, thank you for sharing your story with us so that we can be forewarned and not as fearful. I don’t think you were overreacting at all. The Patriot Act and the Homeland Security provisions have exponentially elevated the powers that were already sometimes abused by border officials. They had no right to ask you why you renounced and there is no requirement to discuss it. Unfortunately, they are busy oppressing even current US citizens and residents on a regular basis http://www.texasobserver.org/life-in-the-constitution-free-zone/ at northern borders as well as southern ones. The ACLU calls it the ‘constitution-free zone’ http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone
This kind of thing should be a big black eye for the Ambassador and the US. That the persecution of ex-US citizens persists even after satisfying the DOJ and the IRS, and lawfully and formally renouncing should be a huge embarassment for the US government. In fact, once we are no longer citizens of the US, it should be possible to complain to our own consul or Ambassador from our country of residence and non-US citizenship about US behaviour towards lawful non-citizens. It is our universal human right to choose our citizenship or to renounce or relinquish one – as per Article 15 (2) of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
I would think that the US Chamber of Commerce http://www.uschamber.com/ and the NRF http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=Pages&sp_id=1&pmenu_id=1 wouldn’t want to give lots of shoppers and tourists – (including all those handy Canadian crossborder ones) a good reason to stop visiting and spending money in the US. All it would take is a few posts on sites like the RedFlagDeals Canadian site to alert would-be Canadian shoppers (some who don’t know about all this FATCA and FBAR stuff yet too). Canadians don’t have to go to Florida, they can go to Cuba (unlike US citizens), and elsewhere.
Europeans have lots of other options for tourism, travel and shopping too.
Why travel to the US – unless we have to – if this is how it will treat those who lawfully renounce?
@Alex
I agree with badger. What they put you through is completely unacceptable. Just another instance of the USA showing it’s real face, despite their feeble attempts to hide it behind a smile. I haven’t been to the USA in many years, and if it weren’t for family, I wouldn’t go there ever again.
@badger
@notamused
Thanks for everyone’s opinion. I do repeat however that I was delayed only 1 hour. The problem is not being allowed to use cellphone and not knowing what is going on. But, the CBP were polite and professiona, and as far as I could tell, just doing their job as per instructions from their bosses.
So no reason to be upset with them.
@alex,
Border personnel have not always been so polite. Some have firmly and erroneously ill-advised those who automatically lost US status decades ago (through naturalization elsewhere), to get and travel only on a US passport – jeopardizing their non-US status. As more and more of us expatriate, especially from Canada – where travel across the shared border can be a daily or otherwise regular occurrence or necessity, (ex. some towns are split down the middle by the border, and some communities share hospitals, etc.), and many flights go over or through the US, it is helpful to hear how we might expect to be treated.
Your CLN proved that you had already satisfied US law. You or someone in the same situation, might have missed a connecting flight, an important meeting, or had anxious and concerned people waiting.
Hope that this is not evidence of a pattern of behaviour developing towards expatriates, but if so, it is good to know what we may expect.
I’ve been through twice without any problems. The second time was in January, when I had to make a sudden trip because my mom died. When the officer asked me what the purpose of my trip was and I replyed that my mom had died the day before, he couldn’t get me through there fast enough. I think he was worried I’d start sobbing. 🙂 So far, two good border experiences, but you never know. I’m travelling over again in a few weeks and it will be the first time I enter with my husband. Families talk to the officer together, don’t they?
Entering the US is always a risk. I was detained for no apparent reason a few years back while travelling on my US passport. Much of the time was spent waiting. After about an hour an uniformed guard came out and asked me why I was there. I had to answer that I had absolutely no idea; I was told to park, come inside and wait on a bench. After more waiting I was queried rather obnoxiously by another agent while my car was searched. I was then told I could go with no further explanation.
It’s my belief that we actually have more rights if we are travelling on a Canadian passport. If travelling on a US passport, once you are on US soil they can do anything they want with you. If travelling as a Canadian, they risk creating an international incident if they abuse people overly much.
@badger
VERY GOOD POINT for everyone about connecting flights, meetings and/or people waiting.
I guess the lesson to be learned is in future to leave a few extra hours of potential
waiting time at airport in your schedule.
@rødgrød: Families talk to the officer together, don’t they?
Don’t know about families, but it seems not invariably for couples. A few years ago my parents visited the US. Both were in their late 70’s (hardly likely to be “seeking employment”), and with no past or connection whatsoever to the US, just visiting on the VWP. My mother was kept back separately for over an hour for this type of “enhanced” processing — in essence some silly questions with both parties clearly completely convinced as to the pointlessness of it all. My father was left wandering aimlessly about past immigration, with no indication of what the hold-up was about.
They have not visited the US since, and don’t intend to visit in future either. Nothing about the immigration folk was unpleasant, aggressive or intimidating, just the hassle of the whole thing was enough to put them off forever. Maybe similar things happen in other countries. They’re widely travelled people though, and have never had that happen elsewhere.
I’m sorry, but polite or not, to send someone off into isolation without letting them inform the people they’re either travelling with or who are expecting to meet them just isn’t on. It causes unnecessary worry all round. Watcher, I dread to think what would have happened if your father had had a heart condition and collapsed over this. They should have let him go with her. It’s not right if they don’t suspect you of any serious wrongdoing. The details of all CLN’s are linked into their computers so there shouldn’t be any need to detain legitimate travellers just because they have an American birthplace listed on their foreign passport. It’s a global world we live in folks, keep up!
Everyone has a good argument. America loves angering people around the world and thus it has a terrorist problem requiring strict entry controls. It is stupid when former Americans are given trouble, but such is to be expected since America tends to encourage the terrorist response to its foreign policy. As some pointed out, I’d rather not visit America if I didn’t have family living there or wanting to go there. So, if the US government prohibited me from spending tourist dollars in the US, I could live with that. So far, Putin hasn’t argued that former Americans can’t spend tourist rubles in Russia.
So far, So good.
I received a phone call today from a very polite and professional lady from the Halifax consulate. She asked if I could make it for an appointment on Monday April 8th. I said yes. ( I was pleasantly surprised with the short scheduling time ). Here are some main points.
-I e-mailed them on March 19th for an appointment seeking a backdated CLN having relinquished back in 1972 after accepting a gov’t job and given an Oath of Allegiance.
-Received feedback on March 21st with forms to be filled out.
-I faxed the forms back on March 22nd with statement letter and photocopies of Birth cert.,Canadian Passport, etc…
-On March 27th, I e-mailed again asking for acknowledgement of receipt of my forms.
-Received an answer 10 minutes later saying they had received them and that I would be getting a telephone call in the near future.
-Today April 5th I got the call. She went over some of the forms with me for a couple of items (no major problems). She asked if I could bring along the original forms with also the Certificate of Birth Abroad, proof of my gov’t job and my Passport, etc…
-I reminded her that I was relinquishing because on their e-mails they were only saying renounciation. She understood. So then I said I will not have to pay 450$. She said ” That’s right”. I was left with the impression that everything should be fine.
-So here goes. I feel ready and looking forward to Monday at 3:30 pm. I want to thank everybody for the valuable information on this site. I would not have come this far without your help. I’ll let you know about the good news when I get back.
Thanks for the report of your upcoming relinquishment appointment at the Halifax consulate. Sounds as if you have all of your ducks in a row. Halifax is reportedly one of the best consulates to deal with.
We’ll be waiting to get your next report. Good luck!
@ Authentic
Best of luck on Monday. It sounds like you are good to go. Let us know how it turns out.
Sounds like Halifax is a very good place to go if you want to ditch US citizenship. Good luck for Monday Authentic. You won’t need it, but it’s wished for you anyway.
Thanks everybody
I’m lining up my ducks ( going over all the forms,etc. making triple sure I don’t forget anything) and I am filled with gratitude for all your help.