If you arrive here through an old link, please click here for the Current Thread.
Wonder what really happens at the consulates? Find out in the Isaac Brock Society’s Consulate Report Directory, currently 274 pages of first-hand accounts of renunciation/relinquishment appointments, arranged by consulate location, along with links to further information and the required Dept of State forms.
Reports are 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
2013.02.12. As of today, this discussion now continues at Part 2. Please click here to go to Consulate Report Directory (Brockers describe their Consulate Meetings) Part 2.
Great compilation, Pacifica. Thanks.
Nice work. Thank you!
My wife relinquished in Oct 2011 in Toronto and was told that she would get her CLN in 5 months. She has not received it yet.
On my visit to the US Embassy, Ottawa, March 13, 2012. I was informed the wait time for a renunciation appointment is currently six months.
Why is this — can you go to where there is a shorter wait, like the Toronto Consulate?
@ calgary411
I wasn’t given a reason for the long wait. Going to Toronto or Montreal might be possible but I live in Ottawa. I haven’t actually made an appointment. The clerk said he would like to see my Canadian passport as well as my US birth certificate before setting up the renunciation. Something about needing to be sure I wouldn’t be left stateless. My paranoid feelings began to tingle. Is that a common request?
The CLN is becoming a “badge of honor” of sorts among Americans abroad, another indication of how bad things are becoming.
Cdn Bred. Yes, that is exactly what I was told to take to my first appt. in Vancouver.
pacifica777. This looks great – streamlined and easy to read. Thanks. You can now change my status on the compilation of r/r data to “in progress!”
@Cdn Bred
In addition to Ladybug’s comment regarding those documents, the US does not like to take action that renders one “stateless.” Apparently they cannot refuse allow one to renounce, but their policy is to confirm that a second citizenship is held.
This is a very nice post. I hope you can keep it updated when others renounce or relinquish.
Thank you for the compliment, Rick, and for having shared your renunciation story. We keep an eye on out on the comments every day (both on this and other threads) so we can update the Consulate Visit Report Directory and individual consulate reports and the time line statistics chart too.
@Everyone
I have going through the Federal Register list and through brute force searching believe I found some “whales” like the CEO of Tate & Lyle whom I believe is renounciant. Tate & Lyle is one of the largest companies in the UK and looking at this guys background he definitely did seem to live in the US for many years. I fact I found several high ranking UK business executives who have appeared to have renounced. I wonder if CLN is getting out faster out of London.
http://www.tateandlyle.presscentre.com/Biographies/Javed-Ahmed-Chief-Executive-360.aspx
How many Javed Ahmed can there be who renounced their citizenship.
On Wikipedia I found something that says the US tried to reverse their position on dual citizenship again in 2005 but the bill never made it to the floor of the House. It would be nice if they introduced a new bill to revoke the citizenship of people who didn’t want US citizenship anyway and had already considered themselves to be former citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vance_v._Terrazas
@omghesstillanamerican
It would be nice if more people came forward to tell their stories about renounciation. One person whom I suspect I found accurately on the Federal Register is the Director of Clinical Research at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. How could any homelander American not have sympathy for someone for works for an institution such as that. Interstingly the person in question back in the US used to run clinical research at Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston a very prestigious hospital in US. The US just lost someone I suspect whom is very very talented at what they do. (Most doctors in these types of positions aren’t like Linda Beale’s plasic surgeon)
@omghesstillanamerican
By the way its also a woman doctor. In fact almost half in not perhaps even more of the names on the Federal Register are women.
There is a distinction bteween renouncing and relinquishing citizenship. I found that because I was relinquishing that it took less than a month to get an appointment. The moment to relinquish is at taking foreign citizenship or taking a pledge to a foreign power (there are a few other ways too). Once having done an expatriating act, one must inform the US State Department, usually at a consulate, and they will make you take oaths indicating that you understand what it means to lose citizenship and that you did the act with the intention of relinquishing. A person can renounce at any time but the US consulate usually requires two visits and $450. I relinquished at the moment of taking foreign citizenship and managed to talk the consulate into a single visit to make the necessary oaths and deposit the required papers. They did not charge $450 to tell them that I had relinquished; but they have not issued a certificate of loss of citizenship yet, so I do not know if they will charge me for the certificate! When relinqishing, the IRS counts the date of the visit to the US consulate to inform them as the date of loss of citizenship (thus creating a contradiction in the law), but they will not acknowledge that loss until you file the forms they require. But now that the Canadian government has come out with their statement that they won’t collect for the IRS from Canadian citizens, it probably doesn’t matter if you file the final forms (provided your assets are all in Canada).
I relinquished in Toronto this week! It was an excellent experience. Everyone I met at the consulate was pleasant and just seemed like nice people. I was at the consulate for about one hour in total. As it was a relinquishment, it required only one visit.
You enter the building in the back on Simcoe Street. There are two lines. For relinquishment/renunciation, you want the American Citizen Services line (it tends to be the shorter of the two). Once through security, guards will direct you to ACS.
At ACS, there is a row of windows, like bank tellers. I checked in with the clerk at a window. She took my forms, affidavit and id docs and gave me a number like at a bakery. This step of the procedure took just a few minutes.
The waiting room is comfortable, not many people there, and had a large tv, showing a news channel. There is a board to show which number is being served. A bell rings when the number changes. It will show your number and which “bank teller window” to go to for your meeting.
I waited about 30 minutes. I studied Japanese while waiting and actually learned a few new words (so I guess I wasn’t all that nervous ;)) There were a few others waiting, I heard one of them say he was there on his first visit to renounce.
The meeting with the consul seemed to be about 10 minutes or so. She had read my forms/affidavit and looked at my id docs before they called my number. The consul was very pleasant and I enjoyed meeting with her. She asked me some questions and told me about the procedure. It was a very comfortable conversation. She obviously understood that some people move from one country to another and make their life there.
She said that my CLN would show the date of my actual act of relinquishment many years ago. She said I could be getting the CLN in as soon as 2 to 3 months. I was surprised. She was aware that Canadian CLNs were taking longer than other countries, perhaps because there’s such a large number of US-born people here, and said that Washington was working on speeding things up.
I was on cloud 9 leaving the consulate! I felt like I was bouncing up Simcoe Street! It was such a relief! I felt like my life was back. Life was normal again … I was me … And I had always been me! I would be getting a CLN that reflected the *reality* of my life! And my interaction with the consul left me with a positive feeling about the United States, which was nice too!
I think I was walking around Toronto with a big loony grin on my face the rest of the day! I’ve gotten to know Toronto very well over the decades, and after my successful consulate meeting, Canada felt like my undisputed home again!!!
Thanks, Brockers … no joke, you were with me in spirit. These have been very upsetting and disorienting months in my life because of this confusing citizenship matter. Thanks for sharing information and moral support!!!
@Pacifica777, Congratulation, I am so happy for you! It must be a wonderful feeling, YOU ARE NOW FREE!!
congratulations @pacifica. best wishes to you! Thank you for describing it for us.
@ pacifica777
Oh wow, just WOW! I am so happy for you. Congratulations! I like the part where she indicated they might be speeding up the CLNs in the near future. And I especially like the part where your CLN will be dated according to when you actually relinquished. “Free to be, you and me.” That is just what we all want.
Congratulations Pacifica! I’m so very happy for you. And for the happy news you bring, through telling your experience, to all the others who relinquished so many years ago!
Awesome!
Once again, dear Pacifica, I am so proud of your fight and your outcome!! Thanks for telling us of your Toronto experience, especially for those from Ontario who plan to be relinquishing or, if not able to do that, renouncing. Indeed good news on the fact that they are trying to speed up the issuance of CLNs (although different from two recent replies to queries from the Calgary Consulate).
My wife and I drove to Calgary from Medicine Hat in late January so that I could submit and affirm my relinquishment document. I was told that my documents would go to the State Department and it would take six months to a year for them to rule on my status and get back to me. My CLN came today via registered mail, and needless to say I’m feeling a huge sense of relief.
My parents and I moved from Michigan to Canada when I was a young child, and we all became Canadians in 1968, when I was 20. As I stated on the form, this was during the Vietnam War, and I wanted to travel on a Canadian rather than a U.S. passport. My intention was to sever my connection with the U.S. when I swore the oath of allegiance to Canada. I’ve had no dealings with States since; haven’t had a Social Security number, haven’t filed anything or applied for anything. So relinquishment should have been a “slam dunk” in my case, but of course there’s always the possibility that the authorities might throw up some kind of a roadblock. It feels good to have the CLN in my hand; think I’ll buy a fire-proof safe to put it in.
The whole experience has been extremely positive. The Calgary Consulate is easy to find – just across from the downtown library. My dealings with the folks there were pleasant and cordial. I did wonder why the official was putting so much emphasis on the possible downside of losing my U.S. citizenship (I thought of cutting him short and reminding him that I actually gave it up decades ago, but being a Canadian I was too polite to interrupt him). One heads-up if you’re going to the consulate – make sure you leave all of your electronic stuff, cell phones etc., with someone, since you can’t take things like this in with you.
I really appreciate the effort and expertise that’s gone into the Isaac Brock site – you’ve helped me to keep calm and avoid panicking, to think my way through the process, and to achieve the best possible result. I wish you all the best, and hope you’ll receive the good will and support that you deserve from Canadians and their (our) government during the difficult years ahead.
*Congratulations Dave and thanks for sharing your story. Am hopeful my CLN will arrive soon – renounced in late January.