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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.
@Calgary,
Congratulations to both you and your husband. My wish is that someday you will be allowed to renounce on behalf of your son.
I am quite impressed with what you wrote about the Calgary consulate. When you mentioned they actually suggested you have tea and they would come down to bring you up to the consulate, I almost fell out of my chair. So very, very different than my experience in Vancouver. Here there were two line-ups outside the consulate building, two security checks outside and one more inside. Certainly no invites to have ‘a cuppa’ while waiting.
To all who have supported and educated me this past year, to all who have wished me well for today’s appointment, and to all who are happy my husband and I have come through unscathed — no bruises from doors hitting us — my sincere tons of thanks.
Re: no scenarios of why we might want to reconsider retaining our US citizenship — I sure would love to have seen that computer screen that was being viewed on the other side of the counter. Did they have any inkling of my calgary411 life or my conversation with the Ottawa Embassy’s Ms. Johnson — I’ll never know.
I will send Ms. Johnson an email, thanking her for our conversation and reporting that my husband and I completed our easy renunciation appointment in Calgary today. I’ll report that people are still waiting to hear from Vancouver as they wait for their second appointment notfication and ask if anything can be done about that. It’s worth a try.
@Calgary,
Thank you for your offer to report to Ms Johnson about the ‘bottleneck’ in Vancouver. At least two posters on IBS have mentioned that they do not even get a reply that their emails have been received by the consulate when they request their 2nd appointment. I believe one was Dawid and another name, possibly Russ Hunter (?). Dawid was actually invited to request the 2nd appointment back in September and has sent 7 emails to the consulate. Still does not know if the emails have been received. No acknowledgemnet at all.
As I posted on “Relinquishing and Renunciation” Data, I do wonder if it is possible that Vancouver has an extraordinary number of appointments requested by the Asian community for Visas to visit the U.S. However, even if that is the reason, common courtesy would be to reply that the email has been received and will be dealt with in the near future.
As I have mentioned, I am prepared to fly to either Calgary (certainly closer for me) or to Toronto in order to facilitate the process for my CLN. But I would have to let the Vancouver consulate know that I want to transfer my file, and if they do not answer the emails, that is a problem.
@Tiger,
Unacceptable, the differences in procedure / experience.
*@Calgary, pleased it went smoothly for you! 🙂
Thanks, monalisa!
Thanks, badger and All. I’m not giving up on this subject. Wish you guys were the ones with the say!
@ Calgary,
Wish we were, too. But you can count on us to do what we can to help get that policy changed!
Calgary – Wow, everything changed in an afternoon! Hard to believe it’s been more than a year at this point, worrying, wondering, not sleeping, being angry and frustrated etc ad nauseam….Congratulations!
I like and agree with what Badger has said. At some point, somebody who can help will recognize it and do what is necessary to get it considered on humanitarian grounds. It is just unbelievable and reprehensible they will not allow your son to be free as well.
@Tiger,
How about sending a registered letter?
*calgary 411 CONGRATULATIONS! after reading the amount of time these appts take in Vancouver, I think I will fly to Calgary to follow in your footsteps. It absolutely outrages me that they will not let your son be free!
thanks for all your wisdom and help as I start my long journey. I’m learning so much from everyone here.
@nobledreamer
‘Registered Letter’ – that could be the way to go. Thanks for thinking of that.
And I must add a big WOW – that’s alot of tweets you have sent out. I don’t have a clue how to do that – actually quite proud of myself that I can email – a few of my ‘aged’ friends don’t even do that. I might need to get a grandchild to show me how to Tweet!
Congratulations, Calgary. I’ve been following your story for quite a while and I’m thrilled to hear of your success in Calgary. I think about your son’s disadvantaged position and have shared these concerns with whoever will listen.
@baird68,
Kudos for helping with my son’s (and other’s just like him) situation by re-telling the absurd story. Perhaps ours is the only family out of over six million US Persons abroad with this unique problem???? I think not.
*@ Pacifica. Calgary. Undecided
I filled in the same questionnaire but without SSN. No comment was made by the Calgary consulate.
Congratulations Calgary on your renunciation. Best of luck on getting the same right for your son.
Sorry this should have been on the Relinquishment thread.
*Congratulations, Calgary! Here’s hoping that common sense will eventually prevail in the case of your son and you will all be free.
Congratulations, Calgary!
*I am very happy for you Calgary411. Soon no more worries about taxes, fbars or anything else the U.S. might want to lay on expats. Congratulations. Now we all must write letters to get your son freed.
@Tiger
Thanks! I remember the first time I ever saw a tweet and it looked so incomprehensible with the # and numbers and weird words. Just Me was instrumental in waking me up to the idea of trying it as another way to get our message out. Am learning!
I sure wish I could figure out all the stuff I could do on my blackberry, so don’t feel badly!
@calgarry411
Congratulations on getting through the experience unscathed! It’s a wonderful feeling!
Very much appreciated — additional congratulations for my now completed renunciation appointment, rødgrød and iamquincy, Banany and Rose. It feels good — about time I got that checked off of my “to do” list. Do you know that y’all here are the best?
*Having followed the IBS website for several months now, I am ready to report my relinquishment from start to finish. Upon reviewing the Consulate Directory Report at IBS, I learned how to go about approaching the matter.
On May 8/12, I checked the Consulate website for Toronto to see if I could get an appointment. Luckily one was available for May 10/12 and I booked it right away. I gathered the following documents and made 2 copies:
In addition, I completed 2 copies of the forms DOS 4079 & 4081. I did NOT complete or attach a supplemental affidavit of any kind, believing that it is best to record the bare facts and just answer any questions they may ask.
On May 10/12 I went to the consulate. The process was very much like that described by Pacifica on Page 26 of the Consulate Directory Report. Everyone at the consulate was courteous and professional and easy to deal with. The Consul was very pleasant and simply asked a few questions about any US Passports (never held one) and voting (never did that in the US), all of which I had indicated on the form. At the beginning of the interview I indicated that I did not consider myself a US Citizen since 1976 and was just there to get that fact documented by the US Government (also noted on my Form 4079). I explained that I knew that at that time it was the US policy to revoke citizenship if one swore allegiance to another country or sovereign and I have acted accordingly.
After reviewing my documents, the Consul got me to sign the forms and indicated they would send the package to Washington for approval of the CLN. She said it would be a number of months before I would hear back from them. They would not give me copies or any documentation acknowledging I had done this business.
Since I had no acknowledgement, I waited 2 months and then sent an email asking if they have heard from Washington regarding my relinquishment case advised to them on May 10th. I had no expectation they would have anything, but my strategy was to get some kind of acknowledgement. They replied that my case was sent to Washington for approval, that there was an unusual number of relinquishments and renunciations lately and they are experiencing delays. They would however notify me when they heard back on my case. With that email, I now had acknowledgement that was somewhat better than nothing should I wish to cross the border or have some issue at a financial institution.
Today, November 15th, I received a call from the consulate informing me my CLN was ready and I agreed to pick it up, which I did. The following are some pertinent dates regarding the documentation:
Having read about the experiences of other as reported on IBS, I was quite confident in doing all this myself without the need to involve a lawyer, particularly since I was using the Toronto consulate where it was reported they handled these matters with a minimum of fuss.
I have to thank IBS for all the information and comments. It was most helpful to me in dealing with this matter and bringing it to a satisfactory conclusion. This information can be included in U.S. Relinquishments and Renunciations data recap on IBS.
Only a Canadian
@calgary411 – That’s great news, congratulations!
Thanks so much for the report of your positive experience at the Toronto US Consulate, Only a Canadan. (Sorry for the delay — I just found your comment sitting in our spam for some reason, so quickly unspammed you.)
We continue to see that our compilation of the different experiences reported at each US Consulate are different. Yours will help others coming here to find information. I am so glad that yours was one of the positive renunciation / relinquishment experiences. They should all be such. Congratulations.
Only a Canadian —
Congratulations — interesting that you got it done with one appointment — my wife (almost identical circumstances to yours) needed two at Vancouver; first was February, second was August — and we’re still waiting for the CLN.
In your package is there a copy of the IRS tax form? Vancouver advised us that we will get that in the package when it comes through. Not that it matters, but I’m curious to see if there are other differences among the various consulates dealing with this.