27 thoughts on “My Thoughts on U.S. Citizenship for Young People”
@123 – That’s a good summary of the way it *used* to work. Accidental Americans born abroad could kind of have it both ways, entering the system when they wanted to, perhaps because of a US job offer or college admission.
I wonder, though, whether someone moving to the US, asserting a claim to US citizenship and entering the US tax system for the first time isn’t in a fairly dangerous position (if they’ve been tax-compliant for a couple of years, maybe less so.)
@A Broken Man on a Halifax pier- it wasn’t a rule that just applied to people who were born abroad. When I was in college I had a friend who was born in America to her Canadian pastor father and she told me that she had the right to chose which country to be a citizen of. The point was though that she had to chose. There was no option of “dual” citizenship status. This was obviously before 1986.
@123 – That’s a good summary of the way it *used* to work. Accidental Americans born abroad could kind of have it both ways, entering the system when they wanted to, perhaps because of a US job offer or college admission.
I wonder, though, whether someone moving to the US, asserting a claim to US citizenship and entering the US tax system for the first time isn’t in a fairly dangerous position (if they’ve been tax-compliant for a couple of years, maybe less so.)
@A Broken Man on a Halifax pier- it wasn’t a rule that just applied to people who were born abroad. When I was in college I had a friend who was born in America to her Canadian pastor father and she told me that she had the right to chose which country to be a citizen of. The point was though that she had to chose. There was no option of “dual” citizenship status. This was obviously before 1986.