David: This is OT, but relates in a way. I was raised to believe that you could not have dual citizenship in the US, PERIOD. I had a good friend in HS who cliamed to have dual citizenship because he was born here. However, his Welsh father was a British Counsel General stationed in San Francisco at the time and his mom was Australian. He always told his friends that he had to decide to renounce British citizenship when he reached majority (which was 21 at the time). He lived and died in the US and there was no further problem with his odd citizenship.
Then in the 1970s, early 1980s, when there was a spate of airliner and ship hijackings going on, announcements came out in the newspaper that it was OK to have another kind of citizenship if the other country allowed it. The US would just look the other way and you could travel out of the US on a foreign passport if you could get one. This was because the terrorist would look for people with US passports to take them hostage.
I remember because under the rules my mother could have qualified for an Irish passport through her grandfather who had died many years before. I encouraged her to get one because she was traveling quite a lot at that time, but she would have no part of it. Reportedly traveling on a foreign passport while over seas would make no difference to your citizenship status at home.
What were/are the rules at that time? This would have een the same time period when Obama went to Pakistan.
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What were/are the rules at that time? This would have een the same time period when Obama went to Pakistan.
Short answer is that I don't know.
Long before I went to Law School, we had a school friend who was in exactly that position (and lives today with her husband in Houston as she has all her adult life) and that is exactly the story she told when she was in High School--and later, we know she still claims both citizenships but have no idea what kind of elections she made.
A hot topic of the moment however. There are discussions in DC about currency and transaction controls. Banks in many offshore countries will no longer open accounts for US Citizens who don't have a second passport so I have decided to get one.
I too have an immigrant grandfather from a jurisdiction that would recognize me as a citizen. Son went into their DC embassy last week and got the paper work I need to file--son also would then qualify to get a second passport.
afraidfortherepublic -
I have not confirmed the details but, due to living outside the country as a U.S. citizen, I have looked into the matter superficially.
I was told that the U.S. at one time did not permit dual citizenship but a court case decision in the 1960’s (not sure if this decade is correct) was decided in favor of allowing dual citizenship so it was thereafter OK per U.S. law. The U.S. government (so the source said) did not want to encourage dual citizenship so it doesn’t promote the info in any way.
I think it may be time to follow up on the issue and get the dual status before it changes again or becomes difficult to establish with the other country.