Replies

And just WHY is it, that we allow people to maintain 'dual citizenship', anyway? If you want to become a U.S. citizen, you renounce any former allegiance to your native country, PERIOD. I always believed that was the way it HAD been. Anyone know when they started allowing this?

Anyone know when they started allowing this?

From www.richw.org/dualcit

Most of the laws forbidding dual citizenship were struck down in 1967 by the US Supreme Court. The court's decision in this case, Afroyim v. Rusk, as well as a second case in 1980, Vance v. Terrazas, eventually made its way explicitly into the statute books in 1986; up till that time, the old laws were still on the books, but the State Department was effectively under court order to ignore them.

I became a citizen in 1974, and had to renounce allegiance to Italy as part of the oath I took to the United States. But I think dual citizenship has always been an option, with the granting criteria being owning property, or living in 2nd country for a few months out of every year.

I do know though, that from the point of view of the Italian government I can never really lose my citizenship there by dint of the fact that I accepted citizenship here.

The last time I checked, I was and will always be considered an Italian citizen. I could move back there and establish residency without the slightest difficulty.

I - unfortunately - happen NOT to be an American yet even I would have been aware of the importance and significance of uttering the Pledge of Allegiance on such an occasion. Sorry, but however energetically you hoover around to dredge up an excuse to offer "the benefit of the doubt" the plain fact is that there ISN'T one. Arnie's failure in complying is totally unforgivable - particularly since he has been elevated by the people of a state in his adoptive country to such high office. It hardly serves as an example to others.
I think dual citizenship is acceptable on occasion. My neighbour has been married twice - to American men on each occasion. Both children were born in the US although one lives there where she married, the other lives here (for most of the time.) Living in one country doesn't detract from the love and respect for the "other."
There are other more complex and acceptable reasons for "dual nationality", but whatever the case, perhaps any public display of disrespect or antagonism towards one's "home" country might raise the prospect of citizenship being revoked.