Does the United States Allow Dual Citizenship?
Sometimes, by way of birth, marriage or for another reason, a person may wish to be a citizen of both the United States, and another country. Whether or not the U.S. allows this depends on how the person intends to become a citizen of both countries.
Other People Are Reading
-
Family
-
Children born in the U.S. to citizens of another country are automatically U.S. citizens. If a U.S. citizen acquires nationality in another country because of marriage or birth, the United States allows citizenship in both countries. If a child of a citizen of another country is born in the U.S., the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants them automatic citizenship, without giving up the other.
Intent
-
A U.S. citizen who serves in a foreign military as an officer may lose their U.S. citizenship. The United States government may revoke citizenship to any person who purposely pledges allegiance to another country with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship. A person may do this through words, i.e. taking an oath of citizenship, or actions. Joining a foreign country's military service which is fighting against the U.S. can result in losing your U.S. citizenship.
-
Acceptance
-
The United States does not encourage dual citizenship, because each countries laws may conflict. Being a dual citizen or dual national is accepted by the U.S. government, but is not encouraged, because of problems it may cause. Dual citizens are expected to obey the laws of both countries they are citizens of and these laws may conflict with each other.
-
References
- Photo Credit three passports image by Jeff Dalton from Fotolia.com l'autre attente image by rachid amrous-spleen from Fotolia.com military image by Alexey Klementiev from Fotolia.com eherecht image by Andreas Safreider from Fotolia.com
More Like This
Comments
View all 28 Comments-
The statement in the article "The United States government will revoke citizenship to any person who purposely pledges allegiance to another country" is incorrect and misleading. The fact of the matter is that the US gov't reserves the right to revoke the citizenship... but not without due process. It is not done automatically - even if the person waltzes into the local North Korean embassy and invokes her right to be free from the bonds of American citizenship. And I know, of course, because I'm a born and bred American that now (after 35 years of being only an American citizen) has dual citizenship.
-
This The United States government will revoke citizenship to any person who purposely pledges allegiance to another country. A person may do this through words, i.e. taking an oath of citizenship, or actions. is not a correct story/post. Pledging allegiance to a foreign power taking an oath of citizenship, etc does NOT mean the forfeiture of citizenship. I have posted in my Facebook, scanned copies of US Federal Gov't paperwork that states this catagorically! The only way one's words CAN be used to remove citizenship is to renounce US citizenship to any FEDERAL authority (that means telling the food stamp worker you renounce it is not enough). The revokation of citizenship was common place, for merely pledgin to another country, but a law suit that went to the US Supreme court settled that and it is stated that any and all words spoken to foreign powers are NOT the same as if spoken to American authorities.
-
Inaccurate. You CAN swear an oath of citizenship/loyalty to another nation and still retain US citizenship - it is only if you intend to give up your US citizenship when doing so that loses you your US citizenship. If you are a dual national and need to renew your US passport, you are asked on the form if you have citizenship of another nation, and if you do, if you intended to give up your US citizenship when so doing.
-
Thank you - as a dual American and Australian citizen, I found this article to be inaccurate and misleading. You beat me to the punch.
-
I think several foreign countries consider the male child a citizen of that country even if the child was born in the US and never visited the country of his father's birth. What about Eric Cantor? On more than one occasion he has shown greater allegiance to Israel than the US. He told Netanyahu the Republican Congress would side with Israel over the President during the peace negotiations. He also had called Rhamm Emanuel to ask the President to go lightly on Israel when they were violating our agreement by building illegal settlments during negotiations between SOS Clinton and Israel/Palestine. That, in my opinion, is inexcusable. No American, and in particular a US Congressman should side with another country over the US particularly when they are violating our agreements.
