Gretchen Van Besouw

My husband (Bas) of 3.5 yrs. and I went thru the K-1 process. We live here
in the USA with my daughter and our 2 year old son. This newsgroup helped
us tremendously and I will be forever grateful to all the people that
provided information to make it a smooth though (it seemed like forever
because we just wanted to be together) long process.

When we went thru this process, I agreed to support Bas 100% if he should
temporarily or permanently lose his job (and he's our sole breadwinner)
until he works 40 quarters or 10 years unless he becomes an US citizen. He
has been hesitant to give up his Dutch citizenship until we learned of a new
Dutch law making an exception for Dutch nationals who marry citizens of
other countries.

The info can be found at:
http://www.minbuza.nl/default.asp?CM...9B8266956D1F0X
1X61026X98

Hopefully this info will be helpful for any Dutch citizens out there
interested in becoming US citizens.

Gretchen van Besouw

hmiller

Thanks for the information Gretchen. My fiance' is dutch and we were just starting to research dual citizenship so this comes at a great time.


Heather

Steggy

hmiller wrote:
    >
    > Thanks for the information Gretchen. My fiance' is dutch and we
    > were just starting to research dual citizenship so this comes at a
    > great time.
    >
    > Heather
    >
    > --
    > Posted via http://britishexpats.com

It is certainly possible. I know someone (maybe you guys
know him too) who studied this subject and can tell you a
lot about it. One thing I learned is that you can apply for
it after being legally (and married) in the USA for three
years. Keep in mind that there are US laws in place too of
course. Correct me if I am wrong, but the deal is: USA does
not accept dual citizenship, but as soon as you get your USA
passport you are in fact dual. Holland accepts that, America
has a law in place that makes it impossible to take
someone's citizenship of another country) Sounds weird but
that means in that way you truly can have the two passports.

For more info, email me and I will give you the guys site,
he is Dutch.

How are things going Heather?

--
steg

Stephen Gallagher

    > Correct me if I am wrong, but the deal is: USA does
    > not accept dual citizenship, but as soon as you get your USA
    > passport you are in fact dual. Holland accepts that, America
    > has a law in place that makes it impossible to take
    > someone's citizenship of another country)

The US laws are somewhat confusing. The official
US policy is that they do not encourage dual citizenship
but they don't prohibit it either.

When a person is born with both US citizenship and
another citizenship or if he takes another citizenship
after is a US citizen, he is free under US law to keep
both citizenships for life. When a person naturalizes
in the US, the US naturalization oath has a statement
of renunciation. Whether this statement actually causes
loss of the original citizenship is up to the laws
of the original country. In many cases, the original
country ignores that statement. When this happens
the naturalized US citizen does in fact have
dual citizenship. The State Department doesn't take
any action when this happens. A person who holds
both US citizenship and another citizenship is treated
by the US the same as a person who holds US citizenship
alone. When dealing with the US, he must do so as a
US citizen.

Stephen Gallagher

Rich Wales

"steggy" wrote:

> Correct me if I am wrong, but the deal is: USA
> does not accept dual citizenship, but as soon as
> you get your USA passport you are in fact dual.

More precisely, the US naturalization oath contains a blanket
renunciatory statement, but (1) it's up to a new US citizen's
old country as to whether to pay attention to this renunciation
or not, and (2) the US no longer minds or cares if a new US
citizen continues to allow his old country to insist on treating
him as still being one of its citizens.

> America has a law in place that makes it impossible
> to take someone's citizenship of another country)

I'm not quite sure what you meant by the above, but if you meant
that the US can't legally force another country to revoke someone's
old citizenship, this has =never= been possible, since each country
decides solely by itself who its citizens are.

> Sounds weird but that means in that way you truly
> can have the two passports.

True.

There are several other ways that someone can legally have both
US citizenship and another citizenship -- e.g., being born with
multiple citizenships, or if a US citizen acquires some other
citizenship as an adult. For more info on this, see my FAQ
(http://www.richw.org/dualcit/).

Rich Wales [email protected] http://www.richw.org/dualcit/
*DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, professional immigration consultant,
or consular officer. My comments are for discussion purposes only and
are not intended to be relied upon as legal or professional advice.