Me

Hi,I have asked a similar question about a UK Citizen getting US
Citizenship,and what happens to their passport,ie,is it given up. I found
out the answer to that is no because the UK will not recognise the oath of
allegiance to another country..

But I want to find out if it is the same the other way round,a US Citizen
getting UK Citizenship,does he/she have to give up their US Passport. Is it
the same,or does the US look upon that differently?

thanks

Ray

No ..they both retain both passports if they wish ...

Anthony R. Gold

On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 14:37:23 -0700, "me"
<[email protected]> wrote:

    > Hi,I have asked a similar question about a UK Citizen getting US
    > Citizenship,and what happens to their passport,ie,is it given up. I found
    > out the answer to that is no because the UK will not recognise the oath of
    > allegiance to another country..
    > But I want to find out if it is the same the other way round,a US Citizen
    > getting UK Citizenship,does he/she have to give up their US Passport. Is it
    > the same,or does the US look upon that differently?

If they are US citizens by birth or decent then they retain both their
citizenship and passport, but if by naturalization then they will lose
their acquired US citizenship* (but only if the US ever finds out).

* There are exceptions to this rule where added citizenships are by birth
or descent as opposed to by naturalization and further I believe that an
added citizenship of Israel is always treated as being a citizenship by
decent.

Tony

JAJ

No they won't. There's no difference between US citizens by birth or descent versus naturalization in the State Department administrative policies.


The Israel thing is an urban myth.

Joe Feise

Anthony R. Gold wrote on 10/08/06 05:11:

    > On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 14:37:23 -0700, "me"
    > <[email protected]> wrote:
    >
    >> Hi,I have asked a similar question about a UK Citizen getting US
    >> Citizenship,and what happens to their passport,ie,is it given up. I found
    >> out the answer to that is no because the UK will not recognise the oath of
    >> allegiance to another country..
    >> But I want to find out if it is the same the other way round,a US Citizen
    >> getting UK Citizenship,does he/she have to give up their US Passport. Is it
    >> the same,or does the US look upon that differently?
    >
    > If they are US citizens by birth or decent then they retain both their
    > citizenship and passport, but if by naturalization then they will lose
    > their acquired US citizenship* (but only if the US ever finds out).


No.

    > * There are exceptions to this rule where added citizenships are by birth
    > or descent as opposed to by naturalization and further I believe that an
    > added citizenship of Israel is always treated as being a citizenship by
    > decent.


No. There is no special rule for any country, nor between natural born and
naturalized citizens.

-Joe
--
I am not a lawyer.
For reliable advice, consult a competent immigration attorney.

Me

Thanks for the replies. My wife is a born-in-the-US citizen. Her concern was
having to give up her US Passport if she got a UK one.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

You are confusing the matter quite badly, I'm afraid. The law USED to be that if a US citizen took foreign naturalization, it was an act of "expatriation." This was true whether the US citizen was "natural born" or naturalized. [BTW, venerable Supreme Court authority states that birth or naturalization are the only two ways to obtain citizenship].

One of the acts of expatriation was voting in a foreign election. It so happens that this provision was addressed by the Supreme Court in the case of a naturalized US citizen voting in an Israeli election. The provision was found to be unconstitutional. Afroyim v Rusk.

Afroyim and its legal progeny have lead to the current state of affiars that expatriation involves an affirmative act with intention to expatriate.

The Department of State was vigorously pursuing expatriation against Mier Kahane at the time of his assassination. It wasn't that he assumed Israeli Citizenship under the Law of Return, but that he took POLITICAL office as an MK. It should be noted that Kahane was US born.

L D Jones

me wrote:
    > Thanks for the replies. My wife is a born-in-the-US citizen. Her concern was
    > having to give up her US Passport if she got a UK one.
    >
    >
Not necessary, she can keep both

Marco

Folinskyinla wrote:

    > Afroyim and its legal progeny have lead to the current state of affiars
    > that expatriation involves an affirmative act with intention to
    > expatriate.
    > The Department of State was vigorously pursuing expatriation against
    > Mier Kahane at the time of his assassination. It wasn't that he assumed
    > Israeli Citizenship under the Law of Return, but that he took POLITICAL
    > office as an MK. It should be noted that Kahane was US born.

They tried, but weren't successful. Accepting political office in a
foreign country only entitles loss of citizenship if performed with the
intention of relinquishing US citizenship (this is also written inside
a US passport). Meir Kahane was stripped of his citizenship in 1985
after being elected to the Knesset in 1984, but he sued back and a
federal judge restored his citizenship in 1987. See here

http://tinyurl.com/y76paf

When he was assassinated, in 1990, he was still a US citizen.