TexasPenguin

This is somewhat connected to the dual passport thread running but subtly different.
It's slightly hypothetical but I found out last night that it may actually be relevant for my daughter's planned travel next Spring Break.

All 4 of us in the family have just filed (finally) our N400 for naturalization.
At the oath ceremony my understanding is that we hand in the green card and get, in return (!) a naturalization certificate.

At that point we are US citizens but don't have a US passport.
What would happen then if we needed to travel to the UK, for example, before we could get a US passport?

The airlines could not reasonably refuse to let us travel because we would have a passport allowing us to remain indefinitely in the UK (after all we may not be intending to return so wouldn't need a US passport per se).
Then, on the return flight, technically since we are US citizens we could not legally be refused entry into the USA...and yet we wouldn't have a US passport.
Of course, the situation is different from a regular US citizen without dual nationality since the airline would refuse to allow him/her to board the plan in the US without a valid passport.

I'm sure this must have come up before, it can't be THAT unusual to get say, a bereavement mandating travel "home" immediately after the naturalization??

avanutria

You can request an expedited US passport. As citizens you are supposed to use your US passport to leave the country; while you could hypothetically leave on your UK passport I don't know what the repercussions of doing so might be.

Here are the current US passport processing times:

http://www.travel.state.gov/passport...sing_1740.html

meauxna

I believe the penalty is a stiff fine (For returning to the US without a US passport).
The answer is, plan accordingly.

We had a trip already booked with departure one week after the oath ceremony. We made an 'urgent travel' appointment with the Passport Authority office nearest to us and made the day trip to go there and get the passport on the same day. Many others have done similar.

candy wy.

I am getting my US passport before we fly. getting back in may be difficult without the US passport..

seawaternow

I did the same thing - knew when the ceremony was and then specifically booked an appointment with passport office exactly 12 days in advance of my trip (you can pick your date unless it's same day travel). Walked in, handed my papers (always best to fill them out ahead of time, form is on travel.state.gov), pictures, $160 and was out in an hour. Passport was done in 2 days as I still had another 10 days before my travels.

I've seen people who were driving to Canada so no flight itinerary, and were told to come back in 3 hrs for their passports.

BritishGuy36

You might enjoy reading this soap opera of a thread, which is one we were all very interested in at the time.....

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=644662

If you really must skip to the result....

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showp...&postcount=125