ajomr

38 minutes ago, Sartre said:

I meant to add the discussion on the Supreme Court rulings on dual citizenship.  Basically a person can be loyal to two or more countries. The link below will provide some guidance to what you are seeking and also steer you to additional research.

 

https://citizenpath.com/dual-citizenship-in-the-us/

 

Thanks Sartre 🙂

Wasn't familiar with this ruling.

All is good

I'll sleep well!, provided I overcome my late night nomophobia 🐰

6 minutes ago, Sartre said:

has absolutely no problems swearing allegiance to each country

Hi there Sartre, thanks for your reply!

I have no internal qualms about saying that I am loyal to this or relinquish that. I totally get that I can have dual (or in your case triple!) citizenship. I'm not one bit worried about that.

And if we're being honest, I don't take these oaths and pledges to flags and whatnot too heavily. I'm very clear about my own set of principals and values, and all these symbolic gestures and ceremonies don't exactly land anywhere impactful as far as my feelings towards one country or another whether I am a citizen of that country or not.

ALL (not yelling, just emphasizing 🙂) that I am saying with all of this, is today we can say "yeah don't make a big deal of it..." but you don't know what tomorrow brings.

There's some saying out there that I'm blanking on at the moment, but it's related to the importance of drawing out contracts and written agreements even though you 100% positively trust the other party, and you're absolutely sure that nothing can go wrong. I wish I remembered how the saying went (something about what you can imagine or can't imagine... anyways...), I think you can apply the same logic here.

My one and only concern with this whole pledge thing is that in some rare hypothetical scenario, where, let's just say a sociopathic man-child bigot and conman somehow becomes president and staffs his entire administration with far-right nationalists, and even though this is totally unfathomable that such a thing could happen in the land of the free, but let's imagine this new administration begins enforcing fascist-leaning policies that seek to, maybe purge the voting rights of certain people they believe might have opposing political leanings. And obviously, they'll try to find every sneaky way to do so.

In this completely fictional, far-fetched story, I believe one could quite easily interpret taking the oath as it is written, while maintaining citizenship with another country, as an act of perjury. Your very first act as a new US citizen! 

So, yes — this scenario is extremely unlikely and I'm probably sounding paranoid (but these US government procedures kind of make you feel that way, don't they? I mean some recommend you do all of this with a lawyer!)

And yes — I've already made the decision that I'm just going to say the oath and not make a bid deal of it. In fact, I've already signed the N-400 and sent it in.

I started this thread just to get a sense if anyone who is keeping dual citizenship might have had similar concerns and maybe asked to modify the wording of the oath, or something of that sort. And if so, I was curious to know how that went.

But It seems that all who replied just took the oath. So I'll fall in line and do the same 🙂

6 minutes ago, Savva said:

Here is the OFFICIAL SOURCE (US Department of State) and everything you need to know about dual citizenship, hope it helps

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/Advice-about-Possible-Loss-of-US-Nationality-Dual-Nationality/Dual-Nationality.html

😄 this info actually confirms my discomfort with the language of the oath:

from first line in paragraph 3:

"Dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country."

but I gather from the comments here that no one so far has asked to modify the oath text based on this, so I won't make a fuss about it and just take the oath as is.

1 minute ago, nastra30 said:

The oath of allegiance is not about you losing the citizenship of your other country, because they is no law banning dual citizenship in the US.

The oath is about renouncing allegiance and fidelity to the other country. An example basically is - will you serve in the US military when called upon verses serving the military of the other country. In extreme circumstances when your two countries are at war who's side will you choose?

Oh! got it 😀

that makes sense now

Hi all, thanks so much for your replies.

Just to be clear:

1. I have no debate as to whether I want dual citizenship or not. I intend to maintain dual citizenship and I know for sure that it is perfectly fine, legal, etc with respects to policy with both Israel and the United States. So no doubts there.
2. I'm pretty confident, given the replies to this post and also from my online research, that taking the oath as written will not affect my Israeli citizenship and most likely everything will be fine and I'll be able to keep both citizenships. Although the oath text does seem like it is negating my Israeli citizenship, it will not have any affect.

My only question is whether anyone knows of cases where someone has requested to modify the oath text so that it doesn't sound like you are giving up an existing citizenship.

From what I see, it is possible to request modifications for certain circumstances (as I mentioned in original post) but I'm curious whether anyone knows of cases where modifications where made to accommodate dual citizenship.

I know I sound like I'm being a pain in the butt, and after everything is said and done, I'll probably just accept the oath as is and be done with it

But if it's perfectly fine to adjust it, I'd rather go that route. 

I don't think anyone can guarantee that in the future  there won't be some crazy administration running the country and deciding "hey you took an oath that you renounce your citizenship to all other countries, so you're in violation of your oath".

That's all I'm saying... 🦔

1 hour ago, Timona said:

 

I think you are taking it way too deep as I had already mentioned to @JER2020 in another thread.

As already mentioned, some countries allow dual citizenship. Which country are you from? We can start from there.

 

Hi Timona,

Thanks for your guidance on this.

I have Israeli citizenship (full disclosure: not to turn this into a political issue, I was hesitant to write which country I'm from especially due to the recent events. I feel depressed and honestly rather ashamed of what is happening there 😕)

That being said, I prefer not to give up my Israeli citizenship, and I know for certain that it is perfectly fine with both countries that I hold this dual citizenship.

I know I'm probably reading too much into this oath thing, and what I found from my online research has said this, more or less.

But with the future being unknown, I'd rather not make declarations that I know are not true, or declarations of renouncing citizenship to Israel.

I'm convinced that I'm not the first to deal with this dilemma, so I'm wondering if there are any ways to work around this without creating too much complication for myself.

Towards the end of the N-400 form — Part 12, item 47  — it asks whether the applicant is willing to take the "Oath of Allegiance" at the oath ceremony.

Part of the oath is declaring that I will "...absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been subject or citizen."

I'm a citizen of another country and I know for certain that it is perfectly fine with both countries to be a dual citizen, and neither country will require that I relinquish either citizenship.

I've found a couple of sources online saying that even though the oath does seem to very clearly state that you're basically giving up any prior or current citizenship with any other country, that this will not affect my current citizenship with the country where I'm from.

However, I do feel very uneasy with taking an oath with this language.

Firstly, if I don't have to, it is actually very important to me to keep my foreign citizenship.

Secondly, it very much sounds like I'm being untruthful when taking the oath, if I do plan on having dual citizenship. 

I have read that it is possible to request to change the language of the oath in some ways, but those seem to pertain to other things (like alternative text to saying "so help me god").

I'm wondering if anyone who has dual citizenship and has gone through this, or knows with a very high degree of certainty can advise.

Thanks!

Thanks both, sounds right 😁

Hi there,

I served in a foreign military before immigrating to the United States. It was over 20 years ago.

There is a question in form N-400, under part 12, item 17: 

Where you EVER a part of any group, or did you EVER help any group, unit, or organization that used a weapon against any person or threatened to do so?

So technically, I think the answer is "yes". But my feeling is that this question is more about non-military groups and organizations, or maybe para-military groups. 

Furthermore, there is a question just before this one -- question 15A, also in part 12 -- that asks if I was in a military unit. 

I'm leaning towards answering "yes" and just being clear in the explanation that needs to be provided on an extra sheet of paper. But just wanted to double check here, in case anyone has a more definitive answer, preferably from experience.

Thanks!