How To Renounce Your Citizenship
More and more Americans are doing it.
More and more Americans are giving up their citizenship, a recent New York Times article noted.
According to the article, 502 expatriates gave up their citizenship in
the last quarter of 2009, more than twice the total for all of 2008. In
2004, Brendan I. Koerner explained how to renounce your citizenship. The
original article is reprinted below.
The saga of Bobby Fischer, whom the United States is trying to
extradite from Japan, keeps getting weirder and weirder. The former
chess champ, who ran afoul of U.S. law by playing a tournament in the
former Yugoslavia 12 years ago, now wants to renounce his American
citizenship. How does an American go about renouncing his citizenship?
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
stipulates that Americans wishing to renounce their U.S. citizenship
must sign an oath of renunciation in the presence of a diplomatic or
consular officer. The oath reads: "I hereby absolutely and entirely
renounce my United States nationality, together with all rights and
privileges and all duties of allegiance and fidelity." The renunciation
must take place in a foreign country, and the State Department reserves
the right to reject the citizen's attempt to ditch their citizenship.
The oath must also be signed in person, so the three-page letter that
Fischer has sent to the U.S. Embassy isn't good enough. Nor would it be
enough for one of his representatives—say, someone from the Tokyo-based
Committee To Free Bobby Fischer—to show up at the embassy and sign the
required documents.
The only time when an American may renounce his citizenship while
still inside the United States is during times of war. Then, a formal
written statement will suffice, as long as it's approved by a Department
of Justice official who deems the renunciation "not contrary to the
interests of national defense." The renunciation is void if the
statement is written under duress, as occurred during World War II when
many detained Japanese-Americans were forced to give up their U.S.
citizenships.
A formal renunciation is generally considered irrevocable, except in
special cases involving minors who give up their citizenship. Within six
months of such a renouncer's 18th birthday, the newly minted adult may change his mind and recover his citizenship.
An American can also carry out a de facto renunciation by
swearing an oath of allegiance to a foreign country, joining a foreign
army, or becoming naturalized citizen elsewhere. If an American loses
his citizenship in such a manner, however, he can file an appeal with
the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals.
This is what leftist author Margaret Randall did in 1987, after the
United States tried to deport her. Though Randall had become a Mexican
citizen in 1967, the board eventually ruled that she only did so under
economic duress. At the time, she was living in Mexico with three
children, and her husband was unemployed; attaining Mexican citizenship,
she claimed, was the only way to find a decent job in the country.
If Fischer is planning to renounce his citizenship in order to avoid
American prosecution, he could be in for a rude surprise. The State
Department's primer on renunciation clearly states that "the act of
renouncing U.S. citizenship will not allow person to avoid possible
prosecution for crimes which they may have committed in the United
States." Since Fischer violated a travel ban issued by a federal agency,
his crime is probably not exempt from that provision, regardless of the
fact that it involved Yugoslavia. Less clear is how the renunciation
might affect Japan's deportation proceedings against Fischer.
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