Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Think of a person of Indian descent and was born in India. Then, moved to USA when she was 15 years old, became and American citizen. Then, she moved to Germany and became a German citizen after living there for a while. However, since Germany doesn't allow more than one citizenship for non-EU countries, the person had to leave her American citizenship. After all these, would it be wrong if this person claims to be American when she is in Germany?
Think of a person of Indian descent and was born in India. Then, moved to USA when she was 15 years old, became and American citizen. Then, she moved to Germany and became a German citizen after living there for a while. However, since Germany doesn't allow more than one citizenship for non-EU countries, the person had to leave her American citizenship. After all these, would it be wrong if this person claims to be American when she is in Germany?
You asked if it would be wrong of her to claim to be American, the response was yes, it would be wrong.
Renouncing citizenship can be misleading though. Just because another country requires it, doesn't necessarily mean the US will recognize it. To truly renounce a US citizenship, generally one has to appear in front of a US consular officer and formally renounce it, but that is not required to gain an EU citizenship. Even if Germany requires you renounce your US citizenship, all it means is signing a German document saying you've renounced it. So to Germany you may have renounced it, but to the US you have not.
Lots of people have dual citizenship, even to countries that require you renounce the other.
If she is truly no longer an American citizen, then yeah, it would be wrong to claim she is. She could say she used to be American, but no longer is. Culturally, it would depend how long she was there and how much of the culture she picked up whether she considers that a part of her identity.
But people can and do have dual US and German citizenship so just because she's a German citizen doesn't necessarily mean she is no longer an American citizen.
It was advantageous to her to have German citizenship. She could work/travel in the EU. Plus she avoided paying US income taxes as a US citizen working abroad.
Once she renounced her US citizenship (obtained through naturalization) it was gone.
would it be wrong if this person claims to be American when she is in Germany?
What do you mean "claims to be" -- what is the context? She claims to be culturally American among friends? Or she claims to be American on a job application, or what?
It doesn't sound as though she is American anymore if she renounced her American citizenship. However, if you want a definite answer to this question it would be better to ask on the Legal Immigration forum, not Genealogy. If this turns out to be related to genealogy, come back here and we can proceed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
