I have been moved by
For example, does it become more difficult to enter the US as a foreigner when you’ve renounced your citizenship?
I am doing this mostly to simplify my life. I now have to manage my affairs to take into account two different systems of law, tax, and citizenship. Why should I, a UK citizen, be barred from going to Cuba for a Caribbean holiday simply because I am also an American citizen? Why should my ISA (tax-free savings account in the UK) be taxable in the United States but not taxable here? Why should I have to put up with intrusive questioning at the US border even though I am currently a US citizen?
I realise this may make some readers of my blog uneasy. Well, imagine coming to the US four times in 2008 and, the fourth time, being suspected of money laundering and getting the third degree about what I do for a living, why I’m coming to the US, and how much money I have. I get no privileges from my US citizenship (besides the honour of being able to vote for Federal offices) and lots of grief. Better to give it up.
People have said to me, “Well, you never know—someday you may want to move back to the US.”
To them I say, “Imagine, if you will, an unemployed software test manager who has had diabetes for more than 20 years and a heart attack 3 years ago moving back to the US from the UK. This person would go from totally free health care, including free medications, to having no health insurance at all and having to pay full whack for his health care and prescriptions. In addition, imagine that this person has a civil partner who is not a US citizen. Thus, in moving back to the US this person would have to forego living with his civil partner. After 11 years of partnership, this might be a bit of a hardship.”
I think it is a clear choice. For younger people who are not ill and whose full-time job prospects (and health insurance benefits) in the United States are good, it might be a struggle. For me, it’s clear. Living in the UK is my future. I am now a European. I benefit from a health care system that gives me first-class care which is free at the point of delivery, including all medication. I feel patriotic about the UK, and, for all its faults, I love it still.
Nothing will happen tomorrow except that I will be better informed about my choices and their consequences. After that, I shall make the final decision, and I will, of course, keep you all informed.
However, so that any super-patriotic USans might not get so upset they say naughty things in the comments that they might regret later, I’m screening all comments on this post.
Renounce or whatever, I am glad you are doing something about it.
Living here I feel it is the best country ever, but that is due to the circumstances I am in and what I have made from it. But when you are the one in charge of your life and you have to live with the choices that make things better for you, then rock on. HAHAHA if its causing you nothing but grief then you do yo thang!
And they way you have things set up it would terribly insane to move back.
Sounds very sensible, and I definitely envy your civilized health-care system over there.
sounds like there’s more of an upside than a downside to your decision to renounce your US citizenship… i think it’s a wise choice to make. even though you will probably not know the full consequences of it until the deal is all said and done, i doubt that it will be any worse than what you are already going through. good luck! 🙂
It seems like a perfectly sound decision, albeit perhaps not an easy one.
I’ve always thought that, because of it’s supposed ‘melting pot’ construct, the U.S. is something of an anomaly in that we have a national culture, but unlike most other countries, there is no ethnicity/race/heredity intrinsically linked to that culture. You can move to Spain, but could never be Spanish. Or Dutch. Or German. But anyone can always become ‘American’.
So, if you’re living in a Brit world and enjoying all which that allows (civil partnership, state-supported healthcare, etc.), and are entirely happy with it, aside from American “culture”, what is there to miss about U.S. citizenry? And how much of who/what you are now is intrinsically linked to American culture now that you’ve been abroad for so many years?
It all makes sense to me. 🙂
I suspect, but don’t know, that it would be more of a hassle to go through Customs and security entering the US if you are holding a British passport. That’s about the only disadvantage I can see unless you have kin going for a Top Secret clearance, and I’m not sure about that.
The pluses, you know already.
If your loyalties lie in the UK, and your relationship wouldn’t be honored in the US, I can’t see much of a problem, other than border crossing hassles. Paying less taxes is good. Being committed to a country that honors your relationship and takes care of your medical needs strikes me as an honorable reason to do what you’re thinking of doing.
Why would I regret it? I think it’s unlikely that civil partnerships will lead to immigration possibilities (he won’t be able to get it past Congress) and I think that universal health care will take a very long time to come in the US, especially after throwing gazillions of dollars at AIG and the banks for bonuses.
There is no cooling off period after you have taken the oath of renunciation. However, they may require you to attend the embassy twice, once to discuss it and then once later to actually take the oath.
And, once you have renounced your US citizenship, the only way to get it back (unless you can convince a court that you were forced to do it somehow or did it under false pretenses) is to become a naturalised US citizen.
I am ineligible for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States as I have not lived in the United States for the last 14 years. Not that anyone would want that thankless job except to be part of history.
I suspect, but don’t know, that it would be more of a hassle to go through Customs and security entering the US if you are holding a British passport.
I think that rather than just holding a British passport being a hassle, being a former US citizen holding a foreign passport will be a hassle. For example, my British passport lists my place of birth as “Massachusetts”. It is not legal for a US citizen to enter the US on a foreign passport. So I will have to carry a copy of my Certificate of Renunciation with me and show that to the Border Police. That will not make them any happier that I wish to come to the US to visit.
Paying less taxes is good.
Actually, I pay more taxes here than I would do in the US with equivalent income. However, I do get something for my taxes other than guns, bombs, and soldiers. I get health care free at the point of delivery.
After renunciation, I will no longer have to take into account American tax laws or other laws such as the one prohibiting US citizens from spending money in Cuba (thus prohibiting travel there).
In addition, the way things have gone, it’s possible that the US may bar people from renouncing US citizenship at all. USans have funny ideas about citizenship and patriotism and feel very antagonistic toward people who have renounced US citizenship (while technically requiring people who become naturalised US citizens to renounce their foreign citizenship.)
Oh, foo. I should just have told the Embassy in 2000 that I had taken UK citizenship in order to renounce US citizenship and this would all have been over and done with.
check on the UK passport. I know for my Canadian passport I had a choice of whether to get it to say my place of birth or not, and it may well be the same for the UK one. Now I’ve never had the need or want to disguise or conceal my birthplace (Northampton), but I know the option is there – for people around the middle-east, it can be very sticky for people born in country A to enter country B because of bad A-B relations.
So, check and see if you can get your UK passport to omit your place of birth.
“If your loyalties lie in the UK, and your relationship wouldn’t be honored in the US”
I’ve never looked, but If the company you work for and thus your medical benefits recognize a civil union doesn’t it supersede what the government says?
example if my company was based in california where it is legal, and I work in oklahoma, my spouse can get my medical benefits right?
and for all billing and other legal issues you can list them as next of kin and authorized user to get the benefits and such as you need them right?
I am not sure about all the holes, it just makes sense in my head that way. I have a lot of problems like that being straight and not married yet. I have to constantly list my fiance as next of kin on all of my bills and such so she can pay them for me over the phone or accept medical results when im not available by phone.
Hm…interesting.
Only hitch might be that, from my accent, I am almost indubitably either American or Canadian and my answers to their questions will reveal me as an ex-American almost immediately.
I could take accent lessons, I suppose…
Better to face it, I think. But the idea is intriguing, thanks. I will raise it with the lawyer tomorrow.
The difficulty is that, as HWMBO is a Singaporean citizen, if I were to move to the US he could not legally move there with me as a resident. If he were a female, and we were married, I could bring him/her into the country on a spouse’s visa (or whatever it’s called) and s/he could be naturalised more easily than someone who is a single immigrant. (Boy, that concept has played merry hell with my pronouns!)
Medical benefits might accrue if I could get HWMBO into the country and he got work, but the immigration problem is the insurmountable one.
Many people play down the advantages of marriage (to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples) but one advantage stands out: the ability to automatically do such things as be next of kin, get inheritance without losing most of the money to the government, and so on and so forth. To do such things without the benefit of civil marriage takes an awful lot of expensive lawyering to sort out. Now here in the UK we get that automatically with civil partnerships and marriage.
well thank you/it for telling me/(mr. awesome), I/(super cool) hope you/(current subject guru) did not have to wrack your/(keen) brain to explain that to me(sweet shoes)
I think I got confused with pronouns and stuff too.
I need some apple juice and a nap.
I know its very easy to play down the importance or benefit when you have it and don’t honestly think much about the others that don’t. I guess most of my friends in that boat/situation are lucky enough to be citizens and work for companies that recognize the union and give all the benefits associated with it.
I certainly wouldn’t suggest lying to the border officials in the immigration hall, just suggesting a step you could take that might lower a potential red flag.
I don’t know if I’ve told you this story: last summer while at Lambeth, I met a delightful lesbian couple, one of whose names is eluding me, so I’ll call then Ann and Ellen. Ann is American, Ellen is English. They’ve been a couple for donkeys years, and they have a Vermont civil union. They have a home in Brattleboro VT, and the Episcopal church there is very much their parish family.
However, Ann has run out of immigration and visa options, and now can only come as a visitor. She cannot be in the US for more than 91 days at a stretch, and must have been out of the country longer than her proposed stay as she enters. It gets expensive and isolating, as you can imagine.
Like many households, they have pets; and one of the cats, like Ellen, was born in Derby. The cat has all the paperwork and can live in the US; but Ellen can’t.
Ellen is out everywhere except in the immigration hall, because she could be denied entry and she could be deported for 10 years and that’s not a risk she can take.
If either woman was male, they could marry in a ceremony that would carry weight with the US immigration folk. If Ellen was a cat she could move to the States.
A sobering tale. So I certainly understand your deciding that the UK is home-forever.
ah, I just found the blog post I made about it. Ellen = Janet, Anne = Sissi.
…which passed legislation around the turn of the current century that forbids companies to give benefits to same sex partners, which forbids anything that look like a domestic partnership private contract even, and trim. I’m not sure the legislation would hold up in court and it may be null and void as of now, but I know what my Commonwealth’s legislature would like to do.
it boils down to whether you would still call US home. and if you don’t, i don’t see what’s the point of paying uncle sam at all.
Tell it out! Until such legislation becomes impossible to pass, or enforce, any benefits that anyone gets through domestic partnerships is at risk.
I sort of understand why people would feel uneasy about renouncing citizenship. And this would, to me, be even more true of someone who wanted to renounce citizenship in a country to which that person had immigrated.
But, really, it’s an accident of birth. I fail to see that it’s a big deal to decide to change.