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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2019 5:16 am
by Jean
For non aggression to prevail, it requires a bunch of people agreeing to don't agress each other, and some form of collaboration do dether anyone outside the agreement to agress. That's exactly what the federal oat was. If you refuse it, you're not a confederate anymore. Cheating this should command shame.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2019 1:45 pm
by zocab
henrik wrote:
Sat Aug 10, 2019 6:37 pm
@zocab - Do you know if these treaties cover actual mobilisation? For example, will the Swiss+French citizen who escaped military service in CH by having pretended to have done it in FR be exempt from mobilisation in CH?
This is explicitly covered in the treaty, only the country where you opted to serve can call you up.
Viktor K wrote:
Sat Aug 10, 2019 9:52 pm
What's the best/easiest/fastest country for an American to get (preferably) dual citizenship with an emphasis on healthcare and safety? Canada is all I have considered so far. European countries are appealing as well, but the ones I've looked at require forfeiting previous citizenship.
Which ones have you looked at? UK, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway*, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Italy, France do seem to be OK with it. Germany doesn't as you say (except in combination with other EU or CH citizenship). I haven't looked in huge detail to be fair, but that looks like majority that doesn't care.

* Only since this year.

That said, healthcare really varies. I wouldn't recommend the UK. Switzerland is solid but unique (ACA in the US was seemingly trying to copy the Swiss insurance system). I don't know about the others.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2019 10:55 pm
by Viktor K
zocab wrote:
Sun Aug 11, 2019 1:45 pm
Which ones have you looked at? UK, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway*, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Italy, France do seem to be OK with it.
Oh, wow, that's good news. I had only looked at Spain once before, since we were interested in traveling and living there as expats. Then I only recently checked out Estonia because a coworker is from there. When I saw that it too required forfeiting your other citizenship, I just assumed it was a general E.U. thing.

So, now, I guess which is easiest/best. Canada checks a lot of boxes with English-speaking, healthcare, and close to the US in terms of distance and culture. But it is a minimum 3 year permanent residency from what I can tell. And there are a lot of steps to take.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 5:04 am
by henrik
Viktor, if your motivation is healthcare, you also need to look at the requirements for getting it in each country. For example, in Estonia tax-payer funded healthcare is fairly universal, but you still need to fit some boxes, eg being employed and paying taxes, being underaged, retired above the official age, studying, pregnant, in the defence forces, registered as unemployed and actively looking, having served cleaning up in Chernobyl, etc. Nowadays even being a monk or a nun should do. But you also need to be a resident to qualify. Being a citizen is neither sufficient nor required.

The rules will probably vary from country to country. AFAIK the EU doesn't regulate it too much, except that if you have health insurance in one country, it needs to cover emergency care in all the others.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 11:19 am
by take2
Viktor K wrote:
Sun Aug 11, 2019 10:55 pm
Oh, wow, that's good news. I had only looked at Spain once before, since we were interested in traveling and living there as expats. Then I only recently checked out Estonia because a coworker is from there. When I saw that it too required forfeiting your other citizenship, I just assumed it was a general E.U. thing.

So, now, I guess which is easiest/best. Canada checks a lot of boxes with English-speaking, healthcare, and close to the US in terms of distance and culture. But it is a minimum 3 year permanent residency from what I can tell. And there are a lot of steps to take.

Portugal may be a good option for you. From your journal I see you’re a programmer, and those are pretty hot jobs in Lisbon at the moment. A few different ways:

1) Job offer
2) “Golden visa” - requires property investment of c.€500k
3) Marriage (prob not applicable to you through)

I have dual US/PT (parents are immigrants) and having a EU passport had been great for me - living/working in UK for 3+ years now.

Medical in PT is quite good, weather is fantastic, and COL is low, assuming you have sufficient income. My ERE plans have me ending up there in a few years. Most people (esp in Lisbon) speak English so I don’t think it’s too tough for a foreigner to live there.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 1:22 pm
by zocab
Viktor K wrote:
Sun Aug 11, 2019 10:55 pm
So, now, I guess which is easiest/best. Canada checks a lot of boxes with English-speaking, healthcare, and close to the US in terms of distance and culture. But it is a minimum 3 year permanent residency from what I can tell. And there are a lot of steps to take.
Culture and language really are big things, and I think it's hard to figure out if a country is really livable without spending a good amount of time there first. I'd recommend thinking carefully about this :)

To be fair, if you're retired then you have time to learn the language, and you've got easier opportunities to get to know the local culture too - whereas many people I work with are too busy working to have time to learn the language on top of it. But if you're ERE'd you're also unlikely to be able to get a Visa, so inevitably you're going to have to work for a bit.

There are of course many English-only expat communities all over the place, but to me it seems a bit odd to not want to integrate, and a lot of the expat communities tend to have values diametrically opposed to ERE. But I'm as biased as anyone else when it comes to this topic.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:31 pm
by Ego
Got notice today that Mrs. Ego has an appointment at the consulate next month for the swearing-in ceremony.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2019 1:57 am
by Seppia
Fantastic news, big congrats to her!

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2019 7:40 am
by chenda
@ego - cool, what country ?

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2019 9:53 am
by fiby41
I recon it was Italy.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2019 7:49 pm
by Ego
@seppia, Grazie. We'll believe it when it actually happens.

@chenda, Italy!

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 3:23 pm
by Ego
Well, it's official. Mrs. Ego is now an Italian citizen.

There were only three people being sworn in. The numbers have declined significantly since the new law which took effect last year requiring those obtaining citizenship by marriage to provide a certificate of fluency in Italian. We applied before the requirement. Mrs. Ego is something of a polyglot and actually wanted to see if she could use duolingo to pass the test, but in the end didn't have to do so.

Despite the few participants, the Counselor who is the head of the diplomatic mission, pulled out all the stops. He dressed in his full regalia with red, white and green sash and gave a rather emotional speech welcoming the new citizens and embracing them in their new Italian culture. I can't speak for everyone, but my eyes were not dry.

It took 7 1/2 years, start to finish, to get both of our citizenships and was very much worth the effort.

We've got too many parties in the next few weeks so we will delay La Dolce Vita party until spring when she gets her passport.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 3:31 pm
by chenda
Congratulations! All I got was a letter in the post when I became Irish 😆

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 1:36 am
by guitarplayer
I think that DW and I might be applying for British passports in 2021. The usual 'moved here and worked for x years' route. Will update on how it goes.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2021 8:39 am
by johnsmith84730
Anyone who is planning on have future children - probably worth perusing this page:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Jus_soli

It might sound crazy, but if you can get a 90-day visa or longer, it's a real option to give birth in a foreign country, and comes with a potentially invaluable 'prize' of instant citizenship for your child, all of their future descendants and potentially for you and the rest of the family if you want to stay in the country longer.

There are some interesting options here, including western 'A-grade' countries. Also, some allow expedited application for citizenship for the rest of the family. I've heard Brazil for example allows this after just 1 year, if you've given birth to a child there.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2021 11:18 am
by white belt
I used to be interested in getting a 2nd passport, but now I’m not so certain. I wouldn’t even be able to do it for at least another 5 years due to job requirements anyway. I understand that there are lots of different risks and a 2nd passport serves as a hedge against some risks, but it also has it’s own risks.

My first issue is that I don’t really see a country in the world that is going to fare better against climate change than the USA (except maybe Canada). The USA has low population density, large natural resources, and a powerful military to protect said resources. Certainly there are issues of wealth inequality and social unrest, but those issues also exist in almost the entire world because central bankers have been acting in lockstep.

A second issue is that it is hard to predict how the requirements of citizenship might change in the future. For example, some countries may start taxing citizens abroad like the USA does as government budgets get tight. Other countries may institute or change military conscription requirements, especially as the nature of warfare changes which means many more technical workers and support people are needed than front line soldiers. Natural resource wars are only going to become more common.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2021 5:58 pm
by chenda
@whitebelt - Was there a particular reason why you were considering one, or just as a general 'insurance' policy ? I would agree it's probably not worth doing unless there are clear benefits to you.

I know of a Brazilian girl who was working in Germany and had issues with getting a long term residency, but was able to become Lithuanian (so EU) as her grandmother has been born there back in the 1930s (though it required the help of a Lithuanian lawyer and lots of research as apparently a lot of records were destroyed in the war)

Similarly I believe there are a lot of people in Spain from Spanish America who are there as Italian citizens, as lots of Italians historically migrated to South America and Italy has very permissive policy in granting citizenship via ancestry.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2021 8:20 pm
by white belt
@Chenda

Not a particular reason, more to just add another layer of resiliency. I don’t like all my eggs in one basket. I’ve also met people who escaped from Venezuela before the collapse so I like the idea of another lever I can pull in a SHTF scenario. However, I don’t think the US is going the way of Venezuela for at least a few more decades. The thing about the USA is that it is so large and geographically diverse, that in most situations one can just drive away to another part of the country to avoid natural disasters, social unrest, restrictive government lockdowns, etc.

I’m aware this may come of us arrogant because I’m an American talking about how great the USA is, but I have also lived in China for an extended period with Mandarain fluency at a B2 level, so I’m no stranger to cultural differences (back in the quaint Obama years when US/China relations were much more cordial).

Edit: I also look at a lot of things from a military perspective and most of Europe does not appeal to me since it can’t even provide for its own defense (NATO falls apart without the US and most member countries don’t even meet their agreed to defense spending levels). I foresee conscription to become much more common in EU nations if/when the USA decides defending Europe is too much of a liability.

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 4:29 am
by chenda
white belt wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 8:20 pm
I foresee conscription to become much more common in EU nations if/when the USA decides defending Europe is too much of a liability.
Sweden re-introduced conscription in 2017 for both men and women. Apart from Ireland and a few micro nations, all the neutral non-NATO countries in Europe have a form of national service (Finland, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland) Sweden conscripting women really surprised me.

From Wikipedia:
In 2017, the Swedish government decided to reactivate military conscription, referencing increased threats to national security...Beginning in 2018, over 4,000 women and men were called up for service. In early 2019, after fines had been received by dozens of young people for draft evasion, the first jail sentences since the return of conscription were handed out to those refusing to carry out their military service.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Sweden

Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 10:03 am
by jacob
chenda wrote:
Sat Feb 27, 2021 4:29 am
Sweden re-introduced conscription in 2017 for both men and women. Apart from Ireland and a few micro nations, all the neutral non-NATO countries in Europe have a form of national service (Finland, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland) Sweden conscripting women really surprised me.
Sweden is just about the most woke country in the world so not that surprising :) Here's how they see it on the other side of the "belt", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscript ... #Criticism ... a resolution might very well be in conscripting women as well (women have the right but not the duty to serve).

Would also note that US has the Selective Service System which includes all males of a certain age range in the country, even non-citizens, as in, people temporarily in the US on visas. In particular, politicians often talk about whether some kind of national service wouldn't be a good thing.

But yes, those loyalty declarations that many swear on w/o seemingly giving it a second thought might some day mean something. E.g. what to do if one of your passports declare war on the other passport? I consider it highly likely that ultimately "the lunch ain't free" and that rights also come with duties. Countries making it easy to obtain citizenship want something, if nothing else, a hefty application fee.