Obtaining a Second Passport

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Freedom_2018
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Freedom_2018 »

Obtaining a second passport is/was high on my list too.

However off late I have been wondering as to the possible downsides of having 2 or more passports. Besides creating tax and some other issues, is it possible that having multiple passports can be a liability? As in if I get into trouble overseas, is each country the passport I hold of likely to only have a minimal investment in helping me, expecting the other countries to do it. aka their problem not mine.

Would it be better to just have my US citizenship (creates no conflict of loyalty in a possibly fracturing world) and get permanent residence or long term visa type solution.

I was pretty sold on trying to get multiple passports but am rethinking that a bit now.

Solvent
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Solvent »

Well I'd not necessarily say it's a huge risk, but in today's febrile political environment governments are becoming more prone to 'removing' people's citizenship. But they tend (at the moment) to only consider doing this to those whom they are assured will not end up stateless.

So, if you have two passports, but then piss off someone powerful in government, perhaps your 'primary' citizenship would be retracted. This wouldn't happen if you just had the sole citizenship, because then you'd end up stateless, and it's a bad look if a government is going around rendering people stateless.

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Seppia
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Seppia »

Ego wrote:
Mon Mar 18, 2019 10:39 am
The government responded with a new law that took effect back in September on the 730th of Mrs. Ego's application. To the day. It doubled the time limitation from 2 years to 4 years.
Oh that sucks, sorry to hear.
It seems as everything in Italy MUST take a long time, from buses to meals to citizencip processing :lol:
Time goes by fast, hang in there and hit me up if you come anywhere north or northeast

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Ego
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Ego »

@Seppia, people wait much longer and jump through far more difficult hoops to become US citizens. Grand scheme of things, two more years is nothing. We got a copy of our official marriage certificate from our commune so we can work and stay as long as we'd like right now. Some day I'd like to give it a try. Perhaps our paths will cross this summer. I'd enjoy that. Thanks!

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fiby41
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by fiby41 »

Russia and Ukraine started offering fast tracked visas to each other's citizens. Don't remember who started the visa wars first, but it's important news considering these are the African countries with nominal per capita GDP higher than Ukraine's
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Ego
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Ego »

A few weeks ago I met with the offspring of my great-grandmother's first daughter who was left behind in Ukraine when my great-grandmother emigrated to the US just weeks before the outbreak of WWI. It felt a little like the results of an A/B test showing what life would have been like if not for the fact that she found a way out.

My grandmother's sister lived in a village that was the crossroads of nearly every major war to hit Europe in the past hundred years. The grandparents who cared for her died during World War I. She was taken in by an unkind uncle and lived in an independent Ukraine for a year before Poland invaded. Then the Bolsheviks invaded. Under the Bolsheviks they experienced the Holodomor famine where between 7-10 million Ukrainians died. Then WWII. After WWII she lived under the Soviet Union but since her husband fought for independence with the Poles he was unable to return to the village. She was left with daughters. Unthinkably hard life.

I spent a week digging through the archives to get official copies of all of the birth, baptism, marriage and death records I could find for the family. They thought it was strange that I was trying to figure out if I could get a Ukrainian passport.

Under current law, I cannot. But I've got the records. Perhaps some day they will change the law and I will be ready to apply.

jacob
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by jacob »

https://www.amazon.com/dp/069117458X/ is a particular interesting story of some who were constantly run over by historic developments. East Germany took it harder. It really depends on when and where one was born. Being born in 1920 in what later became East Germany was the worst.

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Bankai
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Bankai »

jacob wrote:
Thu Jul 25, 2019 3:41 pm
Being born in 1920 in what later became East Germany was the worst.
In what sense? Chance of dying over the next 25 years was substantially higher in several other countries in Europe. Life after 1945, although worse than in West Germany, was still incomparably better than in the East.

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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by jacob »

In the sense of leading and having a very complicated lifespan with lots of "opportunities" to make a bad mistake. I recommend the book.

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Ego
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Ego »

Lately I've been thinking a lot about mistakes of commission vs mistakes of omission and how they can echo through history.

After arriving in the US from Ukraine my great-grandmother sent money to her brother for passage to America on two occasions. Rather than emigrate, he kept the money, used it to buy property and kept her daughter as a de facto slave. Not a nice guy. Within months that property was confiscated by the Bolsheviks/Soviets and they were all trapped.

Even back then there were systems in place where newly arrived immigrants could deposit money in an account and then the earmarked funds could be used by relatives in the homeland for passage on Red Star Line ships. She arrived on a Red Star Line ship herself so presumably she knew about these accounts, yet she chose to send the money to him directly. A crucial mistake. No one knows why she made it.

----

Back in the late 1920s Mrs. Ego's great-aunt met and married a French mining engineer who was in charge of a mine in Southern Mexico. They emigrated to France, lived here in Paris and had two children before the war. She was proud of her Mexican heritage and steadfastly refused to ever relinquish her Mexican passport. Despite that she never acquired Mexican passports for her children even though it would have been easy for her to do so before the war. Why? I always wanted to ask her but never had the guts to do so. She was a formidable character. I can imagine she believed their French passports were their ticket to the world and Mexican passports useless in comparison.

When the Nazis rolled into town and set up shop, they looked at her passport and gave her permission to leave. Her husband and children with only their French passports were forced to remain. She stayed with them and experienced the brutality of the war first hand.

------

If anyone here has stories about how a second passport helped (or lack of one hurt) their family/friends/whoever, please share them in this thread.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Well, obvious example of dual citizenship on some level being harmful would be my "ex" being torn between Iranian and American identity. He chose to self-identify as being of Persian heritage. One interesting thing that happened is that because Iran had such a huge population bulge after he immigrated, the language itself changed while he was away. He didn't understand the new slang his younger relatives were using. Also, his ex-wife insisted that their daughters' passports be locked in a safety deposit box until they turned 18 on off chance he might take them back to Iran where she would have little ability to regain custody, so in the meanwhile the girls couldn't even cross the river to Canada.

I was thinking that on a smaller scale this is kind of equivalent to considering how many households there are to which you hold key or "walk right in and raid the fridge" established entrance rights. The funny thing is that since one of my best friends has tons of money, it almost seems like a waste of energy for me to come up with a money solution to any sort of emergency situation. Like why waste money on an electric pickle jar opener if you got a teenage boy in the house?

zocab
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by zocab »

There's one interesting (and honestly cute) thing I keep seeing: the issue of taxation.

It's worth pointing out that citizenship-based taxation isn't a thing. The US and Eritrea are the 2 exceptions that prove the rule. You aren't going to have issues as e.g. a Bulgarian-Canadian dual citizen living in any third country because the countries of citizenship don't care about your taxes (modulo those weird cases where someone travels around the world with long periods in multiple countries and ends up with multiple tax residencies etc.)

More interesting is travel issues: quite a few countries require you to cross their border with a local passport if you're a citizen. So you do need to make sure you keep your documents up to date. In some cases you can't travel anywhere nearby anyway (e.g. US and Canada where you need either an ETA or ESTA or Visa to get on a flight if you're not a citizen - and they have some pretty good databases, and from what I can remember ETA/ESTA will block citizens, and if you try to get a Visa the embassy will tell you to get a new passport instead - although you can still travel to a land border without those, which will just result in annoyed border agents). In other cases it's technically not legal but barely enforced, e.g. Poland requires polish citizens to use polish ID at the border. But they probably won't notice if you are German+Polish and show German ID.

Some countries are indeed particular about allowing only one citizenship though. That's something to watch out for, as it has real drawbacks to acquire such a citizenship.

zocab
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by zocab »

Solvent wrote:
Mon Mar 18, 2019 2:31 pm
This wouldn't happen if you just had the sole citizenship, because then you'd end up stateless, and it's a bad look if a government is going around rendering people stateless.
It's a bad look, but countries have done it. The US and the UK are the main examples I know of, those 2 countries don't really care about their reputation much though.

From what I can remember there is the - unproven - suspected Nazi collaborator whom the US stripped of citizenship approx 50 years after the fact (although there may be many more). And the wife of a IS fighter whom the UK stripped of citizenship (where the government claimed she would be eligible for Dutch citizenship, but didn't actually possess it). Those are odd cases, but still completely immoral if you ask me.

George the original one
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by George the original one »

Ego wrote:
Fri Jul 26, 2019 10:12 am
If anyone here has stories about how a second passport helped (or lack of one hurt) their family/friends/whoever, please share them in this thread.
I couldn't come up with any info that passports were used by my ancestors, so I had a look at Wikipedia:
Wikipedia wrote:In the later part of the nineteenth century and up to World War I, passports were not required, on the whole, for travel within Europe, and crossing a border was a relatively straightforward procedure. Consequently, comparatively few people held passports.

During World War I, European governments introduced border passport requirements for security reasons, and to control the emigration of people with useful skills. These controls remained in place after the war, becoming a standard, though controversial, procedure. British tourists of the 1920s complained, especially about attached photographs and physical descriptions, which they considered led to a "nasty dehumanization".
Thus the idea of a second passport in the current sense is a fairly new one. Yes, passports were used before the nineteenth century and, by name, go back to the middle ages. But it seems WWI really threw a monkey wrench in the freedom of movement that was available in the nineteenth century and we've moved back to serfdoms. Since the UN, an organization with roots in WWI, is supporting the passport conventions, one might take a flight of fancy and say they're up to no good... but individual countries are free to choose whether passports, visas, etc are required, so that is where one should look to effect change.

chenda
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by chenda »

Ego wrote:
Fri Jul 26, 2019 10:12 am
I can imagine she believed their French passports were their ticket to the world and Mexican passports useless in comparison.
The Mexican connection reminds me of Charlie de Beistegui, born in Paris to wealthy Mexican parents and spent the second world war building follies and whimsical buildings on his luxury estate outside Paris. The occupying Nazi's left him alone as a neutral citizen. He was also in possession of a diplomatic passport which presumably helped his building ventures, although I do wonder if he occasionally invited a few German officer's around for tea and cake. I believe citizens of neutral countries could travel around occupied Europe, I don't know how common or easy it was, but it certainly happened.
Ego wrote:
Fri Jul 26, 2019 10:12 am
If anyone here has stories about how a second passport helped (or lack of one hurt) their family/friends/whoever, please share them in this thread.
Not specifically passports, but see the Irish Republic's persecution of its own citizens who volunteered to join the British Army during the second world war. My grandmother was one of them, and whilst she never had any problems some of the men who fought Nazi Germany were considered deserters of neutral Ireland. They were recently granted a pardon, but of course its posthumous for most.

zocab
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by zocab »

One advantage of being a dual citizen of certain countries: the ability to potentially skip military service.

Switzerland has compulsory military service for male citizens. But: they also have treaties with certain countries covering military service for dual-citizens, which allows some dual citizens to opt to serve in one country, and thus be considered having fulfilled requirements in both countries. Generally you only need to serve in the country you live in, but these agreements help ensure that you don't need to serve again if you move from country A to country B - and they also give you the choice to serve in the country you don't live in if you feel closer to that country or for any reason.

For dual-citizens not covered by treaties: the Swiss army tends to say no to people who have served in a foreign military - but in that case you aren't considered to have fulfilled the service requirements, so you pay a replacement tax for a number of years.

France is one of those countries that Switzerland has an agreement with. France scrapped their service some time ago. A French-Swiss dual citizen living in Switzerland can use the treaty to choose to serve in France. They'll never actually have to serve in France, but they are still counted as having fulfilled the Swiss requirements due to the treaty. This has actually been confirmed by a Swiss court. (I'm hoping that this loophole will eventually be fixed, but it's also not a huge deal given the small number of such citizens.)


But for other combinations, military service can result in major inconvenience: a Swiss-Egyptian dual citizen went to visit relatives in Egypt, and was barred from leaving due to not fulfilling Egyptian documentation requirements. Eventually he "escaped" because of an inobservant border agent. Curiously, he didn't even have an Egyptian passport, but was considered Egyptian by descent - but no one enforced things until one eagle eyed Egyptian border agent asked him about Egyptian documentation when he was leaving the country... He then found out that not only was he considered Egyptian, he'd have to serve in the military.

This story is more of warning to people of mixed descent, who are well advised to figure out what citizenships they actually have and what the obligations thereof are.

henrik
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by henrik »

@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?

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Jean
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Jean »

They might escape mobilisation, but they'll never escape shame.

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Viktor K
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Viktor K »

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.

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Bankai
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Re: Obtaining a Second Passport

Post by Bankai »

Jean wrote:
Sat Aug 10, 2019 7:05 pm
They might escape mobilisation, but they'll never escape shame.
Many libertarians would disagree. Probably some communists as well.

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