Maintaining a dual citizenship??

[USnoiva 0]

I am having an argument with my mother about something.

A man she works with is a dual citizen of France and USA. (USA naturalized, French birth)

He said to her that when he retires in 10 years, he will live in France where he has property.

But, in order to maintain his naturalized US citizenship he will need to enter the US 1 time per year or lose it.

This man is supposedly highly educated and should know the process.

Is this true? I didn't think this is true. Could there be confusion somewhere?

[Gaby&Talbert 1]

I thought the requirement to return to the US was only for LPR?

[Mononoke28 135]

Not true. My mom is a US citizen by naturalization and she lived in Colombia for 2 years straight and came back without a problem.

Diana

[YuAndDan 153]

Once naturalized, a person is a US Citizen for LIFE, the US government cannot revoke citizenship unless it is discovered that mis=representation was involved in getting visa or naturalization.

Your mother must be thinking about green-card.

Edited January 28, 2008 by YuAndDan

[chispas 0]

My mother is a naturalized US citizen and has lived out of the country for over ten years now. All she has to do is file her taxes every year and that is it. She was not able to receive Social Security benefits for one reason or another, but that doesn't seem to bother her.

[lucyrich 20]

See the Dual Citizenship FAQ for lots of detailed info on this and other aspects of dual citizenship.

Many decades ago, a naturalized citizen could lose citizenship by living abroad for an extended period of time, but that hasn't been the case since 1964.

From the Dual Citizenship FAQ:

Section 349 of the INA [8 USC § 1481] specifies several conditions under which US citizenship may be lost. These include:

* becoming a naturalized citizen of another country, or declaring allegiance to another country, after reaching age 18;

* serving as an officer in a foreign country's military service, or serving in the armed forces of a country which is engaged in hostilities against the US;

* working for a foreign government (e.g., in political office or as a civil servant);

* formally renouncing one's US citizenship before duly authorized US officials; or

* committing treason against, or attempting or conspiring to overthrow the government of, the US.

The primary effect of recent developments in the US regarding dual citizenship has been to add the requirement that loss of citizenship can only result when the person in question intended to give up his citizenship. At one time, the mere performance of the above (or certain other) acts was enough to cause loss of US citizenship; however, the Supreme Court overturned this concept in the Afroyim and Terrazas cases, and Congress amended the law in 1986 to require that loss of citizenship would result only when a potentially "expatriating" (citizenship-losing) action was performed voluntarily and "with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality".

On 16 April 1990, the State Department adopted a new policy on dual citizenship, under which US citizens who perform one of the potentially expatriating acts listed above are normally presumed not to have done so with intent to give up US citizenship. Thus, the overwhelming majority of loss-of-citizenship cases nowadays will involve people who have explicitly indicated to US consular officials that they want to give up their US citizenship.

In other words, once naturalized, you can only relinquish citizenship by doing one of the above listed things voluntarily and with the intention of relinquishing US Nationality. You can't lose your naturalized citizenship unless you want to, and they assume you didn't want to unless you really indicate otherwise.

The above assumes the naturalization was not fraudulent. If the naturalization was done by fraud, they can retroactively revoke the naturalization.