dual citizenship

[Sveta & Ron 23]

as I understand ukraine does not allow dual citizenship but if I recall america does? my question is if/when sveta choose to apply for american citizenship how would ukraine know?

[TBoneTX 45,288]

*** Thread moved from U.S. Citizenship forum to Russia/Ukraine/Belarus regional subforum -- topic involves (foreign) country-specific answers. ***

[NickD 202]

If my wife would have never visited her home country with her place of birth written on her US passport, nobody would have known. But wanted to visit her family. Any other country would have not been a problem.

And yes, it is dual citizenship, have to maintain that if you are required to maintain that home country passport just to visit. DOS insist on calling it dual naturalization, a bunch of hypocrits in my opinion.

Every country has a different agreement with the USA, have to visit that DOS site and look up your country to learn about the agreements. With some countries, that changes every five minutes.

[vbtwo 54]

as I understand ukraine does not allow dual citizenship but if I recall america does? my question is if/when sveta choose to apply for american citizenship how would ukraine know?

They will never know. If you want you can continue going to Ukraine with the Ukrainian passport and maintain that (make sure to show your US passport when checking in on the flight back so they let you check in, but do not show it to passport control in Ukraine).

If you want, you can also go with the US passport and they will not care.

Maintaining your Ukrainian passport will have some benefits like allowing you to visit Russia without a visa.

[masha2012 2]

but once you are us citizen and your Ukrainian passport valid only 10 yrs after it expires , Ukrainian embassy in USA will not renew your ukrainian passport!! so basicly after that you are nobody to ukraine!!

[Amy_and_Victor 159]

but once you are us citizen and your Ukrainian passport valid only 10 yrs after it expires , Ukrainian embassy in USA will not renew your ukrainian passport!! so basicly after that you are nobody to ukraine!!

Expired passport doesn't mean that country of your citizenship doesn't know know you anymore, it's just expired document like expired driver license.

[newacct 688]

There's what it is by law, and then there's what they know.

• What it is by law: If Ukrainian law says that you lose Ukrainian citizenship by voluntairly applying and getting another citizenship, then from the perspective of law you lose it automatically the moment you naturalize in the U.S.
• What they know: Sure, they might not know right away, or ever. And it may not matter. But if she ever wants to go to Ukraine, then, technically, she needs to go apply for a Ukrainian visa, since she's not a Ukrainian citizen anymore. Sure, she might be able to pretend that she still is a Ukrainian citizen and go using her existing Ukrainian passport, but do you really want to lie to the government?

They might find out in many ways. For example:

1. If she tries to renew her Ukrainian passport in the U.S., they might ask her for documentation for her legal status in the U.S., and of course the only things she has are her U.S. passport and Certificate of Naturalization.
2. If she goes to Ukraine and tries to come back to the U.S., Ukrainian exit controls might ask how she plans to enter the U.S., since she does not have a U.S. visa or green card and Ukrainian citizens do not have visa waiver access to the U.S.

Edited June 21, 2013 by newacct

[Neonred 3,562]

Expired passport doesn't mean that country of your citizenship doesn't know know you anymore, it's just expired document like expired driver license.

In our case it did. Wife's passport expired and the Russian embassy says they cannot verify she is a Russian citizen now. Passport was expired by two weeks. We sent them the documents and fees they asked for to verify her citizenship, and still they say they cannot verify.

As of now she has decided she has no reason to return to Russia and is in no hurry to pursue this.

[VanessaTony 3,567]

as I understand ukraine does not allow dual citizenship but if I recall america does? my question is if/when sveta choose to apply for american citizenship how would ukraine know?

So basically you want to know how to get around breaking the law in her country?

I suggest you don't risk it. I recall the story about the Chinese citizen who became a USC (same issue as Ukraine, lost citizenship on becoming USC) and went to visit China. For some reason that I don't remember (I'm trying to find the story) they found the US passport. They then jailed this person for using false documents (the now void Chinese passport). I will continue trying to find the story.

[William33 110]

OP,

Discussing methods to circumvent any governmental immigration law is a violation of Visa Journey Terms of Service (TOS). This thread is closed to violation of VJ Terms of Service. Do not restart another thread with this topic.

VJ Moderation Team