The ME one helps in Middle East for sure. But also helps with Russia, Ukraine and old Soviet countries. It also helps with Japan and South Korea. For the rest I use European Union passport. EU passport is stronger than US passport overall.
I wonder if the different passports makes it harder to track peopleās travel across borders from a safety/security standpoint? Does anyone know enough about the process to opine?
At least for my mom, the why of why she has 3 citizenships is because thatās how she was born and has never done anything about it. She only has an American passport. Her birth certificate is Spanish but she has an American one too. It did make some things complicated before she rediscovered her Spanish birth certificate since the American one was a later duplication.
@doschicos there has been chatter in recent years that the state department is thinking of requiring those leaving the US to leave and re-enter on the same passport for tracking reasons. They couldnāt, of course, require you to use the US passport between two other countries, but they want to scan the passport leaving (and have that passport on the airline ticket) and then use the same one when returning.
My daughter just returned from a semester in England. She had no trouble checking in for her return flight because Iād purchased it as a round trip ticket. Two of her travelmates couldnāt check in online because they had purchased tickets once they were overseas, and their passport info wasnāt entered. Center seats for them!
Doesnāt impact the ROC(Taiwan)'s immigration/draft boardās ability to detect which male dual citizens of conscription age(18-late 30s) havenāt completed their military service and if overseas, overstayed their overseas Chinese draft exemption VISA more than 2 times.
This including some who werenāt born there, but whose parents registered their births in the domestic household registry.
Knew of several cases of ROC dual nationals who ended up getting caught by their conscription boards and immediately conscripted despite their only using their foreign passports to enter/leave the ROC.
I have no problem with that actually, @cobrat. If you are going to call yourself a citizen of a country, follow its rules and embrace the requirements. That means doing military service if it is required. You shouldnāt be able to reap any benefits without compliance.
Forgot to mention that they had no issues identifying who were dual nationals vs foreign citizens. For instance, when I went there on my US passport as a late teen, there was no issue as they knew I wasnāt a dual national.
However, someone else who was either born in the ROC or were born abroad and given citizenship through parentsā citizenship and having their birth registered within a short period who attempted to do the same has a substantial risk of getting arrested during/on a departing plane for doing the same if they were males of draft age and hadnāt completed their mandatory service obligation.
It surprised many of those dual-nationals that the ROC immigration/draft boards knew who they were and their obligatory military service status despite the fact they only used the passports of the other country, left the ROC passport at home, and changed their names when they were naturalized or were registered by their parents not too long after birth under their Chinese names which werenāt used on the other passport.
My husband and daughters have three (not the same ones, actually). I have two.
I didnāt know about the US Citizenship Through Parents rules. I doubt my second daughter will be able to pass US citizenship to her children. So interesting. I had never thought of it. My first daughter will want to live there, go to college or join the military, so sheāll most likely be able to, but my second daughter has no interest in the US, though she was the one born there.
[ quote] multiple citizenship provides no practical value if you have U.S. citizenship , unless you move to another country and denounce your US citizenship for tax purposes.(removing a citizenship) and in fact having more than one citizenship can lead to many problems in many countries, especially for minors with multiple citizenship. some folks see it as a status symbolā¦makes you more wordy or somethingā¦but from a practical stand point it has no value. [ /quote]
One of my husbandās citizenships has been extremely valuable to him in his professional life. It gives him an edge. It also allows him to travel w/out visa to a vast number of countries that he is involved with in his work. It has also been invaluable to him when travelling in certain countries where the authorities might like to rough him up in order to deter him from working in their country: He just flashes that passport and theyāre buddies.
My eldest daughter has several career-oriented opportunities open to her thanks to one of her citizenships. Free training in one of her areas of interest, if she qualifies, where in other countries it would cost over $60,000. Her other citizenship opens up extremely inexpensive (under 2000/year) university tuition in a variety of countries, including Scotland, Germany, Ireland and even Canada (Quebec) ā and thatās not including two of her citizenship countries.
Our citizenships allow us to live and work in the 28 (soon 29) countries of the EU + 2 others (or 3 if you count the US)! How can that not be of value?
Here are the rules of passing US citizenship to oneās kids:
https://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through-parents
As a follow-up to my comment # 37 on this thread (see http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20590833/#Comment_20590833), I received the following good news yesterday from the German Consulate in New York City:
My son and I submitted our applications for restored German citizenship (and EU citizenship) together, 17 months ago, and he received the same news yesterday as well.
Iām very pleased, especially for my son, since he will now have the ability to travel, study, work, and/or live anywhere he wants to in the EU, without restriction. Even for me, though, itās good to know that if things ever become completely impossible for me here, I have a place to go. And to know that even if I never find another job, I wonāt ever have to worry that Iāll be in the position of being unable to afford medical care. So the meaning of this for me may be primarily symbolic, as a small measure of restitution for what the Nazis took from, and did to, my mother and her family ā depriving them of far more than citizenship ā but it isnāt entirely so.
For my son, on the other hand, I think it represents the opening of an entirely new world of opportunity for him. After all, being an art historian is a great deal more portable internationally than being a lawyer! Especially for someone with his language skills, which clearly must have skipped a generation. (My mother was fluent in three languages, proficient in another, and still had a good reading knowledge of Latin when I was a child. Me, not so much ā I can still sort of read French, even though I havenāt studied it in 45 years, but thatās about it!)
Iām sure Iāll have mixed feelings at the actual naturalization ceremony, though. It would be impossible not to. Itās not as if Iāll be relinquishing my U.S. citizenship, of course, but realizing that Iām also a German citizen will be an unavoidably strange experience ā even though my mother and her ancestors lived in German-speaking lands for at least 1,000 years until the Nazi era.
Congratulations @DonnaL !
Congratulations Donna. My kids and I are also EU citizens on top of our USA citizenship. College will eventually take care of itself but having the ability to look for a job in Europe at some point in their careers will be awesome.
The best citizenships combination is USA and Taiwan(ROC). You can have almost free healthcare(less than $100US/mo) insurance with a Taiwanese citizenship. The island has the US equivalent hospital and medical care system with very little cost, it is a government sponsored system offer to all citizens. A lot of my friends take a flight to see doctors in TW, and purchase minimum health/medical insurance in the US for emergency.
They also have very high standard education system that is 1/10 of the cost in US, except you have to know Chinese well.
Some possible caveats:
The ROC educational system is much more competitive from an early age and if oneās not competitive for college-track high schools by the end of middle school, youāre likely to have greater difficulties getting into a university later unless you/your family are well-off enough to send kids abroad to finish their educations.
Even if you make it into a university, your national college entrance exam score not only determines what college youāre admitted to, but also what major/department. Score too low and you may end up in a department thatās not only undesirableā¦but also ill-suited to oneās talents (Chinese language and lit was the least popular major many low-scorers ended up in back in my parentsā undergrad years in the 50s and early '60s).
All males have a military service obligation which means once they reach the age of 16 or so, thereās serious restrictions on them being allowed to travel outside ROC controlled territories unless theyāve received a waiver(for some educational purposes) or completed that obligation.
If youāre overseas Chinese and you overstay your Overseas Chinese visa more than 3 times, youāll be immediately liable to be drafted to serve your obligation. This happened to a HS classmate because he opted to attend NTU as an engineering major after HS. And since he attended NTU in the mid-late '90s, his obligation was 2 yearsā¦not 14 months as it is currently*.
Granted, Iāve heard from younger ROC relatives and friends that the military training/experience is less onerous than it was for a few same aged friends who had to serve in the '90s and early '00s or much more soā¦back when my father had to complete his obligation in the mid '50s. I am aware that after 2004 or so, one has the option of alternative service(which is longer and still means a year and change where your life/time belongs to the ROC government).
- There's been talk of going to an all-volunteer military and reducing the mandatory obligation to 4 months worth of military training. However, the lack of willing volunteers, budget issues, and the looming threat from a much larger neighbor means the current policies are still in effect as of now.
@donnal awesome!! Congratulations 
^^ I am not promoting some young male overseas to naturalize to ROC. Obviously, the military obligation is one big hinderance, political risk is an even higher hinderance. Overseas ROC citizens can reduce the exposures to the minimum.
As an overseas ROC citizen, you can get into the TW university not going through the normal Entrance Examination. There is an overage of College/Universities in TW, just like US, you need competitive stats for top schools like NTU. And If you were to stay in TW to work upon graduation, the starting salary is very low, less than $10K USD/year, consummated with the low tuition cost.
Nevertheless, as a retired or near retirement person, you can enjoy the benefits of dual citizenship.
Interestingly, what Iāve heard from an older relative and that HS classmate was that they took the same/similar exam, but were held to much lower cutoff scores for given colleges/majors because they were applying as overseas Chinese. Similarly, I heard international students also get a similar ādiscountā regarding cutoff scores.
The HS classmate admitted that with the score he earned on the college entrance exam, if he had applied as a regular ROC citizen who spent K-12 in ROC schools, thereās no way heād have been admitted to NTU to study engineering. His scores were competitive enough for the #2 or #3 university for engineering.
Similarly, an aunt was admitted to NTU to study Foreign Languages and Lit(One of the most competitive majors for admission back in the 50ās and early '60s) with a far lower score than two aunts who were admitted to the same university and department before because she spent her middle and HS years in the US with a great-aunt.
No @cobrat the information you had is about 20-30 years old. Now a days, if you are foreign born or have been overseas for over 8 years, you can apply with GPA/SAT, IB or other scores. NTU, THU and the equivalent are still difficult to get in and only about 10 or 20 programs from all UG in TW are conducted by All English classes, so Knowledge in Chinese is still very important.
There are even 12 NTU school of medicine seats open for overseas applicants, very surprising.
Thanks, romanigypsyeyes!