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Like one famous baby, more claim two lands

Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt is a celebrity American eligible to be a celebrity Namibian. But more and more normal folks find they prefer dual identity.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published June 4, 2006

Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt's parents, actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, are U.S. citizens, so she automatically is a U.S. citizen. And because she was born in the African nation of Namibia, she is eligible for citizenship there as well.

By one estimate, at least 40-million Americans - about 15 percent of the population - have dual, or even multiple, citizenships. Some, like Shiloh, acquire a second one by happenstance of birth. Others get it because one parent is, say, British while the other is American. And millions of immigrants have become naturalized U.S. citizens while legally retaining citizenship in their native countries, be it Mexico, Poland or Pakistan.

Some experts see the trend as a logical, even healthy, result of globalization.

"Citizenship is a matter of identity, and individuals in many cases have important attachments to more than one country,'' says Peter Spiro, a law professor at the University of Georgia. "Plural citizenships have become a way of realizing those attachments.''

For much of its history, though, the United States frowned on dual citizenship, seeing it as a threat to national unity and identity.

"I call it 'civic polygamy' - it's like having two spouses,'' says John Fonte, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a public policy research organization. "If you retain loyalty to another country, you haven't become a complete American.''

Anna Modig, a St. Petersburg graphic artist, says she has shown her loyalty to the United States by living and working here since 1986, when she left her native Sweden to attend the University of Florida. In 2002, she became a U.S. citizen for two main reasons: She wanted to vote and she felt more secure with citizenship than with legal permanent residence.

Modig has also kept her Swedish citizenship and passport. That way she can travel or work anywhere in the European Union and be eligible for Sweden's generous social services should she ever return home to be close to her aging parents.

"I'm part Swede,'' Modig says, "and part American.''

Sweden recently changed its law to allow dual citizenship, joining 150 other nations that accept it at a time when millions leave their native countries for better opportunities.

"Whereas they formerly looked at these individuals as traitors to the homeland, they now look at them as assets,'' Spiro says. "Immigrants and expatriates are a major source of foreign exchange for many countries, so they want to keep their relationship with those citizens.''

As Mexicans began streaming into the United States, sending back billions of dollars a year, Mexico dropped its ban on dual citizenship in 1998. One result: Manuel de la Cruz was elected to the Legislature in the Mexican state of Zacatecas in 2003 even though he was also a U.S. citizen living in Los Angeles.

In another notable case, Chicago baker Renato Turano won election this spring to Parliament in Italy, where he represents the 350,000 Italians living in North and Central America.

Critics say holding elected office in another country makes a mockery of the oath in which naturalized U.S. citizens "absolutely and entirely renounce'' allegiance to any foreign nation. Although that technically bans dual citizenship, U.S. policy has become so permissive that Americans could swear allegiance to a foreign dictator or fight in the army of a hostile nation without fear of losing their U.S. citizenship, one expert notes.

"For me, the missing core of the great immigration debate is the question of assimilation and becoming part of the American community,'' says Stanley Renshon, a political scientist at City University of New York.

"The U.S. policy is essentially laissez-faire. It's got to consider doing much more than it does because otherwise it's like having a forest of trees with no roots.''

That's in sharp contrast to 1812, when the United States went to war over the principle of citizenship. Britain, claiming that "once an Englishman, always an Englishman,'' seized naturalized U.S. citizens from American ships and impressed them into the Royal Navy. That led to a two-year war.

Congress once had the power to legislate how and when Americans could lose their citizenship, such as voting in a foreign election and serving in a foreign government. But the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that Congress had no right to pass a law that could deprive an American of citizenship without his or her consent.

Fonte and others, though, argue that lawmakers still could take steps to discourage dual citizenship, such as fining or imprisoning those who vote in foreign elections.

Though immigrants make up the bulk of those with dual allegiances, they are not the only ones. More and more native-born Americans are said to be applying for a second citizenship, often to obtain passports that let them travel more easily at a time of growing anti-U.S. sentiment.

Among them are Californians Claire and Bill Gray, who run a Web-based business, belizeretire.com, that helps people relocate to the small Central American nation of Belize. Although the couple have lived there since 1989, they only recently applied for Belizean citizenship.

"We had a trip to Europe booked days after 9/11 and everywhere we went, we met terrified Americans,'' says Claire Gray. "Ultimately, my husband said he would prefer having a Belize passport and felt it would be safer in the long run because he's always wanted to travel to places like the Middle East.''

A Belizean passport also allows travel to Cuba, which is off-limits to most Americans because of the trade embargo.

Renshon, the professor, says he understands why an American journalist or humanitarian worker might feel safer going to an unfriendly nation with a different passport. But he has little sympathy for those who seek foreign citizenship solely for expediency.

"If it's too much to ask that you spend another 20 minutes in a passport line, you're telling me something about how much you value your American citizenship.''

Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.

The oath

The Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

Becoming a citizen

nA person may become a U.S. citizen by birth or through naturalization.

nDual nationality means that a person is a citizen of two countries at the same time.

nA person naturalized as a U.S. citizen does not automatically lose citizenship of their country of birth, despite taking an oath of allegiance to the United States.

nU.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another.

nA U.S. citizen may acquire foreign citizenship by marriage.

n"Dual nationals'' owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They must obey the laws of both. Either country has the right to enforce its laws, particularly if the person later travels there.

[Last modified June 4, 2006, 05:13:28]