> Prof. Peter J. Spiro of Temple University Law School in Philadelphia says while US citizenship remains a valuable status, it’s no longer good enough as a standalone. “In coming years, more Americans will be acquiring additional citizenships in whatever way they can. Multiple citizenship is being normalized in American society. While it may be a bit of an exaggeration, as one social media poster recently put it, “dual citizenship is the new American dream”.
What nonsense is this? It's really frickin' hard for a normal person to acquire additional citizenships, and I think the easy "citizenship by decent" options that some Americans had access to are closing. There's no way the requisite long foreign residencies is becoming "normalized" in American society.
Maybe Prof. Peter J. Spiro only hangs out with very rich people who can buy some citizenships through investment, but if he does he should refrain on commenting on what's "normalized" because he needs to touch grass.
> Maybe Prof. Peter J. Spiro only hangs out with very rich people who can buy some citizenships
That's what it sounds like to my ears. Plus, according to Wikipedia, anyway, he is a leading expert on dual citizenship. I suspect he lives in fairly rarified air and also that this is a special interest of his, so people who don't have the means required to have additional citizenships aren't really much on his radar.
That said, people don't necessarily have to be wealthy to do it (although I think they have to not be poor). A friend did it by living and working (in a field in demand) for enough decades in the country that he became eligible to apply for citizenship. He's nowhere near wealthy, but squarely middle class.
No, this is right. I know a German immigration lawyer whose work has quadrupled. There are lots of ways to get dual citizenship. Actually European countries are very excited about the reverse brain drain.
There used to be a bit of a taboo against having multiple citizenships. Now somebody like Travis Kalanick of Uber fame can pick up Saudi (!) citizenship and nobody bats an eye.
I don't know Travis, and I don't want Saudi "citizenship" (a rather dubious term when applied to a polity that is neither a city nor a republic), but I can think of some possible reasons:
• Going places that have visa-free travel for Saudis but not for US citizens.
• Evading other forms of discrimination against US citizens, for example, difficulty in opening Swiss bank accounts.
• Consular help from the Saudi consulate in third countries that are neither the US nor Saudi Arabia. Right now it's Saudi embassies rather than US embassies that murder journalists who criticize the head of state, but that could reverse within Travis's lifetime.
• Owning Saudi land and businesses. Many countries have restrictions on land ownership by non-citizens, and Saudi Arabia (one of the world's richest countries in solar resources) is one of them, although it isn't completely prohibited in all cases. Similarly for starting businesses.
• Residency options in third countries. Even today, there are probably countries where Saudi citizens can live more easily than US citizens; if I had to guess, I'd guess Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. Morocco is famous, among other things, for being where Roland Barthes lived in order to have sex with a lot of young boys. I wouldn't venture to suggest that Travis is looking for that, but all three countries also have vast solar resources.
• Living in Saudi Arabia itself has its appeals. The Line project is not someplace I'd want to live, even if a significant fraction of it does get built (Arcosanti is more my speed) but it would at least be interesting to see.
> So while prevalence of dual citizenship is around 0.3% to 1.5% of population [3], that represnts 0.8% to 4% of passport holders.
What proportion of the people with dual citizenship are naturalized citizens? I'd expect it's well north of 50%. And that's an entirely different thing than the "Americans will be acquiring additional citizenships in whatever way they can" we're discussing here.
I don't know! I do know that before ~2007 a passport wasn't needed to travel within North America, and that some of the growth since then is because of the relatively new passport requirement ("Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative").
What nonsense is this? It's really frickin' hard for a normal person to acquire additional citizenships, and I think the easy "citizenship by decent" options that some Americans had access to are closing. There's no way the requisite long foreign residencies is becoming "normalized" in American society.
Maybe Prof. Peter J. Spiro only hangs out with very rich people who can buy some citizenships through investment, but if he does he should refrain on commenting on what's "normalized" because he needs to touch grass.