[Rhodes22-list] Legal: Ben Please Help

Tue Oct 21 18:18:23 EDT 2008

Wow. In my mind, this whole thing was "settled" a long time ago. Now I'm 
curious.

A funny story about this though. When I went to get my marriage license 
back in '79, I took my birth certificate to the county registrar. She 
looked at it, and the conversation with something like this:

She-Is this your birth certificate
Me-Yes ma'm (I was only 22, much more polite at the time)
She-It's in German
Me-Yes ma'am, I was born in Germany
She-But I can't read it.
Me-I'm sorry, but it's the only one I have. It was a German hospital, 
that's what they spoke
She-I can't accept this
Me-Beg pardon?
She-I can't accept this.
Me-What do you mean you can't accept this?
She-I can't accept this. I can't read it.
Me-But ma'am, you can see where it has my name, you can see the word 
Amerikanischer, you can see how the date matches this other form I have 
- Report of Live Birth Abroad. THAT's in English
She-Yes, but the birth certificate is not (I think that being 22 and 
still polite aside, had she said "alleged birth certificate" I might 
have hit her by this time)
Me-Ma'am, this is my birth certificate. It is the only one I have. If I 
ever managed to get another one, it too would be in German, because I 
was born in Germany. The notion of being "born again" is purely a 
metaphor, I can't really do it. So, if you would, please go get your 
supervisor, so I can get my marriage certificate.

She did, and the supervisor looked at her like she was crazy. But it did 
have me frustrated. I worked at a car dealership at that time, and was 
so ticked at the lady that I backed my demo into a pole. Cost me $250 
that I couldn't afford.

Anyway, probably not nearly as interesting as tossing around threats to 
sue, but it DID have something to do with not being able to read what's 
written, so I thought it remotely applicable.

ben wrote:
> I don't know the legal ins and outs, but you can definitely hold more than
> one citizenship.  A neighbor and friend of mine is a citizen of both the
> United States and Great Britain.  She's a Brit by birth, and you know that
> as soon as you talk to her, but she's also an American citizen, holding all
> of the rights that I do, other than that I can be President of the U.S.
> (Well, there are too many naked or otherwise compromising pictures of me out
> there for that to actually happen.  There's a better chance that there's a
> constitutional amendment and she gets elected than me ever holding any
> public office).
>
> My son too holds both Russian and U.S. citizenship.  He has passports from
> both countries.  And if it's allowed with Russians, I feel pretty certain
> that it's allowed with Germans as well.  But laws change, so the "when"
> might have something to do with it.  And maybe rules are different if you
> were born here and chose to attain citizenship of another country.  Not sure
> on that case.
>
> Ben S.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org
> [mailto:rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org] On Behalf Of Herb Parsons
> Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 16:48
> To: The Rhodes 22 Email List
> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Legal: Ben Please Help
>
> I think that the whole "dual citizenship" thing is misunderstood by many.
>
> When I turned 18, I was sent documentation asking me to claim a country 
> for my citizenship (I can't really remember the details, they weren't 
> very important to me at the time). I was born to American parents, both 
> legal adults (at the time, 21 was the age of majority), one of whom was 
> stationed on an American Army base, but I was actually born in a 
> civilian hospital.Seeing as how I left Germany at the ripe old age of 13 
> months, when I was 18 it seemed to make sense to me to claim American as 
> my citizenship (I really wanted to vote in the next election, in '86). I 
> DID toy with the idea, for a few brief moments, of claiming German 
> citizenship, just for the notoriety (I was 18, single, and realized that 
> almost ANY "difference" could get you talking to a girl), but even at 
> that young age, I figured the pitfalls outweighed the benefits (but 
> then, who knows for sure?).
>
> I was then under the impression that one could not have dual citizenship 
> if one of the countries was the US. I've since though, have had several 
> people tell me that they had a similar experience, and others insist 
> that they hold dual citizenship. I've not seen any consistency in the 
> other countries involved, in other words, I couldn't confidently say you 
> CAN hold dual citizenship with the US and Canada, but not with the US 
> and Germany, as I've seen claims both ways.
>
> I'd say that it would be interesting to hear from an immigration lawyer 
> on it sometime.
>
>
> Bill Effros wrote:
>   
>> Ben,
>>
>> My mother was born in NYC in 1917 to Dutch parents with a business in 
>> the United States.  After WWI she went to Holland with her parents, and 
>> enjoyed the benefits of Dutch citizenship.
>>
>> In 1938, before her 21st birthday, her parents arranged for her to 
>> return to the United States to claim her American Citizenship, which she 
>> would otherwise have  lost, owing to her exercise of Dutch Citizenship.  
>> She traveled to the United States on a US Passport, and remained here as 
>> a United States citizen.
>>
>> It was my understanding that she was not eligible to run for President 
>> of the United States because she was a Dutch citizen as a child and had 
>> to reclaim her American citizenship, and thus became a "naturalized" 
>> rather than "native born" citizen.
>>
>> Do I have this wrong?  Is there still a chance for my mother to become 
>> President?
>>
>> Bill Effros
>>
>>
>>
>>
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