Is marriage automatically cancelled for immigration violation? I met my husband in Laos when I was traveling there in 2017. We got married and he came to the U.S. K-1 visa in 2018. He got his temporary green card in 2019, which is good for two years. In the year 2021 things didn’t work out between us, and we separated. I did not file an application for his green card extension, so his green card expired already. Now he’s technically on no visa and no green card. He’s going back to his country. Does this mean our marriage is automatically cancelled? Once he goes back to his country, he can’t come back because of this visa violation.
Marriages are controlled by state law, immigration is governed by federal law. In no state is a marriage automatically &quot;cancelled&quot; for committing a crime, much less for violating an immigration regulation. So you will remain married until you or he changes that.
If the U.S. adds a new territory, are the people currently living there able to become president? No. Or does the territory have to become a state in order for the people to be eligible to become president? Not necessarily. What does &quot;natural-born citizen&quot; mean? The meaning of the natural born citizen clause of the constitution is unclear in many respects, but virtually all scholars agree that a person who was a US citizen at birth, and who has remained a US citizen until present, is a natural-born citizen. There is a small minority of scholars who insist that a US citizen at birth is only a natural-born citizen if they were born in the US (for example, Ted Cruz would not be considered a natural-born citizen). There is an even smaller minority who insist that a person must have at least one US citizen parent in order to be a natural-born citizen. But for all practical purposes, these minority viewpoints are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether someone was a US citizen when they were born. Citizenship of people living in US territories When a US territory is created, the people living there don't automatically become US citizens, and if Congress eventually gives them US citizenship, the canon of presumption against retroactivity applies: a statute should not be read to be retroactive unless there is evidence that it was intended to apply retroactively. That means the people who get US citizenship under the statute don't become natural-born citizens; they're considered to have been automatically naturalized when the statute went into effect. But if there's a statute saying that people born in the territory are US citizens at birth, then people born in the territory after the effective date of that statute are natural-born citizens, since they are citizens at birth. I will use Hawaii as an example. Hawaii became a territory in 1898. Citizenship was granted in 1900. Statehood was not granted until 1959. 8 USC §1405 governs the citizenship of people born in Hawaii: A person born in Hawaii on or after August 12, 1898, and before April 30, 1900, is declared to be a citizen of the United States as of April 30, 1900. A person born in Hawaii on or after April 30, 1900, is a citizen of the United States at birth. A person who was a citizen of the Republic of Hawaii on August 12, 1898, is declared to be a citizen of the United States as of April 30, 1900. So, Hawaiians didn't become US citizens when Hawaii was annexed. They were granted US citizenship 2 years later. A person born in Hawaii on or after April 30, 1900 is a natural born citizen. Applying the presumption against retroactivity, we see that a person who was born in Hawaii between August 12, 1898 and April 29, 1900, or who was a citizen of independent Hawaii when it was annexed by the United States, was not a natural born citizen and could not have become President. In addition to the presumption against retroactivity, there is also another canon of construction that applies here: Congress could have used the &quot;is a citizen of the United States at birth&quot; language for the other two categories of Hawaiians too, but chose to omit it. Presumably, Congress acted purposefully in doing so, with the intent of granting citizenship at birth to only one of the three categories. (I can't remember whether this canon has a name.) Can Congress grant natural-born citizen status retroactively? If the US were to acquire a new territory and saw fit to bestow citizenship retroactively to birth on some natives of that territory, would those people be eligible for the presidency? No one knows the answer to that question. As an example of when Congress has granted citizenship retroactively, the Immigration and Nationality Technical Corrections Act of 1994 created 8 USC §1401(h), which granted citizenship retroactively to birth to individuals who had been born outside the US to a US citizen mother and alien father prior to May 24, 1934. This act was necessary because, prior to that date, only US citizen fathers could transmit citizenship, not US citizen mothers. A person granted citizenship under this statute would be over the age of 89 now, so we're unlikely to see one run for president. It's an open question whether someone who obtained US citizenship through this statute would be considered eligible for the presidency. One could argue that &quot;natural-born citizen&quot; implies a person who actually was a citizen when they were born and that retroactive grants of citizenship are a mere legal fiction that cannot override the meaning of the constitution.
As user6726 notes in an answer, the page you link to derives from 26 USC 7701. However, it does not reproduce the text accurately. There, "United States person" is defined at section 7701(a)(30), and it notably lacks anything corresponding to "any other person that is not a foreign person." It's possible that that language is motivated by some court decision, but it's also possible that someone just added it for the sake of symmetry with the definition of "foreign person" without thinking about the logical paradox that it might create. Looking at section 7701, I don't see any explicit mention of US non-citizen nationals. It appears that such a person who does not live in one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia falls under the definition of nonresident alien at 7701(b)(1)(B) even though such a person is explicitly not an alien under the Immigration and Nationality Act. I do not see any regulations correcting this oversight, but I suppose that in practice such people are indeed treated as US citizens. I don't know enough about the classification of nonhuman legal persons as foreign or domestic to have any ideas about whether there are similar ambiguities there.
You don't need to "report" it to anyone in the US or do anything else. The US doesn't have any national registry of marriage. Any marriage or divorce conducted anywhere in the world is automatically recognized anywhere in the US (with some exceptions like polygamous marriages); the same is true in many other countries. How does the U.S. find out, for tax or insurance purposes? Obviously there's a little box that says [] Married but how would they know if I lied if I'm not registered in the United States? They don't, and don't need to. (The same is true for marriages in the US -- they don't directly "know".) You are required to use an appropriate filing status for your marriage status at the end of the year for each year's tax returns. If you don't, you are committing fraud. There are lots of things that you can intentionally lie about on tax returns, and they may not immediately "find out"; but when they do, you are in big trouble. Am I legally required to report it when I return? No. Would the Canadian/provincial government inform the U.S./state government? No.
I don't think that un-revoking your grandfather's German citizenship would help you, since your father naturalized to obtain British citizenship before your birth, and German citizenship is automatically lost upon voluntary acquisition of a foreign nationality, so even if your grandfather's German citizenship had not been revoked, the German citizenship your grandfather passed onto your father would have been lost before your birth. There might be another route to get German citizenship through your mother, if she was a German citizen at the time of your birth. Since you were born before 1975, and thus could not get German citizenship from your mother at birth, you qualify for a special naturalization process if your mother was a German citizen at the time of your birth, and you are fluent in German and have other ties to Germany; you do not need to renounce your existing nationalities to get German citizenship through this process. See this and this (both in German). However, there are complications with that since I believe German women generally automatically lost German citizenship if they married a foreigner before 1953, so she may not have had German citizenship when you were born since she married your father before your birth.
Like many US legal questions, there is a Congressional Research Service report about this. It is not generally a violation of US law to do things in another country where the only connection with the US is that the offender is a US citizen. However, there are a number of general situations where the US has jurisdiction over federal crimes if either the victim or offender is a US citizen: if a place isn't within the jurisdiction of any country (e.g. Antarctica); a place used by a US government entity (like an embassy or airbase); crimes by American soldiers and those employed by or accompanying the military; etc. These are considered to be within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the US. Other laws apply if they say so. For instance, any US national committing war crimes inside or outside the US can be punished under US law; ditto for treason. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it illegal for a US national to bribe a foreign official anywhere outside the US for business reasons (if it's inside the US, there are more requirements). For instance, you aren't allowed to pay kickbacks to a foreign government's acquisition officer to buy your product. The CRS report has more (it doesn't include the FCPA, but that appears to be an oversight). Note that extraterritorial jurisdiction doesn't just apply if the person is a US national. US laws can also confer it if the victim is a US national, if the offense has a significant US component, if it's directed towards the US, if it's in violation of international law and the offender later turns up in the US, etc. For your scenarios: Dual citizenship doesn't matter. A US citizen is a US citizen, and is required to obey all laws that apply to US citizens, unless those laws explicitly exempt dual citizens. A dual citizen isn't treated differently by the government; as far as the US government is concerned, their US citizenship is all that matters (except for certain specific purposes like security clearances). In Kawakita v. United States, a US-Japanese dual citizen was convicted of treason against the US for aiding Japan in WWII. Depends. Plenty of these laws have no requirement that anything related to the crime actually happen in the US; for sex tourism, the subsection about traveling in foreign commerce for the purposes of engaging in illicit sexual conduct is followed by a subsection about engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. "Travel with the purposes of X" or "with intent to X" means you must have intended to do X at the time you traveled, but most extraterritorial laws don't control travel with intent to X (they cover X directly). Depends on the law. Some laws (like child sex tourism) apply to any permanent resident of the US as well as any citizen. Some apply to anyone, because they're based on a conspiracy started in the US. Others apply just to US nationals; a noncitizen isn't bound by them (for instance, no one but a US national can be charged with treason against the US, for obvious reasons). Still others apply to anyone who later turns up in the US, even if that is literally the only connection between the US and the offense (this is basically reserved for crimes against international law, like genocide).
Sample answer: Be a US citizen - automatic US tax residency Own a UK property and live there for 91 days to gain UK tax residency Spend 60 days in India plus a total of 365 days over the previous 4 years Spend 62 days in Norway, having been tax resident there the previous year. If I understand correctly, this status can be maintained indefinitely by spending 62 days there per year once first gained. Spend 120 days in Paraguay On the last day of the tax year, start working in the Philippines on an indefinite contract Spend 183 days or more in Singapore during the prior tax year Spend a total of 270 days in Mauritius over the current tax year and the previous two years (our calendar is getting pretty constrained at this point but I think this is still all technically possible) Have access to a spare room that a friend informally keeps available for you in Germany Be a member of the crew of a vessel registered in Mozambique Have at least one essential connection to Sweden, having been tax resident there less than 5 years previously Have a spouse who lives as a permanent resident in Spain and is somehow a contributing member of the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme (triggering Australian tax residency) Total tax residencies: 13 Total marginal income tax rate after double tax treaties and reliefs for the tie break: no idea
Statelessness is a very serious condition. It is quite likely that a person such as you describe may be required to board an aeroplane to that country but will not be permitted to pass through immigration on arrival - Mehran Karimi Nasseri lived in Charles de Gaulle airport for 18 years in this condition. There are many people in the world who are stateless and this may or may not affect their lives. Citizenship is generally only an issue when crossing international borders or in employment situations, the latter is significant in advanced countries but less of an issue in countries with less-developed economies.