Can a US citizen with dual citizenship travel without getting a US passport? Flying with my daughter next week to Israel. She was born in the US, has currently only Israeli passport. Her passport does have a US visa of course. We're nonpermanent residents. So I have to go and urgently get her a US passport?
There is a legal requirement for US citizens to have a US passport when entering and leaving the US, though there are some exceptions. (The exceptions mostly concern other kinds of documents that are acceptable when traveling by land or sea to Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean.) The law is 8 USC 1185(b): (b) Citizens Except as otherwise provided by the President and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may authorize and prescribe, it shall be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter, or attempt to depart from or enter, the United States unless he bears a valid United States passport. There is no penalty for violating this law. And, of course, US citizens have an inherent right to enter the US. In practice, therefore, if a border officer recognizes that you are a US citizen without the required documentation, they are supposed to inform you of the requirements and then waive the requirement of section 1185(b) so you can enter. For more discussion, see What is the penalty for US citizens entering/leaving the US on a foreign passport? on travel.stackexchange.com. There was formerly a regulation allowing US citizen children of foreign diplomats to travel to the US on their foreign passports. This was removed in connection with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. It was at 22 CFR 53.2, which read as follows in 2006: (e) When he is under 21 years of age and is a member of the household of an official or employee of a foreign government or of the United Nations and is in possession of or included in a foreign passport; However, in 2007, paragraph (e) concerned the NEXUS program, and the paragraph concerning children in the household of foreign officials and employees was absent. The change was published in the Federal Register on 24 November 2006. The Department of State's [Foreign Affairs Manual] indicates that they continue to follow this policy despite the change in regulations; at 9 FAM 202.1-2 VISA-RELATED ISSUES WTIH U.S. CITIZENS, item (c) appears to have been last modified in 2011: c. Applications for Visas for Certain Dual National Children: (1) You should advise parents who apply for visas for dual national children that regulations prohibit the issuance of a visa or other documentation to a U.S. citizen or national for entry into the United States as an alien. The children of foreign government officials, however, may use their foreign passport for entry into the United States. (2) After the U.S. citizenship of a child has been determined by a citizenship officer, the consular officer may, to avoid delay or difficulty, give a written statement to the parents for presentation to carriers or immigration officials. The statement should make clear that the bearer of the foreign passport is a dual national child of a foreign government official or employee who is traveling to the United States on official business and as such may enter the United States on the foreign passport as an exception to the provisions of INA 215(b) regarding valid passport requirement. (3) A child under 12 years of age who is included in the passport of an alien parent in an official capacity may be admitted if evidence of U.S. citizenship is presented at the time of entry. A determination of the childs citizenship should be made by citizenship officer prior to departure from a foreign country and the parent should be instructed to have evidence of such citizenship available for inspection by the admitting Department of Homeland Security Officer. If this is indeed how your daughter got her US visa then the State Department's willingness to issue the visa presumably implies that CBP should allow her to enter with her Israeli passport and that visa.
As a US Citizen, you don't get a I-94 recording of entries and exits but : The FOIA site of the CBP, mentions Information Regarding Entry and Exit Note: CBP does not have records on the entry and exit of persons arriving or departing the U.S. before 1982. To be filled with CBP However, this doesn't mentions if this is only applicable to Aliens or US Citizens are included or not. But this CBP help page mentions travel records for US Citizens
First, let's be clear. Under the relevant Australian law, this person is an Australian citizen, This is for two reasons. First, because he or she is descended from someone who was born in Australia in the time period from January 26, 1949 to August 19, 1986 (or who was a British subject born in Australia prior to January 26, 1949), and second, because a child born in Australia after 19 August 1986 (and who is not otherwise an Australian citizen) and who lives in Australia, automatically acquires Australian citizenship on his or her 10th birthday, if the child has not been granted or otherwise acquired Australian citizenship in the meantime. This occurs automatically (by operation of law), and applies irrespective of the immigration status of the child or his/her parents. So, the question is not one of status as an Australian citizen, but of proof of status as an Australian citizen. This individual is not truly stateless. Also, even if the parents (contrafactually) were stateless rather than being Australian citizens, which they were, children born in Australia whose parents are stateless and not entitled to any other country's citizenship may in some circumstances apply for and be granted Australian citizenship. One of the reasons that Australia allows this rule is that in order to deport someone you have to know that the person deported is a citizen of the country to which the person is deported. If you are a stateless person in Australia (as this person is not, but someone might suspect them of being), you can be denied rights the flow from citizenship, rather than merely from being a person or being a resident. But, you can't deport a stateless person because you have no place to deport them to. Related to this fact is that Australia is a party to the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961), a multilateral international treaty. In respect of contracting states: &quot;Stateless birth&quot; on their territory attracts the grant of their nationality (article 1). Otherwise stateless persons may take the nationality of the place of their birth or of the place where they were found (in the case of a foundling), otherwise they may take the nationality of one of their parents (in each case possibly subject to a qualifying period of residence in that State) (article 2). A stateless person has some time beyond attaining adulthood to seek to claim the benefit of the Convention. That time is always at least three years from the age of eighteen (article 1(5)). Transfer of territory between states must occur in a manner that avoids the occurrence of statelessness for persons residing in the territory transferred. When a State acquires territory, the inhabitants of that territory presumptively acquire the nationality of that State (article 10). Persons otherwise stateless shall be able to take the nationality of one of their parents (possibly subject to a period of prior residence not more than three years) (article 4). Absent circumstances of fraudulent application or disloyalty toward the contracting state, deprivations and renunciations of citizenship shall only take effect where a person has or subsequently obtains another nationality in replacement (article 8). The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will issue travel documents evidencing nationality to persons, otherwise stateless, having a claim of nationality under the convention. Birth on a sea vessel or aircraft may attract the nationality of the flag of that vessel or craft (article 3). Disloyal or certain criminal conduct may limit an individual's ability to avail the benefit of the Convention (article 8). The benefit of the Convention may be claimed by guardians on behalf of children (article 1(1)). States may impose a period of residence qualification for granting nationality to persons who may be otherwise stateless. That period is a maximum five years immediately prior to application and maximum of ten years overall (article 1(2)). There is also the question of proof. What suffices as proof sufficient for an immigration and nationality official varies, and there are probably presumptions that would be relevant. The fact that you are currently resident in Australia, that you have no recollection of living anywhere else or being told that you live anywhere else, your own testimony under oath regarding your place of birth and ancestry, any documentation that exists of you being in Australia in the past, and the fact that you speak English in an Australian accent fluently and speak no other language, would also be evidence of your citizenship or might trigger a presumption in favor of assuming that you are a citizen unless proven otherwise. The government can also change its processes to fit special circumstances. For example, during the Vietnam War in which the United States was involved, a significant number of children were born to U.S. soldier fathers and Vietnamese mothers in Vietnam. Ordinarily, under U.S. law, it is necessary to establish that a particular person who is a U.S. citizen was your father. But, in the aftermaths of these births, there was a period of time at least, when anyone born in Vietnam to a Vietnamese mother, who was racially part-Vietnamese and part either European or African in ancestry, was presumed based upon appearance alone to be a child of a U.S. citizen present in Vietnam in connection with the war effort and granted citizenship by birth, with their place of birth and mixed race alone sufficing to establish their citizenship. It wouldn't be hard to imagine Australia adopting such a rule in the case that you describe. Also, even if such a per se rule were not adopted, usually the ultimate test in a proceeding to establish citizenship is proof by a preponderance of the evidence that it is more likely than not that this person is an Australian citizen, and that standard could probably be met by any official who was not intentionally inclined to bear ill will to this person or their group. Competent legal representation and expert testimony would likely help the person to establish their citizenship.
There are no EU rules on whether and under which conditions unaccompanied minors are allowed to travel, and the competence hence rests with the Member States. You are probably more proficient with Slovak rules on the matter, but judging by the information provided by the UK Government, there should be no regulatory hassle. The most probable source of problems will be the airline, but at least BA lets persons 12-17 years of age travel alone.
Citizenship is essentially an imaginary label that sovereign states assign to people to say &quot;this person is one of us&quot;. How those imaginary labels are granted, recorded, proved, maintained etc. is up to the sovereign state to decide. I assume that citizenship is any time period in which all officers of a given state would agree to issue identification documents for that human. Not accurate. Identification documents simply identify persons. They may or may not convey information about citizenship. Some (like driver's licences) do not. Other (like alien's passports) explicitly mean that the holder is not a citizen of the issuing sovereign state. Conversely, having troubles to get a passport does not necessarily mean that the person is not a citizen. In some circumstances it may be difficult to prove citizenship (e.g. emigrated as an infant with no birth record), and court proceedings may be needed to convince the authorities.
Under US immigration law, any person who at any point after February 27, 2001 meets all of the following conditions automatically receives citizenship the moment they meet the conditions: Under 18 Lawful permanent resident (i.e. has a green card) At least one biological parent is a US citizen (adoptive parents also count of some other requirements are met; stepparents don't count unless they have adopted the child) Lives in the US in both the physical and legal custody of said US citizen parent As far as USCIS is concerned, if a biological child lives with both biological parents, then the US citizen parent has legal custody. If the child was born out of wedlock, they must have been legitimated before they turned 16 to count as their father's child; the applicable law for that depends on where exactly you live. Source
The general rule Birth certificates, social security cards, and driver's licenses identify a person, but what happens if these are all lost? Say a homeless person loses all of their documents in the shuffle, what could they do to recover them? Even further, if this person has no family or work colleagues who will vouch for them, is it possible that their identity is lost forever? Generally, these can be replaced. For example, I was robbed at gunpoint a couple of years ago and the robbers took (among other things) my driver's license and Social Security card, which were never recovered (I did recover one prescription slip from a dumpster about a mile away that was wrapped around a syringe, because the robbers were also injection drug users.) I went by myself without any ID to the DMV which had an online record of my driver's license containing my age, height, weight, sex, race, noted that I needed vision correction and also had my most recent driver's license photo and a fingerprint. I explained what happened without any corroboration, and they promptly issued me a new driver's license. The same process would have applied had I had a state ID in lieu of a driver's license because I wasn't licensed to drive for some reason (e.g. if I was blind). The process in Texas would be very similar (I don't know if they have finger prints though). My daughter had to do the same when she lost her driver's license while camping. With the driver's license, I was able to go to the Social Security office and have them reissue a Social Security card. One of my children's birth certificates was lost, and I could simply go to the Vital Statistics department with a name and date of birth and get a new one. The replacement birth certificate and driver's license involved a modest fee (which would be pretty daunting for a homeless person), but the replacement Social Security card was free. It's a pain in the neck to do this, and it took several hours to sort out (the time lost would not be a problem for a homeless person), but loss of my identity was not a serious possibility. If you have (or had before you lost it) a photo ID such as a driver's license, or state ID, or student ID, or passport in a system, reconstructing your identity isn't that hard. If you don't know who you are either. If you have amnesia, so you don't know the information needed to recover your records, it can be much harder to work out a lack of any ID. This happens something on the order of several times a year. Sometimes it is resolved promptly when the person regains their memory or is tied to a recent outstanding missing persons report, or is identified after a local TV broadcast seeking input from the public. But, if the person is not local, no one filed a missing persons report, and the memory loss turns out to be permanent, it can take months or years to get it sorted out. But, you will generally be assumed to be legally present in the U.S. until proven otherwise if you speak fluent English. Also, you can't easily be deported if no one can determine your nationality (including you), even if you don't speak fluent English. For example, if the only language you spoke fluently was an Amazonian tribal language and no one could figure out this fact, it would be hard to deport you without evidence of your country of origin, which by assumption, does not exist in this scenario. Officials sometimes try to crowdsource recordings of someone speaking or writing in these situations to determine their place of origins, which can take many months and isn't always successful. But, if your first language was Klingon, you would be quickly identified and not deported, because that language is widely recognized and a Google search would reveal that it has only two native speakers, both of whom are children who were born in the United States (I know their father as a casual acquaintance). Citizenship, arrest and deportation Can a person lose their citizenship in this manner? Could they be arrested or even deported? You cannot lose your citizenship in this manner, although it can be harder to prove your citizenship, if you need to do so. You shouldn't be arrested for simply not having ID (although it does happen) if you aren't driving a car without a license. Also, lots of people without ID are arrested all of the time for other charges, and then refuse to provide anything but a false alias to the police. But, they are usually not deported unless there is some reason to suspect that they are not U.S. citizens. A modest but significant number of people every year (on the order of dozens to a couple hundred) are arrested and deported in circumstances like these and the system can put someone in that situation in a very Catch-22 situation for which there a few if any legal remedies after the fact by way of compensation. Deportations Of U.S. citizens with strong foreign ties The hard cases are usually those when you have someone who is a child who has never had a photo ID, or is an adult who never had a photo ID in the U.S., especially if that person is someone who has lived much of their life abroad despite being born in the U.S., or is most fluent in a non-English language because their parents spoke that language when they were growing up, or was born abroad and naturalized as a citizen later (often as a relative of the primary person who earned the right to citizenship by taking citizenship tests). Establishing that you are the same person as the one in a birth certificate or naturalization certificate is not always easy. Naturalizations often aren't accurately cross-referenced with immigration records. And, the track record of ICE agents meaningfully following up on claims of citizenship is very poor. Identity assumption cases Another much less common hard case that still happens sometimes, involves a situation where you are born in the U.S. or to a U.S. citizen, giving you U.S. citizenship, and you have a birth certificate, but you live abroad for a long time, and in the meantime, someone similar in age, sex and race to you has assumed your identity to claim citizenship status. Then, there is someone else with a long paper trail that supports your identity actually belonging to them including photo IDs and maybe even a passport, and you have only your birth certificate that someone else claims is theirs with doesn't have a lot of provable biometric features other than your parent's names, which may be hard to use to establish that you are the true person corresponding to the birth certificate if they are deceased, and may require DNA testing or testimony from them even if they are not deceased. Persons declared dead A third class of people who have a thorny time re-establishing their identities are people who went missing, were declared dead legally by a court as a result, and then resurface. This can pose a problem even after they undeniably establish their identity due to rules relating to the finality of court orders. A fictional example of this is the title character in the live action TV series the Iron Fist in the Marvel Comics Universe. But, there are also real life examples, such as a man in Ohio a number of years ago who was in a similar situation (except for the fact that he didn't have superpowers, was middle aged, and wasn't an heir to a billion dollar fortune). These cases are very rare. There is probably less than one per year in the entire United States.
Legally, they cannot just nab you. The usual (?) option is that authorities in the US request extradition pursuant to the US-Mexico extradition treaty via the Department of Justice, and if the paperwork is in order, this can result in a Provisional Arrest Warrant (and arrest) in Mexico, which will be carried out by the Mexican federal police. This is true whether or not you go to the US consulate. After a hearing in the Mexican courts you might be extradited (or not, but DoJ presumably doesn't proceed with cases that they will lose). Extradition is not possible for every offense, so you would have to look at the offenses listed in the treaty, and whatever the Arizona warrant is about. You can't be extradited for parking tickets, you can be extradited for murder: whatever it is, it has to be a crime in both places, and has to be subject to a minimum one year imprisonment. Also, if you are a Mexican citizen as well, you cannot be extradited unless the Mexican authorities agree to (whereas there is no choice if you are only a US citizen). An alternative is deportation, which would overcome limitations related to extradition, but it's not clear what the requirements for deportation from Mexico are (typically illegal presence, unclear whether Mexican authorities can or would try an end-run around official extradition procedure). Although consulates enjoy a degree of immunity from local law, a consulate in Mexico is still Mexican territory, subject to Mexican law. If you are in the consulate, Mexican authorities cannot enter without permission to arrest you. They also cannot arrest you without a warrant (see Art. 16 of the Mexican constitution). Consular staff also cannot arrest you (if you are not caught flagrante delicto). Nor are they authorized to execute a US warrant in Mexico (thus they have to go through the process of judicial review to send you back to the US, and why a Mexican warrant is required). See this Q&amp;A, relevant to the status of embassies: what is relevant to us is that both the US and Mexico operate under the rule of law, so the issues surrounding Syrian refugees in the Syrian embassy do not arise here.