foreign passport mark upon oath Rumor ?

[jakk]

I am a chinese citizen and recently (a month ago) heard this rumor:
Upon naturalization, USCIS will request the applicant's foreign passport and put a special mark on it.
With this mark, the chinese authority can easily identity who has became a US citizen.

Even if the rumor is true, it may only apply to some countries.
For those who took oath recently, did USCIS mark your old passport?

 

[newacct]

Nope. To the U.S., you are just a U.S. citizen. The U.S. does not acknowledge, or care about, the existence of any other nationalities that you might have or get.

 

[NJN400]

Use some common sense. The United States Government will not agree to any such demands by a foreign government, especially the PRC.

 

[CalGreenCard]

I'm not from China so I don't know how strictly China, in practice, enforces its law forbidding dual citizenship.

However I have NOT heard this rumor and it would surprise me if true. For one thing, I do not believe that a GC holder is legally required to have a valid passport at all. Most do, because they often travel to their home countries and elsewhere. Some don't, especially in cases where their home country refuses passport services for whatever reason.

However USCIS WILL take your GC at the naturalization ceremony. Presumably this would make it easy for the Chinese authorities to find out your new status because if you show a (now invalid) Chinese passport there will be no US nonimmigrant visa and no GC.

 

[Jackolantern]

Presumably this would make it easy for the Chinese authorities to find out your new status because if you show a (now invalid) Chinese passport there will be no US nonimmigrant visa and no GC.

And they won't let you board a flight back to the US if you don't show a US visa, US passport, advance parole, or some other document showing eligibility to enter the US.

 

[jakk]

Use some common sense. The United States Government will not agree to any such demands by a foreign government, especially the PRC.

I agree USA will not agree to such demand by China. The rumor make sense in this way:
"that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty..." The oath requires entire renouncement, but some people like to keep their old passport for various reasons, and uncle Sam is not happy, and marked passports of selected countries.

 

[newacct]

I agree USA will not agree to such demand by China. The rumor make sense in this way:
"that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty..." The oath requires entire renouncement, but some people like to keep their old passport for various reasons, and uncle Sam is not happy, and marked passports of selected countries.

It says renounce "allegiance and fidelity". It does not say renounce nationality or anything like that. In any case, whether someone has a particular country's nationality is for that country to say, not for the U.S. to say.

Uncle Sam is not "happy" or "not happy"; there is nothing in U.S. law that talks about or cares about any other nationalities that U.S. citizens may have.

Plus, as others have mentioned, nobody asks you to bring any passport(s) you may have to the oath ceremony, so I don't understand when they would have a chance to "mark" your passport.

 

[CalGreenCard]

It says renounce "allegiance and fidelity". It does not say renounce nationality or anything like that. In any case, whether someone has a particular country's nationality is for that country to say, not for the U.S. to say.

At my oath ceremony, the person administering the oath, prior to doing so, specifically said that the language in the oath does NOT mean that you actually lose any foreign citizenship or nationality unless the foreign (not US) country itself takes the citizenship away after taking the oath. I took the oath with the very clear and reasonable expectation to keep my foreign citizenship as the foreign country does allow dual citizenship.

My interpretation of the allegiance requirements of the oath is that, if there were ever a conflict between my US obligations and any foreign obligations, the US obligations would trump. The only real obligations of US citizenship that I'm aware of are the military draft and citizenship based taxation. Since the US hasn't had a draft in 40+ years, and I'm now well past draft registration age, I don't expect the draft to come into play in practice.

Citizenship based taxation--which is unique to the US and Eritrea--is something I don't like and I feel is very bad policy, but it is an obligation that I will abide with as long as it is on the books per my oath. As it has no counterpart in other countries (except Eritrea) I don't expect it to create any particular conflicts, though.