Minor Child - US/Indian citizenship

ashu1174 said:
If a minor child, both parents Indian, voluntarily acquires US citizenship, does it have to give up US citizenship to reclaim Indian citizenship? Are there any experts on Indian citizenship law out there?

Please see the thread below to see the source of this question:

http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?p=1510588#post1510588
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Did anybody figure this out? It appears that Indian Govt may require an offical certificate of renunciation from US. If it was just a matter of declaring something in the Indian citizenship application, there is some precedent that US govt won't consider it sufficient. The form for minor child born outside the US to indian parents does not have anything on it that asks if the child has a foreign passport - in fact the rules explicitly don't mention this issue for kids bron before Dec 2004.

See Froyim v Rusk 387 U.S. 253 (1967) In it the court clearly stated that loss of citizenship required the individual's assent, some uncertainty remained as to whether an actual swearing of allegiance to a foreign country would, by itself, constitute such assent.
 
I am NO Lawyer

rogerkint said:
Did anybody figure this out? It appears that Indian Govt may require an offical certificate of renunciation from US. If it was just a matter of declaring something in the Indian citizenship application, there is some precedent that US govt won't consider it sufficient. The form for minor child born outside the US to indian parents does not have anything on it that asks if the child has a foreign passport - in fact the rules explicitly don't mention this issue for kids bron before Dec 2004.

See Froyim v Rusk 387 U.S. 253 (1967) In it the court clearly stated that loss of citizenship required the individual's assent, some uncertainty remained as to whether an actual swearing of allegiance to a foreign country would, by itself, constitute such assent.
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I am NO Lawyer, but Indian Embassy sites (in USA) have application form for children born in USA. It is similar to children born in any other country in the world. I am not sure about the USA part (that is, if USA considers 'getting Indian passport' as renunciation of citizenship or not), but looks like the case you mentioned in the link is similar to this.
 
Problem is not with on the US side of the equation

cool_r2i said:
I am NO Lawyer, but Indian Embassy sites (in USA) have application form for children born in USA. It is similar to children born in any other country in the world. I am not sure about the USA part (that is, if USA considers 'getting Indian passport' as renunciation of citizenship or not), but looks like the case you mentioned in the link is similar to this.
Click to expand...

Problem is not with the US. US allows dual citizenship and in fact, one cannot usually lose US citizenship by anything short of going in fromt of an officer and swearing one's intention to give up US citizenship. India considers you to lose Indian citizenship if you voluntarily acquire a foreign citizenship.

Hence the issue with children born in the US - they can get Indian passports but they lose Indian citizenship if the get an US passport. To complicate matters, since US does not really give two hoots - they cannot get a US visa if they have a US passport (because they cannot give up US citizenship, coz they are minors and cannot actually have the "intent" to give it up)
 
True

rogerkint said:
Problem is not with the US. US allows dual citizenship and in fact, one cannot usually lose US citizenship by anything short of going in fromt of an officer and swearing one's intention to give up US citizenship. India considers you to lose Indian citizenship if you voluntarily acquire a foreign citizenship.

Hence the issue with children born in the US - they can get Indian passports but they lose Indian citizenship if the get an US passport. To complicate matters, since US does not really give two hoots - they cannot get a US visa if they have a US passport (because they cannot give up US citizenship, coz they are minors and cannot actually have the "intent" to give it up)
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True, all these problems are because both the countries are making rules on their own...without thinking of these kind of situations. I wish there was an international body to take care of these kind of issues. Not sure if there is one already!
 
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