Travel with two passports?

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NIW_Engineer

Registered Users (C)
A business opportunity came up on short notice and I have to go to Brazil for a meeting. Brazil requires visas for US citizens (I became one 5 months ago). No time for me to apply for that visa. However, Brazil does not require visas of Venezuelan citizens (I am that as well). My question: Can I show my Venezuelan passport when I enter Brazil, but then use my US passport to come back?

Thanks,

Is there any guidance from the state department on this?
 
Dual nationality is very common in the U.S. The U.S. requires U.S. citizens to enter and exit the U.S. with your U.S. passport, and sometimes other countries require their nationals to enter and exit their country with their passport, so in many cases people have no choice but to use two passports for travel. The U.S. does not care about the existence of other nationalities, or what passport you use to enter and exit other countries, as long as you enter and exit the U.S. with your U.S. passport.
 
newacct said:
...as long as you enter and exit the U.S. with your U.S. passport.
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Contrary to a lot of other countries, US Immigration does not check people leaving the country. When leaving the US, the only "authority" concerned with what passport one is using is the airline. They are the ones that will be fined by the destination country if they let an unauthorized person go there. So, I'm OK showing my Venezuelan passport at the ticket counter at the US airport and to Brazilian authorities upon arrival there. I just dont know if upon return, US Immnigration will check my US passport and have an issue with it not having any stamps of any foreign countries.
 
NIW_Engineer said:
Contrary to a lot of other countries, US Immigration does not check people leaving the country.
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Yes they do but only a small percentage of the time. Usually it is via a spot check at the gate. You would have to show your US passport and whether the absence of a Brazilian visa will raise questions, I do not know--but I don't think that it would as long as show the US passport first to any US g-(wo)men.

NIW_Engineer said:
So, I'm OK showing my Venezuelan passport at the ticket counter at the US airport and to Brazilian authorities upon arrival there.
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The airline might also ask to see your US passport for a couple of reasons. One is that if you are leaving the US on a Venezuelan passport they will wonder why you have neither an I-94 nor a GC. The second is that your itinerary ultimately needs to terminate in a country where you have citizenship or residency. That's the US--not Brazil--upon your return so they may want to see your US passport.

But showing the Venezuelan passport first and the US passport second and only if asked by the airline makes sense.

NIW_Engineer said:
I just dont know if upon return, US Immnigration will check my US passport and have an issue with it not having any stamps of any foreign countries.
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I don't think this would be a problem because the US has no problems with you entering a foreign country on a foreign passport.
 
Unless you also hold passports of countries associated with terrorism (Syrica, N. Korea, Iran for eg), this shouldn't even be a question.

But that said, say you landed in Venezuela with your Venezuelan passport and on your way back, tried showing your American passport, wouldn't they grill you for not getting a visa (assuming that Venezuela doesn't allow dual citizenship)?
 
You should always enter and exit a country with the same passport. You would enter and leave Venezuela with your Venezuelan passport and enter and leave the U.S. (basically just enter) with your U.S. passport. What information to provide the airline might be a more complicated question.
 
Venezuela allows dual citizenship. Did you think you were helping the OP do something illegal that could get him/her in serious trouble?
 
Miss_chang, newacct, and cafeconleche: OP is prospectively entering Brazil on a Venezuelan passport--not travelling to Venezuela. Of course one could always travel to Brazil by way of Venezuela, but I doubt this would be the preferred itinerary, as this is a business trip and business travel is usually done by the most efficient route.
 
Right. The OP can use whichever passport is most convenient for Brazil. However, whichever passport they choose, they need to enter and exit Brazil with that same passport.
 
That's exactly my point, newacct. Sure, OP can enter Brazil visa free by using his/her Venezualan passport but when s/he tries to return back to the states, won't they ask for visa (for Brazil) when s/he presents American passport?
 
Miss_chang said:
That's exactly my point, newacct. Sure, OP can enter Brazil visa free by using his/her Venezualan passport but when s/he tries to return back to the states, won't they ask for visa (for Brazil) when s/he presents American passport?
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There are different steps.
  • When going through Brazilian exit checks: the OP would show the same passport they used to enter Brazil (Venezuelan passport); it's unlikely that Brazil would care about how the OP would enter the destination country, but if they did, the OP could also show the U.S. passport.
  • When entering the U.S.: the OP must use their U.S. passport.
  • When checking in to the airline: the OP would show their U.S. passport (because the airline is primarily concerned about ability to enter the destination, because they're liable for returning the person if they don't have permission to enter); in the unlikely case the airline cares about exiting Brazil, the OP can also show the Venezuelan passport.
 
newacct, I'm pretty sure that the immigration officers will want to verify a person's passport's correlation with his/her tickets. If a Venezuelan that's traveling to Brazil shows his/her Venezuelan passport to fly to the US, wouldn't they seek visa to the US? Upon a person showing his/her US passport, wouldn't they be concerned?
 
Why would they be concerned? The US and Venezuela allow dual citizenship (Brazil does to), so what's to be concerned about?
 
It is not a problem. I do this all the time. I travel on the US passport and when I arrive into the other country I use that passport and when I leave I use that passport. When I arrive to the US I use the US passport.
 
vandeluca, don't they ask you question when you're about to leave that country? I know of this Indian co-worker who traveled to Nepal recently. She holds both Indian and US passports but when she tried to enter back from Nepal, she got grilled because she used her Indian passport to enter Nepal (she didn't need visa) but when she was returning back to the US, she presented her US passport and they asked her why she was in Nepal w/o a visa.
 
This is because it is illegal to be an Indian citizen and the citizen of another country! Miss-chang, realise that there are countries that PERMIT dual citizenship, and countries that don't. India doesn't. Most South American countries and the US DO!
 
Ms. Chang...No...All the country of my second citizenship cares about is how I entered and exit THAT country for THEIR immigration purposes. They only spot check anyway, I for the first time was in that line and it was no big deal. I even joked with her is she sure that she's not creating a mess for my husband on the way to the US bc he is now using his birth passport with her.. She smiled and said that it was not for THEIR records (US )only their own immigration. She told us to do it that way no problem. Mind you my husband country you are allowed multiple ciitzenships, just like the US.
 
cafeconleche said:
This is because it is illegal to be an Indian citizen and the citizen of another country! Miss-chang, realise that there are countries that PERMIT dual citizenship, and countries that don't. India doesn't. Most South American countries and the US DO!
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It doesn't make sense to say it is "illegal" to have a certain set of nationalities. Murder is illegal; you go to jail. If certain countries happen to give you their nationality, do you go to jail? That doesn't make sense. Dual nationality is not an action; it is a condition that arises out of multiple countries' laws. A country cannot "permit" or "not permit" multiple nationality. A country can only decide who has its own nationality.

Various countries have rules for naturalization and loss of nationality that make it easier or harder for multiple nationality to occur. Every country's rules is different. No country's rules make it absolutely impossible for someone to have that country's nationality and another country's nationality at the same time. It is very possible for someone to have Indian nationality and another nationality at the same time. For example, 1) Someone born in India to at an Indian national has Indian nationality automatically at birth; they may have another nationality automatically at birth from another parent; or 2) Someone born outside India to at an Indian national has Indian nationality automatically at birth if registered properly; they may have another nationality automatically at birth from another parent or from the country of birth.

Anyway, an border officer from one country cannot be expected to have expertise in the technicalities of the nationality laws of all the other countries in the world. That's why a border officer has no business caring about the multiple foreign nationalities of a foreigner.
 
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