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Post by Kimby on Jul 3, 2024 4:32:38 GMT
As the slow-motion train wreck in the US continues, some folks are wondering how hard it might be to live somewhere else. (I know someone who is investigating dual citizenship in Czechoslovakia, as her grandma was Czech.)
We have several expats on our Any Port forum. Maybe more than several. It would be interesting to hear more about your experiences.
What was your process? How do you get permission to stay indefinitely? Do you have to become a dual citizen? How did you choose the country you relocated to?
And what do your new countrymen think about recent US events? If they think about US at all?
Inquiring minds want to know!
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Post by bjd on Jul 3, 2024 5:14:20 GMT
Is this like the "if Trump is elected, I'm moving to Canada" in 2016?
There are lots of videos on YouTube for Americans who move abroad but the "Life in France/Italy is wonderful, the number of cheeses is great" are to be taken with a grain of salt.
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Post by onlyMark on Jul 3, 2024 6:04:08 GMT
I am an expat but living in one country doesn't apply to my circumstances so I have little knowledge of that process.
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Post by bjd on Jul 3, 2024 10:51:16 GMT
I think there is a problem with the term "expat". Of course, it's short for expatriate, someone who has left their country for another but it seems to be used most often for people who are living abroad for a specific length of time for work or another reason and who intend to return home.
I have never considered myself an expat. I just moved to another country.
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Post by onlyMark on Jul 3, 2024 11:58:47 GMT
Does that make you an immigrant then?
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Post by Kimby on Jul 3, 2024 13:51:30 GMT
Is there a better term than expatriot, Bjd, for those who live full time in another country?
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Post by bjd on Jul 3, 2024 14:29:05 GMT
Is there a better term than expatriot, Bjd, for those who live full time in another country? As I said, the term expat links you to the country you left. Maybe I'm an immigrant, though when I came here it wasn't a formal move like when my family emigrated to Canada. Anyway, shhh -- the far right seems to be within reach of power so maybe I'll be on the list of those on their list of undesirables.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 3, 2024 14:32:36 GMT
Even if people are unhappy with the term, people who have moved permanently to another country are immigrants. There is nothing demeaning about it. However, there are some major differences between people who immigrated "blindly" and those who married a resident (national or not) and raised their children in the new country.
When pressed, I say that I am a "repat" since I have always been French although I was born elsewhere and lived there for a number of years. I had a French passport as a baby long before I had an American one.
For me, an expat is someone who moves to another country but not on a permanent basis, often for professional reasons. Over the years, I have known quite a few foreigners who moved to France with no plans to leave. They lasted 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years maybe, but they always returned to their home country in the end because they never really felt at home in France for whatever reason. One of the principal reasons for not fitting in that I have noticed is because they hung out with 90% expats and lived in their own alternate world, rejecting a lot of French things instead of learning to accept them. (You don't have to like everything to learn to accept it -- my mother was a good example of that in the United States.)
Things are certain to change, though, probably not necessarily in a good way. In our new extremely mobile VPN world, people live more and more in certain countries while ignoring their surroundings. When people have no real roots anymore, what will happen?
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Post by bjd on Jul 3, 2024 14:37:16 GMT
I always liked the term "rootless cosmopolitan" even though it was the Soviet insult for Jews. To me it sounds rather cool -- people who might live anywhere.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 3, 2024 16:56:38 GMT
I applaud Kimby for creating this thread. Honestly, it's overdue on Anyport.
The term "expat" as used in the thread's title is entirely appropriate. This is not to say that expats are not/cannot be "immigrants", but there is a difference, one comprised of attitude and circumstances.
Immigrants sometimes return home permanently. But at heart, an immigrant is a person who has committed to pulling up stakes and making a home in another country. Whether this is based on having to leave the home because of onerous political or economic conditions there or because brighter opportunities beckon elsewhere, the commitment to the new country is essentially there even before the immigrant has left the old one.
The expat, on the other hand, is a person who is more likely to be trying out another country, whether consciously or not. This person is either economically able to indulge that desire, or is willing to live on a shoestring to make it happen.
Where the terms "expat" and "immigrant" blur is somewhere between my descriptions and the points Kerouac made. I would say that those foreigners who move with an intention to stay but who ultimately leave were expats all along. There is an element of fantasy to the expat decision which can mean that they never truly accept the new country because it doesn't mesh with their expectations &/or isn't enough like their home country to suit them. Kerouac's description of many of that type of ex-expats is quite accurate.
My observation is that people who stay in another country because they marry & have children with someone from there are indeed immigrants, often in the best kind of way, since they usually more fully integrate into the culture and mindset of their adopted home.
In whichever camp, it should be acknowledged that foreigners living in another country will always have their home countries within them and that is as it should be. Watching someone trying too hard to "go native" is painful.
On English-language social platforms in Mexico there is ongoing, quite tedious bickering about the usage of expat vs. immigrant. Especially on the Oaxacan forums there is an accusation from the Mexicans that to expats, the word "expat" presupposes a better-heeled, arrogant foreigner, whereas "immigrant" means a poor, less brightly White person. Usually the non-Mexicans agreeing with that do so because they're trying to be p.c., but cannot argue their case in any logical way. I won't say that there isn't a grain of truth in the Mexican accusation, although it's far too simplistic to be fair.
At any rate, I have gone on long enough for a single post without answering any of the OP's questions. This thread will undoubtedly evolve in interesting directions.
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Post by onlyMark on Jul 3, 2024 18:56:03 GMT
An expat would rarely become/need to become a citizen of their new country unless they decided to move there full time. An immigrant starts off wanting to become a citizen on arrival. That's how I differentiate in a simplified way. So in a way it's what Bixa said about an expat having a trial period. But for me I've never arrived in a country I'll be living in for a few years and had the thought of becoming a permanent resident there. I know my stay is temporary. I also do everything possible to avoid the expat scene to a point where I have heard criticism via Mrs M that I am never seen, are unsociable and aloof. It doesn't bother her or I what they think.
I have family connections to three countries whereby I could easily enough get citizenship and live there full time - but I can more easily just become a resident and even though that is classed usually as temporary, say ten years, it is easy enough to re-new unless circumstances or policies change dramatically. That actually does me well enough. I am then flexible enough to return to the UK, retain a UK passport, and don't have to go through the hoops to live back there for as long as I would want if I wanted to (unlikely). The process of officially changing my citizenship to live full time in another country is usually labyrinth and for my circumstances/preference, unnecessary.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 3, 2024 19:07:28 GMT
I had an Egyptian colleague who also had French ans Swiss citizenship. Although she was as Egyptian as you can get (belly dancer quality), she had huge advantages for the latter two passports compared to her original one.
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Post by patricklondon on Jul 4, 2024 5:32:44 GMT
An expat would rarely become/need to become a citizen of their new country unless they decided to move there full time. An immigrant starts off wanting to become a citizen on arrival. That's how I differentiate in a simplified way. Me too. One of the things that bemuses me about the argy-bargy over immigration figures in the UK is that for some reason they count foreign students as immigrants, even though they are on time-limited permits and are paying handsome sums for the privilege (granted, Boris Johnson's government made it easier for them to get permission to stay on in paid employment for a couple of years, but that's still time-limited). If tourists aren't counted that way, why are students?
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 4, 2024 6:46:19 GMT
I don't think France counts anybody as an immigrant unless they have an immigrant visa. I'm sure they must estimate the number of undocumented immigrants, though, since their children go to school and they have health care.
Apart from that, they count "foreigners" and "refugees" as best they can.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 4, 2024 7:12:50 GMT
My Scottish neighbour would have been counted as immigrant. Except the bastard never bothered to learn any of our language No intention of integrating leaves at the stage of expat imo. Even in the long term.
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Post by onlyMark on Jul 4, 2024 10:24:22 GMT
We have thousands and thousands of immigrants in the UK who arrived decades ago and never learnt the language or integrate and have to often rely on their children born in the UK to communicate if necessary. I see the point but I'd still say they are immigrants.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 4, 2024 14:09:13 GMT
I know that the original focus of this thread was ex-pats, but since they are often linked with immigrants, here is a short interesting video about how one country solved the problem made the problem much worse.
A lot of people in all of our countries still think that there is something questionable about foreigners being in their country for whatever reason. Ex-pats beware!
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Post by Kimby on Jul 4, 2024 14:43:48 GMT
Thanks for all the interesting viewpoints. One thing I’m still curious about is those who relocate to another country more or less permanently, speak the language, embrace the culture and fit in as best they can, but still retain citizenship in their home country, voting by absentee ballot and drawing social security or other government payments.
Are they expats or refugees or something else?
And dual citizenships. When someone becomes a naturalized US citizen, they have to renounce their allegiance to any other country. Is this not the case in other countries?
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 4, 2024 15:42:28 GMT
When someone becomes a naturalized US citizen, they have to renounce their allegiance to any other country. You are misinformed. The United States accepts dual nationality. In any case, they can't do anything about it since if a country claims you as its citizen, no other country really has a say about the matter. In any case, when I brought my mother back to France, even though she was naturalised in the United States in 1957, I was able to immediately get her French papers again. And many countries do not even allow you to renounce your nationality. Moroccans in France can tell you quite a bit about this. As an aside, my parents were totally misinformed, too. When my parents decided to retire in France in 1972, they went through the whole process of applying for residency (medical visit and everything). They didn't have to get the whole medical insurance thing since my father was retired military and was fully covered with the nearby US bases in Germany. If my mother had known that she was still a French citizen, they wouldn't have had to go through any of the formalities. I am a bit puzzled that the French consulate did not investigate further when they saw that my mother was born in France. But civil servants are often paid not to think. Anyway, my parents decided to return to the United States in 1981 because the retirement money was in dollars and the dollar had dropped through the basement. Just six months later, it had reached a historical high, but I think they were happy to be back in the United States if only for the weather compared to Lorraine. As for me, I unilaterally abstained from using any American "privileges" when I moved to France except for retaining a passport, but that is sort of against my will anyway. There was a time in the 1980s when the US suddenly required the French to get a visa to go the United States. Two of my colleagues had travel plans and wanted the visa, so I thought it would be interesting and perhaps useful to go with them and apply as well. But when we entered the US consulate and showed our papers, I was immediately told "You were born in the United States! You need to go to the embassy to determine your status for nationality!" No thank you. I have not voted in American elections since I left the country on moral grounds -- I do not pay taxes there and should not have any say on how they manage their country.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 4, 2024 15:55:10 GMT
I should mention that some of the American rules are ambiguous. I know that they say "You may lose your American citizenship if you vote in the elections of another country or serve in their armed forces." That is very much different from "You WILL lose your citizenship." Countries with which the US is friendly are not concerned, as any of the thousands of Americans who have joined the French Foreign Legion can attest. They leave the Legion with their American passports even if they have earned a French passport along the way.
If you vote or serve in North Korea, they might react differently.
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Post by htmb on Jul 4, 2024 16:38:28 GMT
Until 1992, Italian citizens who gained citizenship of another country automatically lost their Italian citizenship: As from August 16, 1992 (when Law No. 91/92 came into force), the acquisition of a foreign nationality does not lead to the loss of Italian citizenship unless the Italian citizen formally renounces it (Article 11 of Law No. 91/92), subject to international agreements.SourceThe law was retroactive and, in countries like the US, allowed former Italians and their direct descendants to regain Italian citizenship through the recognition process.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 4, 2024 18:36:22 GMT
One thing I’m still curious about is those who relocate to another country more or less permanently, speak the language, embrace the culture and fit in as best they can, but still retain citizenship in their home country, voting by absentee ballot and drawing social security or other government payments. Are they expats or refugees or something else? Kimby, I am one of those people & I think of myself as an expat. I expounded on my view of expat/immigrant in my first reply in this thread, but maybe failed to stress how much being willing or forced to renounce ones original country, even if only in thoughts, applies to which label is appropriate. Moving to another country because you are attracted to the climate and the culture is a far cry from fleeing your own country because of a violent coup. But people in both those groups can be expats rather than immigrants because they're both in effect keeping their options open. Really, in everyday situations, it's only about self-identification. I think of myself as an expat, but doubt I've ever vocalized that. And dual citizenships. When someone becomes a naturalized US citizen, they have to renounce their allegiance to any other country. Is this not the case in other countries? Kerouac answered that part of your question, but a US citizen wishing to obtain citizenship in another country & also retain the US citizenship would be wise to carefully study the rules. I had a little booklet from the Mexican government that spelled out that anyone getting Mexican citizenship would have to renounce any royal titles, privileges, aristocratic titles and forms of address, etc. or would lose citizenship in Mexico. Boy, did that make me think twice!
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Post by bjd on Jul 4, 2024 19:05:18 GMT
I don't really think of myself as Canadian, and I have lived in France three times longer than I did in Canada. Officially I still have Canadian citizenship but haven't had a passport for years and have never received any money from them.
As for voting, Canadian non-residents have no right to vote since it's considered that they have no personal interest in the country.
However, when my kids were born, I asked about dual citizenship for them and the Canadian government said it was a good idea for my kids to have Canadian citizenship as well as French so they all got citizenship cards with their baby pictures on them.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 4, 2024 19:24:25 GMT
Just wondering, bjd -- are you still eligible for a British passport?
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Post by Kimby on Jul 4, 2024 20:20:46 GMT
Every time there’s a naturalization ceremony it makes our local newspaper. And the articles always say that part of the process for foreigners to become Americans is to renounce (loyalty to) their previous home country.
I did not say that Americans can’t apply for dual citizenship, but it seems that newly minted American citizens are not allowed this privilege.
Is anyone on here an expat/immigrant living in the US but a citizen of elsewhere? They oughta know better than me.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 4, 2024 20:40:50 GMT
to renounce (loyalty to) their previous home country That's fascinating since Americans always say "I'm Irish" "I'm Swedish" "I'm Italian" constantly even if it was only one great grandparent or else just a vestige from their surname. It drives Europeans crazy because they never actually know anything about the country or get it all wrong. If a European contradicts them, they say that the European is wrong even for food recipes.
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Post by htmb on Jul 4, 2024 20:45:56 GMT
Doesn't the Citizenship Oath Require People to Give Up All Other Citizenships
Source
If you read the U.S. citizenship oath of allegiance, you'll see that it says you must promise to "renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen."
That sounds very much like you will be asked to give up your old passport, as well. Its language is stark; like you will be making an all-or-nothing commitment. But that is simply not the case.
The United States allows naturalized (and other) citizens to become dual citizens with their home countries, if those countries allow it. (It's not possible for everyone to retain their native country's citizenship, depending on those countries' laws). And if you're a dual citizen, you may keep your old passport and citizenship as well as receive a new one from the United States. See Dual Citizenship Allowed for Naturalizing U.S. Citizens for details.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 4, 2024 20:51:21 GMT
to renounce (loyalty to) their previous home country That's fascinating since Americans always say "I'm Irish" "I'm Swedish" "I'm Italian" constantly even if it was only one great grandparent or else just a vestige from their surname. It drives Europeans crazy because they never actually know anything about the country or get it all wrong. If a European contradicts them, they say that the European is wrong even for food recipes. That's exactly what Biden said a couple of years ago. He was asked if he had a few words for the BBC. His response "the BBC? I'm Irish!". As if that meant anything.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 4, 2024 21:46:48 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 4, 2024 22:13:02 GMT
1. What was your process? 2. How do you get permission to stay indefinitely? 3. Do you have to become a dual citizen? 4. How did you choose the country you relocated to? 1. The process to legally reside in Mexico has changed radically since I moved here. Back then, I had to go renew the visa every year. After five years, I was eligible to become a permanent resident, which I applied for & eventually received. 2. Now, it's easy and fast to get permanent residency, although the process must be done in ones home country and now the income requirements are pretty high. 3. I had been drawn to Mexico from the first time I visited, when I was in my mid-twenties. Then, on vacation in Oaxaca in June of 1997, I realized that I would turn 49 in July, meaning that effectively one-half of my life was over, & if I wanted to move to Mexico, I'd better get that ball rolling. In autumn, I moved to Oaxaca, a city I chose more because it was small & easy to maneuver than for any other reason. I figured if I didn't like it, I could just move. 4. There is no requirement to get dual citizenship and, to my mind, no reason to unless I wanted to be able to vote here. Practically speaking, it's not "better" than a US passport in terms of traveling to other countries. Also, Mexico always lets me go though the citizens line at the airport when landing in Mexico.
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