btw, Maria covered a lot of this, but you can be a US citizen and a citizen of another country. However, the US will not recognize you as a citizen of that other country.
What this means in practice is that if you are say, a US/UK citizen, and get arrested in Turkey, the US will not call the UK consulate for you. If you are a US/Ecuador citizen and get arrested in the US, you will be tried as an American and Ecuador won't have anything to say about it.
Most important, as this is what comes up the most, you must enter and leave the US on your US passport.
This citizenship discussion is fascinating!
I have my Canadian citizenship again due to the whole "wake up Canadian" thing a few years ago, but I need to go to the consulate and get an ID card and some things like that.
I'm eligible for Irish citizenship since my grandfather was born there. I really need to follow up on that and do it.
ND, do it! Irish citizenship = EU citizenship, which benefits you so much when you travel in Western Europe. I wish there was a path there for me, but the closest Euro relative is my great-grandfather, who immigrated from Sweden.
I have ongoing low-level rage that my closest EU relative was my Austrian grandmother, and Austria because ohferfucksakeyoucrazyassedpatriarchalcountry only recognizes grandfathers.
My closest EU relatives are my paternal great grand parents. Grandpa was apparently born within a month of his parents' immigration. I never cared before, but now I kinda wish great grandpa Issac had put that trip off a few months.
My paternal great grandfather was born in Italy in 1881. Which would actually work, except that my father was born in 1928, and he needed to have been born after Jan. 1, 1948 in order for him to be able to inherit his Italian citizenship from my grandmother.
My Dad's side of the family has been in the U.S. since the 1720s so no such options for me!
3 of my great grandparents were born in Ireland and 1 in Germany. My mother went over and met some Irish relatives, but I haven't, yet.
The guy who's probably my biological father was British. I'm grumpy about that - so close! But there's no way to prove it now, he's dead, my mom's dead (and would never admit it anyway), and my legal father is probably dead but who knows where he is. Well, okay, he's probably in Pennsylvania, but we haven't spoken in 30 years. Man, my family is a Lifetime movie just waiting to be written.
