Dual citizenship is when someone is a citizen of two or more countries, but not all countries allow it. Citizenship can be obtained through blood, birthplace, or naturalization. Dual citizenship can create conflicts of loyalty and legal issues, and some governments do not allow it.
Dual citizenship is a form of citizenship status where someone is a citizen of two countries. It is a possibility for someone to have multiple citizenship, where he is a citizen of more than two countries. Not all countries allow dual citizenship and there are certain legal issues that many dual citizens are faced with, ranging from pressure to surrender their passports to being double taxed.
There are several ways someone can obtain dual citizenship. Many countries grant citizenship jus sanguinis, or “through blood,” which means that a child will have his or her parents’ citizenship. Many also offer citizenship jus soli, “through the ground,” so someone will have citizenship in the country where they were born. If a child of French parents is born in the United States, for example, the child will have citizenship in the United States and France. It is also possible to become a citizen through naturalization, in which case the new citizen could choose to retain their original citizenship, becoming a dual citizen.
From the perspective of national governments, dual citizenship is a nuisance because it could create a situation where a citizen has conflicting loyalties. In our example above, if the United States and France went to war, the citizen might feel conflicted. He or she could refuse military service in a conscription, on the grounds that taking up arms against either country would be an act of treason. The dual citizen could also be caught between the tax systems used in both countries and forced to pay taxes to the French and American governments.
Dual citizenship can also become a problem when someone comes into conflict with the legal system. Many governments offer protection to their citizens while they are abroad, but a government may find its hands are tied in the case of a dual citizen. A Mexican-Egyptian citizen, for example, could not count on the protections of the Egyptian government if he got into trouble in Mexico. Dual citizens may also be denied security clearances, making it difficult for them to work for the government.
Some governments flatly refuse to allow dual citizenship, insisting that their citizens do not hold citizenship in any other nation. Naturalized citizens who are granted citizenship will have to renounce their previous citizenship, and the government will ignore proof of citizenship from other nations. Other nations simply strongly discourage dual citizenship, and there have been a few documented cases where new citizens have been pressured into giving up their old citizenship by overzealous officials.
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