Has anybody else heard this? I met a lady that works in the Spanish Consulate here in LA and she told me that in Jan of 2003(last year) Spanish citizens married to American Citizens ca now become American Citizens without renouncing their Spanish citizenship. And Americans can do the same to become Spanish citizens. The old law, she said made this impossible. Does anybody else know about this? Please explain...

Hello Mency,

I am not exactly sure about the current citizenship laws. But I do know that america has or does encourage only one citzenship. My parents gave birth to me in germany when they where stationed at one of the american army bases there. Due to me being born thre I became an automatic german citizen by birth and a nationalized US citizen because my parents where born in the US. And I contiued to hold dual status until my 21 birthday wich was last september. I wasn't even asked or sent any forms to decide if I wanted to keep my dual status because america encourages only one citizenship because of the complications that can arise from being dual. So I guess they automatically cut my dual status and no I believe I am only considered any american citizen. I know that doesn't realy directly relate to spain but I will explain. I though it would be great to stay dual because then I could travel to germany anytime I wanted but then I was told that it can be very hard. Because certain countries may require you to pay taxes and other things from you income even if you don't live in that country and then when you travel and say for instance I was jailed for something (no criminal record here lol) then america's hands would be tied and they would be able to do nothing because I would be responsible to both countries laws. But anyway. I am not saying its a bad thing I am just that is what I have heard. But I am not sure what the laws are now currently but you should be able to find the information out through the spanish and also american consults on the rules and laws currently in place.

Dual citizinship is definatly confusing and problematical. More than once, a fellow airplane passenger has shuffled his/her papers on oboard the plane in preparation for landing with their spanish passport, after having boarded in the US wiht their american passport, assuring me that it is not complicated, lol.
Stranger's travelling routines aside, my understanding is that for an american, every step one takes towards dual citizenship puts one closer to losing US citizenship almost by default, in the eyes of the US gov.
Be very careful, it is also said that unfortunate complications can be very diffucult to reverse.

I hope this link will help.

http://travel.state.gov/dualnationality.html

I lost my finish citizenship when became canadian, due to finnish law, then moved to states and became US citizen while maintaining canadian one, then year ago finnish law changed and made it possible to get the 'lost' citizenship back by just declaring that I want it, sweden did the same thing, US citizenship is not in danger due to timing of the other nationalities (I had them before I became american) , I hope it helps although not spain specific.

Thanks all, I figured it was complicated. The gov. likes it that way. So Zeus, umm...you are, Americanadianswedefinnish?

Just a quickie for lasketchup. If you were born in Germany to a US servicemember and non-German spouse, I doubt you were ever entitled to German citizenship. Germany has some of the strictist citizenship acquisition laws in the world. Your US citizenship was acquired not through naturalization, but derivatively from your parents. How US citizen parents pass their citizenship to their children born outside of the US has been modified several times over the past 100 years, but basically a child born outside the US to two US citizen parents generally acquires US citizenship at birth. It's more complicated if only one of the parents is a US citizen. The US State Department website (www.travel.state.gov) has good information on this topic including one page on dual nationality.

Hello Chris,

You made very great points. I am still not sure my whole entire story but I was told by parents that at the time of my birth I recieved dual but I can't be sure if all the information I was told was correct. They did say though that when I was born they went to JAG (military law people) and they had to fill out a lot of paperwork before they could bring me into the country and was told by JAG that I would be considered dual until my 21st birthday. Maybe I just happened to be born at the right time or something. They also told my parents the same thing about my oldest sister who was born in another part of germany. And my middle sister was born in the US. But I have never seen my birth certificate because it was lost along time ago during many moves. But I am hoping to get my new birth certificate soon and finally get to see what it says. Who knows maybe I was adopted lol. Although my mom swears she gave birth to me. So I guess I will have to wait and see until I see my certificate.