Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
The United States does not recognize dual citizenship for its citizens. Other countries do. Most of the commonwealth countries allow you to be a dual citizen. So as a born Canuck who became a naturalized American citizen, I get to retain my Canadian citizenship with no expectation of renouncement. Going the other way, American citizens born in the USA would have to renounce their citizenship should they want to become a citizen of another country.
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That's not true at all in practice. For the last 30-40 years, the government and the courts have held the position that to lose your US citizenship upon naturalization in another country, you have to have obtained that second citizenship "with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality," and the onus is on the government to prove that the person had that intention. So in the vast majority of cases it is presumed that the US citizen wants to keep their nationality unless there are reasons to think otherwise (US citizen renounces, commits treason, takes a policy level position in a foreign government, etc.).
So while the US government doesn't encourage American citizens to acquire citizenship in other countries, they do recognize it and don't require you to renounce your US citizenship as a result.