30,000 Americans want to cancel their citizenship
4 Min Read
A report by The Guardian interviews some US citizens living abroad who have been trying to renounce their citizenship, letting go of their "abusive parent."
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About 30,000 US citizens living abroad want to get rid of their citizenship.
Americans don't want to be Americans anymore.
You read that right.
In a report by The Guardian, there are around 30,000 Americans living outside the US who have been trying to renunciate their citizenship as US citizens, but are unable to due to the pandemic.
Michael, one of the candidates interviewed by the British newspaper, regards the United States as an "abusive parent" that he needs to distance himself from: “I can acknowledge my past association with that person while at the same time wanting to keep future association to a minimum,” he said.
The interviewee expressed what makes the US an abusive parent: Neglect. The case of the absent parent during times of crises has driven him and many others away, the 'trauma' reaching its peak in 2020 when the pandemic was at its worst, when the population needed the government's protection the most. Trust in governance and electoral processes have also waned, dissolving the state's legitimacy to the ground in the eyes of working-class citizens.
“Coronavirus made me realize that in the US, if you’re not a member of the moneyed elite you’re left to fend for yourself with virtually no help from the federal government,” he said. “The farcical presidential campaign made me realize that I don’t want to be a member of a society in which my vote is made irrelevant by gerrymandering or the electoral college.”
Though Michael moved to Finland some 10 years ago, he decided to repeal his citizenship recently during the pandemic. However, US embassies around the world, suddenly, made that almost impossible.
For instance, the US embassy in London announced on its website that it is “currently unable to accept appointments for loss of nationality applications," not specifying when the services will be back. The excuse was that the service would require an interview with a US official and that could not be done in the time being due to the virus.
Among the 9 million US citizens living abroad, there are some 30,000 US citizens who wish to repeal their citizenship, but aren't able to.
Some have gone as far as to sue the US government: For instance, 9 US citizens living abroad are suing the US State Department in a federal court in Washington. “The US appears intent on preventing its citizens from exercising their natural and fundamental right to voluntarily renounce their citizenship,” the lawsuit says.
In addition to blocking citizens from exercising their natural right, many Americans find it burdening that they are taxed just for being US citizens living abroad. In 2010, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which forces Americans to declare their income to the Internal Revenue Service via foreign banks, was passed. The law coerces foreign banks and financial institutions to declare any citizens they suspect are American to the IRS to get taxed.
From the year 2000 to 2010, the number of US citizens repealing their citizenship was more or less 1,000 per year. After the law was passed, it increased sevenfold as of last year.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was born in New York and has acquired a US citizenship from birth, canceled his citizenship in 2017, rejecting to pay US tax authorities for gains on the sale of his home in London.
