Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Fox v. Clinton: Court grants motion to dismiss citizenship renunciation case but remains mystified

This case relates to a renunciation of US citizenship.  US District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer in her decision writes:

Kenneth R. Fox wants the Department of State to recognize what he claims to be acts of expatriation under 8 U.S.C. § 1481, the statute governing the procedure for relinquishing one’s citizenship, dated as of 2002, the year in which he became a citizen of Israel. Mr. Fox insists that he has relinquished his citizenship by two expatriating acts under § 1481: (1) obtaining naturalization in a foreign state by application, see 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(1); and (2) taking an oath or formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state, see 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(2). The Department of State finds the proffered evidence of such acts lacking, but suggests an alternative course under § 1481 that would suffice: make a formal renunciation of nationality before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, see 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(5). For some reason, Mr. Fox is unwilling to take this route to expatriation and, instead, has retained counsel and sued Hilary R. Clinton, Secretary of State, and Edward Betancourt, Director of the Office of Policy Review and Interagency Liaison, demanding that they recognize the validity of his stated acts of expatriation. Defendants have filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Mr. Fox most gracefully opposes, but does not explain why he doesn’t just go to Tel Aviv and make a formal renunciation of nationality. The motion to dismiss will be granted and the Court will remain mystified

Read the court case here.

By the way, in July this year, the US Government started charging a fee of $450.00 for renunciation of citizenship.  

Documentation for Renunciation of Citizenship

The CoSS demonstrated that documenting a U.S. citizen's renunciation of citizenship is extremely costly, requiring American  consular officers overseas to spend substantial amounts of time to accept, process, and adjudicate cases. A new fee of $450 will be established to help defray a portion of the total cost to the U.S.
Government of documenting the renunciation of citizenship. While the Department decided to set the fee at $450, this fee represents less than 25 percent of the cost to the U.S. Government. The Department has determined that it must recoup at least a portion of its costs of providing this very costly service but set the fee lower than the cost of service in order to lessen the impact on those who need this service and not discourage the utilization of the service, a development the Department feels would be detrimental to national interests. See 31 U.S.C. 9701(b)(2).

For more on Renunciation of U.S. Citizenship, click here.







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