The concept of citizenship and passports always seemed so archaic to me. I never signed a contract with anybody, yet the place I was born in ultimately decides the boundaries of the space I'm allowed to live in.
Thankfully there is a lot of freedom of movement if you're lucky enough to have a "good" passport, but recently we've seen the trend reverse a bit due to the refugee-scare. Hopefully one day everything will be open for anybody.
But just hypothetically, if I want to grab a bike, ride to some isolated forest in France, build a cabin and live the hermit life, I can not to that. I'd be forcefully removed and placed back into my designated space. And force really is the only thing that gives basis to the claim of land. Seems kinda weird. Animals don't care and just move where ever they want to.
>Animals don't care and just move where ever they want to.
A very very high fraction of animals are territorial and will fight to the death over land claims. You can see this in your back yard if you have squirrels or bird nests.
>But just hypothetically, if I want to grab a bike, ride to some isolated forest in France, build a cabin and live the hermit life, I can not to that.
This is actually a result of fairness on the part of the French government - you are a "nice person" and presumably would not ruin the environment for anybody else if you did that, but if it were legal to show up and make houses in French forests it would only be a matter of time before unscrupulous individuals began to show up and clear-cut the forest, overtaxing it and turning it into an unregulated slum city. Indeed if everyone were nice there would be no need for laws or governments at all.
This is obviously correct but also worth noting there is a middle ground. As evidenced by freedom of movement schemes within ASEAN, EU etc. So approaching the ideal of the OP but in a pragmatic way.
Well, Schengen grants me freedom of movement to roam to France and live there! So that middle ground does exist.
We are just slowly working toward more homogeneous soceties among which freedom of movement can be allowed - but currently, if we eliminate all borders tomorrow, it would be quite chaotic. What we first need to address are the struggles that make millions of people want to leave their home country, so they can be happy there, and there is no mass exodus from anywhere.
Yes I'm not that naive to not realize there are very good reasons the world works this way :). But I think its good to sometimes think about the big picture, how we ended up with these structures in place, and how we can improve for future generations - or at the very least try not go backwards.
Why cant i just walk into someone else cabin and say its mine - i find the concept of ownership ridiculous. So what you built it? You left it half an hour ago to collect wood- i assume you want to build another one and are sick of this one.
What do you mean, permits and claims? Calling the police?
This is all very regressive talk i hear here.
Turns out there are two sorts of Freedom - the good one (mine) Freedom and the bad one (others/your) Freedom.
I will rage and fight for the good freedom, while demanding for someone else having his good freedom and parts of mine good freedom to limit your good freedom.
I would argue the concepts of citizenship and passports, along with their Westphalian corollaries of national sovereignty and diplomacy, are a very modern idea that, for the most part, protects people inside of nations from violence, and gives them the stability they need to live and thrive. The whole notion of 'freedom' requires a degree of police protection which doesn't exist, for the time being, without clearly defined national boundaries.
The hypothetical you describe, of free-moving people and nations, was the reality for most of human history. This was the era of marauding bands, violent nomadic tribes which pillaged, burned, murdered and raped, not to mention famine and other constant disruptions to daily life. On your way to the French forest you would be murdered by a highwayman.
It would certainly be ideal if all nations of the world were available to choose from for all people in a sort of geopolitical marketplace, but that would of course require all nations of the world to have identical values which allowed for the sort of cultural and racial mixing which would surely follow, and I think you'd struggle to find any country that's 100% OK with that.
If we were conversing in the 19th century one could excuse this sort of willful Euro-centric ignorance, but it is now well into the 21st century and information is freely available. I guess one can file this under the 'When Rome Ruled the Known World' category. Hint: What stopped that expansionist power from moving East towards Euphrates and firmly lodged to the periphery of Mediterranean?]
Obviously diplomatic immunity, national borders and such concepts predate Westphalia. But the Westphalian model is the model on which the modern world is built for better or for worse. That's not really a disputed fact.
The key phrase in "grab a bike, ride to some isolated forest in France" being "in France". Shouldn't French citizens, through their laws and officials get to choose who gets to grab a bike and live in the french forests?
I'm probably more to the left as far as national borders are concerned compared to the average, but i don't see how your premise works. The French never signed a contract with you about living in a french forest (and i assume by your mention of a contract that you don't believe all ownership is theft), so why should you have the right to be there.
That same force is what protects you from random people deciding to just take your property.
Imagine those boundaries as the lines a government says "This is as far as I can enforce certain rules".
Now, maybe it should be a little more easy to cross, but you also have the problems of rules of different areas being incompatible. Some things allowed in one country are not allowed in another. Certain standards practiced by one country aren't practiced by another. Etc. You also have ecological concerns and what not. Invasive species can devastate local wildlife.
True, animals do move where they want to, but they are limited by what they can naturally reach. Humans have the ability to go just about anywhere and transport anything with them.
It's not really the same force! And it's very easy to observe that they're not the same by looking at city, county and state boundaries in the US. The governments of those jurisdictions don't require "citizenship", they simply assume jurisdiction over whoever is physically within their boundaries at any given moment. (And yet they still enforce property laws!) Nations could very conceivably operate the same way in the future.
U.S. states certainly do have a concept of citizenship! It defines, among other things, who can vote.
Now, it's been watered down by the well-intentioned Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees citizenship in their state of residence to citizens of the U.S. (the amendment's laudable goal was to prevent the former slave states from denying citizenship to their black residents), but it certainly doesn't have to be that way. I'd very much support an amendment which states that one is a citizen of one's state of birth in the same way that one is a citizen of the United States by birth, and that any citizen of the United States may be naturalised into another state voluntarily and under the laws of that state, such laws being subject to Congressional override.
That would enable each state to ensure that its citizens are actually citizens (i.e., with a knowledge of & hopefully respect for its history & traditions), while preventing states from refusing citizenship to a class of citizens and giving the federal government the authority to correct unjust state regulations.
Yes, because all of those areas are in a covenant with each other. A Union of sorts. They've given up some measure of power to a larger federation in order to reduce their own overhead. But to be a part of that federation, they have to allow certain things.
Nations could technically operate the same way, but only as part of a larger collective. There would need to be some agreed upon rules, some governing body to oversee enforcement of those rules, etc. Certain things would need to be agreed upon. What could each nation have autonomy on, what would they need to give up, what would they need to start doing, etc.
> I never signed a contract with anybody, yet the place I was born in ultimately decides the boundaries of the space I'm allowed to live in.
To the contrary: you never signed a contract, but you still got a free education, roads and libraries and schools, etc. growing up in your own country.
You're as free to live a hermit life in France as you were a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand years ago. And somebody else is also free to attack and imprison you for it (more recently French law enforcement, longer ago various peoples/tribes).
But you have this amazing things called rights in your own country, such as due process of law, where the police will protect property rights and the fact that you live in your home. That's not archaic, that's amazing.
This thread is such an interesting look into a worldview very different from my own. I’ve always worked with the assumption that we’re territorial animals and that the claim to territory is backed by force, kinda like on documentaries where two bears/lions/komodos fight it out (with large groups of people forming governments representing the biggest swinging dick).
Someone asked, in what I can only assume was complete seriousness, why they couldn’t just walk into someone’s domicile when they left. Wow!
> To the contrary: you never signed a contract, but you still got a free education, roads and libraries and schools, etc. growing up in your own country.
Yet it's not France that stop you from going away, it's the other countries that stop you from going there...
Why France refuse someone that doesn't cost them a penny for their education, roads and libraries and schools while they were growing up?
I'm Canadian, more specifically, from Quebec. I've met PLENTY of french people that had to go back to their countries because their visa expired. They didn't cost us anything, they gave plenty in taxes, more than many people I know, yet they have to go.
...yet the place I was born in ultimately decides the boundaries of the space I'm allowed to live in.
But not some places. There is the rather awful condition of being stateless for some people, such as many people living in northern Thailand. For example, four of those boys who were trapped in the cave in Thailand. Many people like that were born and lived their whole life in Thailand but are not citizens of any country. So they cannot get an ID card, open a bank account, have an official residence, get married, etc, etc.
Nowadays it would be possible to establish a "virtual nation" not bound to any territory but defined only by a group of citizens and a set of laws resident on a server farm somewhere (hosted by some friendly ally that does have territory). At least one such nation should be established to provide a citizenship of last resort for anyone who is currently stateless. I would call it the People's Republic of Hackistan. :-)
That's great for people who have citizenship already. But if you start life as stateless then it may difficult even to access that server where the virtual nation is defined since you can't get internet access (i.e. buy a SIM for a phone) without an ID.
Also, once you go stateless and then decide you can't do things that you want to do, you probably can't go back.
I think the thing missing from the other replies to your comment is the question of who owns your hypothetical forest. If everyone agrees that the forest is privately owned by some particular person, then I agree with you that your nationality shouldn't prevent you from buying a part of the forest from that person and living there. If the forest is publicly owned (i.e. jointly owned by all French citizens) then it's precisely the job of the French government to decide if you can live there.
Of course you could also ask about the example of a forest that was "unowned" (although these days to find land without a property claim you would have to go into space). But personally I'm inclined to treat unowned property the same as publicly owned (by the entire world). Everyone has an equal claim to it. Therefore, again, you would have to find some price at which the government was willing to sell it to you.
> The concept of citizenship and passports always seemed so archaic to me.
My understanding is that passports are really only about 100 years old, coming into existence (or being required, anyway) during the Great War.
> But just hypothetically, if I want to grab a bike, ride to some isolated forest in France, build a cabin and live the hermit life, I can not to that. I'd be forcefully removed and placed back into my designated space.
It's actually kind of the opposite: it's not that nowhere else will accept you; rather, it's that your country must accept you. It's kinda like family, one definition of which is that your family are those who, if you show up at their door, they have to take you in.
What doesn't make sense to me is dual (or treble) citizenship. My country is my country; I could renounce my citizenship and swear allegiance to another, but it doesn't make sense to be to be a citizen of two different countries. How can one bear equal allegiance to two?
Well I for one thank god I was born a Dutch citizen. I basically struck gold without even doing anything- I am the 10%. Its not fair I guess but I'm not giving up my ticket!
The funny thing is though that in the 19th century some of my ancestors left Eastern Europe looking for a better place. They found it but today that route is closed.
The world existed before you. So... You can't just come and say the concept of passport is archaic, the concept of countries is archaic, the concept of nationalities is archaic, the concept of government is archaic, the concept of birth certificates is archaic (yes, people collected your data before you agreed and became aware). France is the country of the french people who have their culture (that word includes a lot of things), and those people want to decide who they want to see on their territory. So you can't just come to the world naively thinking that you can go wherever you want. And legal system (another archaic concept) is the reason that you can. Otherwise, you would probably end up just like your cat when it ventures into neighbors backyard.
Wouldn't a completely border-less world rely even more on "force" as primary mean to assert claim on land? If anybody could take their bike to get to your cabin, wouldn't you be even more at risk of being removed "manu-militari"?
Not sure, but perhaps if you think this through, you'll come to the conclusion that in order to get what you want, you'd have to get rid of the entire concept of "countries". Also, where would you pay taxes?
I would interpret parent’s “open” as “non depending on birth”. As in people can freely apply to live anywhere with readonable amount of bureaucracy.
I think we have that but in one direction only: if a highly educated resident of a wealthy country wants to move somewhere else it will usually be easy. The farther we move from that spot, the harder it goes: it might require ungodly amounts of administrative work, enough bribing money, or demonstrably unique skills.
I agree with you that it brings up a lot of things to consider.
Went down a rabbit hole on this one, and though this was an interesting related chart: https://www.henleypassportindex.com/passport-index It shows which countries have the best passports as far as access goes.
Edit: Add some data from these countries
Countries from the Article:
-Austria 186
-Cyprus 171
-Malta 182
-Turkey 111
-Vanuatu 129
-Grenada 141
-St. Kitts and Nevis 151
-Saint Lucia 142
-Dominica 136
-Antigua and Barbuda 149
For reference:
-United Kingdom 186
-United States of America 186
There does not appear to be a correlation between access and price. Though the most access is the most expensive.
What would be particularly interesting is intersections for folks who actually do buy multiple passports. If I had a US passport plus a Maltese passport, does that score some higher number of access by allowing you to use the right passport at the right border, or is it still 186?
I hold dual citizenship and I move a lot more easily through many borders than my single citizenship wife does by picking the appropriate passport for that particular entry. No, I didn't buy it.
Thats really cool. I was looking for something like that when I found my first link. Though what I really want is a giant matrix of all passports to all passports.
Interestingly from this list Dominica is the best country to dollar investment at $20k / country. Though Turkey and Grenada actually get you 6. They are more per country. Would be interesting to do a full analysis of all the combos.
Though it looks like their sources are different than my link since the numbers don't line up. Total count of the US is 163 vs 186 from other site.
The data is stored on the front end in a bunch of arrays, if you want to play around with it directly.
> Though it looks like their sources are different than my link since the numbers don't line up.
Most probably different definitions of visa-free (it's not all clear-cut) and "Dependent, disputed, or restricted territories" counted in one but not the other.
A lot of passports will underscore access to the US, EU, Canada etc.
There is also a different level of access. For instance, a Canadian passport will also get you a work holiday in Ireland or Australia. Will any of these do something similar?
Odd that neither Australia nor NZ figure on the list since both do this (passport for cash, ie citizenship pathways for entrepreneurs) and both are heavily used (China) and both are occasionally pointed to (Peter Thiel?)
The list would be totally different if the question was where could you get permanent residency for cash - I would guess the US would be at the top of the list along with Singapore, Australia, Cyprus, Canada, and Switzerland (who I think used to let super rich people negotiate their own tax rate)
Well, the list does not tell you which income you pay taxes on.
The US is unusual (perhaps unique) in that most rich countries don't ask you to pay taxes on your worldwide income.
So if you have a lot of passive income -- almost the definition of rich -- then you would prefer England or Canada over the US.
Someone might make a comparison of London and Vancouver real estate but there are so many other factors that I am not sure that is useful, but it might be indicative.
The article discusses where you can get Citizenship for cash, the OP is addressing Residency for cash (which can lead to citizenship eventually) - those are two different lists.
One's desire to obtain Citizenship may have a very different set of motivations than one's desire to obtain Residency.
I agree with your basic point that the list is aimed at purchasing citizenship outright and would look different if you included countries with residency requirements.
I was just pointing out that the US would not top the list if it did.
Canada also have the "investor program (not passport, thanks robteix)". (grants permanent residency visa)
It requires you to be accepted through an application (no criminal / health problems) and to 800k loan interest-free to the government for 5 years. You also need business experience and at least 1,6m$ in legally-acquired assets.
Maybe Australia also have other criteria ? I think countries on that list don't ask many questions...
Pretty bad "article" overall. It could've offered so much more information :(
Canada does not have an "investor passport." And AFAIK, neither do Australia nor NZ.
They offer _residency_ visas, not citizenship. Once you are a permanent resident, you can apply for citizenship once you fulfill the residency requirements (3 years over the last 5 in the case of Canada), but the article is about countries that offer citizenship _outright_.
oh yeha you're right I didn't use the correct term sorry, you get permanent residency.
Normally once you have the PR, you only need to spend the required time here and pay the fees to get the full citizenship. It's pretty straight forward (Friends are in the process)
So I'm going to rant about taxes because this is what the underlying issue is: the ultra-wealthy increasingly not contributing to the societies that made their wealth possible and continue to make it possible.
I'm reminded of the talk about the tax cuts passed last year. One of the reasons given for cutting the corporate tax rate is double taxation (paying corporate taxes then taxes on dividends). Australia has had a system for years that solves this problem.
The concept is dividend franking. What this means is that if a company pays 30% corporate taxes on $1 and then passes you the remaining $0.70 as a dividend, you're actually getting two things:
- Income of $1
- Credit for $0.30 tax paid
If you're an offshore investor that tax credit gains you nothing. You don't need to file a tax return. You've paid $0.30 in taxes.
If you're resident then if your marginal rate of tax is lower than 30% you'll get a refund on the difference. If it's 30%, no difference. If it's more than 30% you'll pay a little more.
If the US/EU adopted such a system and also applied it in some form to capital gains a lot of these problems would simply go away. By this I mean that some form of withholding taxes are retained from capital gains that you get credit for in your taxes. This is a little trickier than dividends because you have to work out a cost basis but this is a solvable problem.
Then you combine that with:
- Revenue apportionment of profit. If you earn x% of your revenue in country A then country A taxes x% of your profit; and
- Loans taken out in country A for $x when an entity has untaxed profits in country B is the same as repatriating $x.
Then you have a much improved situation (IMHO). It also means things like buying citizenship, at least for tax purposes, largely goes away so who cares?
Also, other than outright citizenship there are a number of so-called golden visa programs that give you a path to citizenship but are often much cheaper.
Actually there is not much of tax benefit to being a citizen most places (vs resident) - meaning you can accomplish most tax avoidance without actually becoming a citizen
The other day I logged into Bank of America (where I used to have a checking account but now just keep a couple of credit cards) for the first time in several months and a popup comes up asking if I have dual nationality. Really guys? KYC is getting a little out of hand here....
I believe (and its just a guess) that it has to do with the Office of Foreign Asset Control's enforcement of various sanctions programs, as i think it is illegal to do any business with Cuban nationals as a financial institution (and North Koreans as well?) it could also be a in relation to FACTA or KYC.
I happen to have dual nationality with Pakistan (a situation I chose a few years back and not without some regrets now), so I answered accordingly. But what on earth is BoA acting as a front for ICE now for I can't imagine.
I was incontrovertibly born here, so they can throw at me what they like. But my mother, like many people born in South Asia, finds it hard to obtain official birth documentation. When she naturalized she had to have her mother swear in an affidavit as to her birthplace and birthdate.
You shouldn't be too complacent. If the "subject to the jurisdiction" argument gains traction (and it might) they could argue that your mother's citizenship is invalid, and that therefore so is yours.
She was a legal permanent resident by virtue of marriage to a natural born citizen at the time of my birth, so the question of whether her naturalization is invalid or not should be irrelevant for my case, since it occurred some years later.
It should be irrelevant, but it may not be if the anti-birthright-citizenship argument carries the day. If that argument prevails, all kinds of claims to citizenship will unravel, which is exactly what the people advancing the argument hope to achieve.
If you have dark skin you should be particularly worried.
I'm not going to list them for privacy reasons, but they include US and EU, which in my mind are the most powerful for entrepreneurs, especially as a combination.
But you do need some luck and other features. A degree helps a lot, although I don't have one.
I got the US one via the green card lottery, and although that might seem like crazy luck, if you live in certain countries your odds are surprisingly high. I calculated mine where 1 in 10. You just keep on applying.
The EU has pretty amazing visas available if you look carefully (being proficient at the language that Google Translate claims is English is helpful). For instance you can live in several EU countries just by being self-employed. You can then use that to get citizenship over time and live almost anywhere in Europe and even in some Caribbean countries.
Places like Australia (although they're tightening this up) allow you to move there if you're young, English speaking and have the right job or degree (for instance, if you can cook!). Once you're in often there is no requirement to actually work, so you can work on your own project while you pass 4 years to claim citizenship. Then you leave. But you might not want to.
Motivations? Besides flexibility for business purposes and low cost or free high quality health care, I'd say this: the world is becoming a more dangerous place, and being able to escape somewhere safe is comforting.
OK, I hold myself both a US and EU passport and I agree with your overall reasoning. I was just surprised by the will to get 4 passports. I feel like once you have US and EU you're pretty much covered.
Among the people with the motivation to get a safe haven and the money to spend on it would be drug king pins and wealthy ISIL funders. I hope they at least perform lengthy background checks on these people.
These governments could also maybe ask where the money to buy the passport comes from. Then you could check if those investments have any ties to known drug traffickers. That should certainly raise some red flags at least.
Same thing with ISIL funders, ask the person to explain where the wealth comes from and require that the business has to have been audited by the local authorities. It's not perfect, but then at least someone might look into suspicious transactions to known terrorists.
About 5 years ago I took vacation at St Kitts // Nevis and, somehow, locally learned about the "invest for citizenship" exchange deal they had. Somehow again I was surprised to find them on this list, but this time with a numerical dollar value and how long it's been in action.
The romantic side of me has considered it once or twice had I the disposable liquid cash for it.
Are there any additional benefits other than the collector value? Can you keep your money in Antigua and Barbuda or Vanuatu to avoid enough taxes that the deal becomes a net positive? Are the banks there reliable enough that the risk is low and you can be confident it's going to work out?
The IRS can now revoke your passport if they feel you owe more than $50k in back taxes. One could think of a number of reasons that could be quite bad for you. Like if you need to travel for business and suddenly cannot until you wade through the bureaucratic mess to settle the issue. Or you are an expat living overseas and suddenly cannot renew your visa because your passport has been cancelled, and for the same reason you also cannot travel, so end up in some sort of weird limbo. A second passport could come in very handy in those situations.
I was saved unexpectedly by my second passport a few months ago when taking a trip from the US to Europe. My US passport was valid for another couple months, but at checkin they told me I couldn't use it for an international trip because it needed to be valid for at least the next 90 days from date of travel. Luckily I was able to whip out another passport for them, but I'm sure otherwise I would have been stuck trying to get a rush passport and rebook flights.
Germany has visa-free travel to 176 countries, Sweden 175, many other countries still give you access to more than 170. Yes, a US Passport gets you visa free to 174 but that could change at the drop of a hat with the wrong invasion or military strike.
If you're American and America does something the world sees as shitty, you're suddenly restricted where you can travel and may in fact not want to be travelling on an American passport for very real threat of harassment.
For EU countries the benefits are obvious, you can then live and work anywhere within the union. For the other smaller and more isolated countries I'm not so sure how it works out.
Well, you could always hide there if you're charged with a crime, right? Even if it's white collar. Suddenly, that country is asked to extradite one of their own nationals rather than someone with a visa (and if they renew that visa when you're wanted it looks pretty bad diplomatically).
Political instability in their home country/lack of rule of law - basically an escape plan.
The tax issue doesn’t really apply as residence (rather than citizenship) is the determining factor for the vast majority of people (but not Americans)
No capital gains is what does it for you because it means the money you earn in your sleep is tax free (at least if you are not a US citizen). There is no need to use the banks or brokers in the country you're citizen of. It's important where you live officially and with a citizenship it's easier to claim residence.
Because they can make $24 million by selling some rich people citizenship. Normal plebes like us have to go the usual route of getting a job, getting permanent residency after a few years, and then applying for citizenship.
Because they can I imagine. You can go a LOT of places visa-free with an Austrian passport (looks like 173 countries) and it looks like your immediately family gets citizenship too. They also don't appear to have a residency requirement, some require many months or a year even with citizenship via investment.
I would guess that it's a relic of the past, the European Parliament does not like the practice. You've been able to buy a passport from both Austria and Cyprus since long before they joined the union.
Malta seems to be the odd ball out. I guess they've had their reasons for looking through the fingers.
A country is NOT a business, and there's international treaties and whatnot to consider - what if a terrorist were to buy their way into an Austrian citizenship? What if a wanted US criminal escapes to Austria and hides behind their Austrian citizenship?
> what if a terrorist were to buy their way into an Austrian citizenship?
Well it would probably work for a short while but if the terrorist matters enough (any terrorist that can come up with 24M probably does) back room politics would happen, said terrorist would wind up being extradited and Austria would get to keep the 24M and whatever they negotiated from the nation the terrorist is being extradited to.
Yes, exactly, there are many things to consider and I never even suggested that money is the only factor - but you will definitely gain nothing (and not just money, the individual might e.g. start a business in your country) if you straight-up refuse. I have no idea how any of it relates to the legal status of the government, if that's what you mean by business; governments definitely do operate for profit (and again, not just monetary).
That doesn't always work. Some places only care about parents or grandparents, others (like USA) require the person spend a number of contiguous years in the country in order to sponsor family. I have a grandparent who was born in the USA but never lived there long enough to sponsor family.
In most places you would need your parents to file their paperwork first, based on their parents or grandparents. I’m trying to get my mother-in-law to repatriate her German citizenship right now so we can do it.
You can do that, if you are in that position. I wouldn't be, we've been in the U.S. since the early 1700's on both sides of my family. That process also moves like a snail compared to citizenship by investment.
That might be common for Americans but in Europe for a great chunk of the population the grand parents come from the same country or a neighboring one. I don't know how far back I'd have to go in my family tree before I encounter an "interesting" nationality but it's definitely more than three generations.
I don't know why you're being downvoted since it is something that is done by some individuals.
Just marrying somebody is usually not sufficient though, and there are other requirements (put in place exactly to avoid this practice). For example you may be required to
* Being married for a number of years
* Residing with your spouse in the target country for number of years
After meeting all the requirements you need to request the citizenship to the relevant authority, and the whole process may take quite some time.
An example: if you marry an Italian citizen you may request citizenship after 2 years of marriage (3 if you're not living in Italy), but then it will take usually 3 more years for your request to be processed.
Also keep in mind that some nations don't allow double citizenship, or require special circumstances (I think to remember it is the case for Germany and Holland) so you may have to choose between the two.
I've seen people go through this process (without money involved, to be clear, they were genuinely trying to live together) in both Canada and the US and it's nowhere near as simple or guaranteed as people think. Maybe it is in some countries, but I'd expect many 'desirable' countries are actively trying to filter out people who marry specifically for citizenship.
Having gone through this process in the US myself, I won't dispute the "not simple" part, but how is it not guaranteed? As long as the marriage is done in good faith why would the permanent residency - and then citizenship - be denied?
There is no CAP for "green cards through marriage" so no waiting list, and the residency period to transition to citizenship is shorter (3 years) than the standard (5 years I believe).
Your question has the answer in it: because it can be denied on grounds of not being in good faith. GP post was talking about literally paying someone for marriage to obtain citizenship, literally the opposite of a good faith marriage in terms of this process.
People think it's a rubber stamp, but from what I've seen it's an invasive process where they poke around all sorts of aspects of your personal life to ascertain how 'good faith' your marriage is.
Sure, the GP was talking about marriage fraud, but I was under the impression that the post I was replying too was making a general statement that GC through marriage in general was not guaranteed. My bad for misunderstanding.
My XP is only one data point of course, but the process was not invasive at all. We had to provide some documentation (e.g. statements of shared bank account, utility bills with our names), go through a 30-ish minute interview where we had to explain how we met, how we got engage, etc and that was it. Now, maybe when the USCIS suspects fraud they start digging a little more and it gets painful.
The people I know had friends interviewed and it took quite a long time (a couple years at least) of that sort of thing for whatever reason. It still took quite a few years for even permanent residence, afaik citizenship was never even obtained.
I don't doubt that the experiences vary. But the entire point of my reply was that you can't just buy into citizenship with marriage because they will deny you if they find out you did that, ergo it is not guaranteed.
In my country, the person wanting the citizenship has to live in the country for three years (married) before they can apply for naturalisation. Of course, they already get a lot of rights (and pay taxes) if they live here.
Seems risky for wealthy people. I can't imagine they would want to marry someone they don't trust. Imagine the divorce settlement and the potential for blackmail. Yikes
Not so easy. As a new spouse living in my wife's country, getting citizenship – or even a permanent spouse visa – is a long, tedious, and relatively stressful process.
If you do a lot of business in Turkey you might want to make sure that you don't have to wait for a lengthy visa process, or any other diplomatic issues that might come. Being able to travel into a country as a citizen has a lot of benefits, and rights.
Not all rich people live in Europe or the US. If you live in Middle East or an African country, being able to move without hassle to a safer country in case of social unrest (just think about Turkey's neighbors: Syria, Iraq, Iran...) may be of great value.
Plus at least until recently Turkeys economy was growing steadily so it was an interesting place for doing business.
Ha. In like 20-30 years, assuming that the entire political course of the country does a 180 degree spin and stays on it. It would be faster, cheaper, and easier, to just live in any EU country for 5 years and get the passport that way.
Thankfully there is a lot of freedom of movement if you're lucky enough to have a "good" passport, but recently we've seen the trend reverse a bit due to the refugee-scare. Hopefully one day everything will be open for anybody.
But just hypothetically, if I want to grab a bike, ride to some isolated forest in France, build a cabin and live the hermit life, I can not to that. I'd be forcefully removed and placed back into my designated space. And force really is the only thing that gives basis to the claim of land. Seems kinda weird. Animals don't care and just move where ever they want to.