Does becoming a US citizen mean giving up the citizenship you have?

This is the question that stops people applying. Somebody has read the oath of allegiance, or heard about it, and the oath says the applicant renounces allegiance to any foreign state. A person who has kept a passport for thirty years reads that and puts the application away.

The answer has two halves, and only one of them is a question of United States law. This article is general information, not advice about your case.

The United States half

The United States does not require a new citizen to formally give up another nationality. There is no step in the naturalization process where you surrender a foreign passport, no form on which you renounce it, and no one who takes it from you at the ceremony. People leave the ceremony holding both documents, and they do so lawfully.

The words in the oath are old and they are said. What they do not do is operate on the other country's law. Whether you remain a citizen of Germany, Turkey, or anywhere else after taking that oath is decided by Germany or Turkey, not by the United States.

The United States also does not treat holding a second nationality as a problem after naturalization. It is not something to hide on a later passport application or at a border. What it does mean is that a person entering the United States must enter as a United States citizen, on the United States passport, once they have one.

The other half, which we cannot answer for you

Whether your first country lets you keep its citizenship after you become American is a question of that country's law, and it is the half that actually varies. Some countries treat naturalizing elsewhere as an automatic loss. Some allow multiple nationality without conditions. Some require permission to be obtained in advance, and treat the citizenship as lost if it was not.

Rules in this area have changed in recent years, in both directions, and advice that was correct when a relative went through it may not be correct now. That is exactly why the answer should come from the country itself: its consulate in Chicago, its own published guidance, or a lawyer qualified in that country. A United States immigration lawyer can tell you what the United States requires. Nobody should tell you what German or Turkish nationality law does today without being qualified to.

Ask before the ceremony, not after. Where permission in advance is required anywhere, it is required in advance.

What naturalization actually asks of you

The requirements that decide most applications have nothing to do with the oath. In outline, an applicant must:

• have been a permanent resident for a qualifying period — shorter for the spouse of a United States citizen than for everyone else;
• have been physically present in the United States for enough of that period, and not have broken the continuity of residence with long trips abroad;
• show good moral character over the relevant years, which is a legal test with specific content, not a general impression;
• pass the English and civics tests, unless an age or disability exception applies;
• have been truthful in earlier applications.

The long trip abroad is the one that catches people from our communities most often. A parent falls ill, a family business needs six months of attention, and a stay that felt like a family duty becomes an absence that has to be explained. It is not automatically fatal, but it is a fact the application has to deal with rather than hope past.

The application looks backwards

Naturalization is the point at which the whole file is read again. Every earlier application, every entry and exit, every encounter with the police is looked at once more, by someone who has time. This is a good reason to take advice before filing rather than after a question is asked.

An old arrest that ended in nothing still has to be disclosed and explained. So does a case that was dismissed, sealed or expunged, because the question asked on the form is broader than "were you convicted". An honest disclosure of a small matter is ordinary. A denial that turns out to be untrue is a different problem entirely, and it can reach further than the application.

Why people still do it

Citizenship ends the annual anxiety of status. It removes the risk that a criminal case, an administrative error, or a long absence costs you your home. It lets you petition for family members on better terms, and it means a returning traveler cannot be turned away at the border. For a permanent resident who has built a life here, those are not small things, and they are the reason the question this article opens with deserves a proper answer rather than avoidance.

What to bring

• The green card, both sides
• Every passport you have held during your residence, including expired ones — the stamps in them are the record of your absences
• Dates of every trip abroad longer than a few weeks
• Court papers from any arrest, however old and however it ended
• Marriage and divorce certificates

And separately, before the ceremony: whatever your first country's consulate tells you about keeping its citizenship.