The State Department has slashed by about 80% the fee for Americans to formally renounce their U.S. citizenship.
After years of legal battles with several groups representing Americans wanting to give up their citizenship, the department on Friday published a final rule in the Federal Register that reduces the cost from $2,350 to $450.
The new fee, which took effect on Friday, had been promised in 2023 but had never been implemented. The cost is now the same as it was when the State Department first started charging Americans to formally renounce their citizenship in 2010.
It’s like they’re daring me at this point.
I don’t want to leave this country. I was born here, my dad was born here, my dad’s dad was born here, etc. But, holy shit, this society is failing. It’s not failed, yet, but it is failing. I want to believe that things can turn around, but it gets harder everyday to hold onto that belief.
It’s especially hard because I feel like my proposals for how things could be fixed are actively, aggressively being fought against by many of my countrymen. Hell, we can’t even agree on the problems, let alone solutions. For a lot of Americans, there is no problem! This is all hunky-dory.
A nation is a shared idea. A nation exists when a group of people all agree that they are a nation. I ain’t in the same nation as these folks. They’ve got their idea of America and I’ve got mine, and they are two different things. I’m not a part of the shared idea anymore. It’s moved away from me. It’s become something that I don’t understand or agree with. I don’t think it’s moral or rational, or sustainable.
Frankly, I think the idea of America as a nation, as it stands right now, is doomed to fail. It’s far too tolerant of greed, ignorance and liars with malicious intent. A society like that won’t last. It will collapse.
When was the last time a country actually collapsed? You’ve got Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and the USSR. Forgoing the USSR, you don’t see many countries of this size doing the whole “collapse” thing, these days. I think it’s far more likely that worst case scenario tends toward reshaping American culture toward more toxicity, corruption, … other nations will slowly stop relying on the US for its economic reliability, stable bonds, … you’ll have less sway over international politics. Locally, your markets will lose the vigor provided when an economy yields fair chance to make gains. People who rise to power in your new nation will be those who pay or promise the most to a small handful of elitists. National response to disasters will become dull. People will be radicalized, but also less educated. Public violence will increase. All of this will happen while your foreign state enemies watch and fill the void you’ve left. You’ll never get that position back… just as Rome didn’t. Just as Spain didn’t. Just as the UK didn’t. You’ll be a nation that just fades to the sidelines. Still relevant in some ways, but definitely not anything like you used to be.
Sort of. If you are smart enough to leave, that’s one less voter they have to deal with.
There’s also a whole other slew of issues that affect Accidental Americans usually having to do with non-filed taxes, meaning the whole process also recoups from global earnings that have had zilch to do with the US through tax traps. Making it easier to apply for means they can get a few bucks more, and I suspect the people processing those requests are at the ICE level of quality. William Barr’s daughter, Mary Barr Daly, ended up being placed as a senior adviser to FinCEN, which is closely involved in this process, and she has her own history of exercising her position in let’s just say the traditional Republican manner.
To be fair, both parties have been at fault for the US’ Eritrean system of citizenship, neither really cares, although I suspect with how many bridges they are burning they are seeing the writing on the wall and would rather get something from the people trying to leave “the right way” while their demands on the global banking system are still respected.
It’s frustrating living in a state that is pursuing good values, and then we vote federally and lose to morons. What can I do? Move to these shitholes? There’s a lot of possible improvements to the system, but we need to cross a threshold to get over to get that done and IDK if we can. I have young kids and grapple with uprooting them. The next couple of years will be very telling.