Americans seeking to renounce their citizenship can’t for now

Ed Pilkington for The Guardian reports that

“For almost two years, since the pandemic struck in March 2020, most US consular missions around the world have suspended their expatriation services for those wishing to give up US citizenship. The US embassy in London, the largest of its sort in western Europe, announces on its website that it is `currently unable to accept appointments for loss of nationality applications’ and is unable to say when services will resume.

The US state department says giving up citizenship requires a face-to-face interview with a government official, and that it is too risky given coronavirus.

Delays have led to a growing mountain of disgruntled citizens. By some calculations, there may be as many as 30,000 people among the 9 million US citizens living abroad who would like to begin the renunciation process but can’t.”

Official portrait from Wikimedia Commons

The story notes that United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was born in New York but has not lived in the US since he was five. renounced his citizenship in 2017, having said he was outraged by having to pay U.S. taxes for gains on the sale of his London home.

Marie Sock, the first woman presidential candidate in the Gambia, was forced to pull out of the race after the failure of the U.S. embassy to respond to her request to renounce her US nationality.  In a video posted on Facebook, Sock said that Gambia law  requires presidential candidates must be sole Gambian nationals.

KJ