These days, it is clear that the USA/Trump/ICE want to get rid of a lot of (almost)-citizens and people who would like to become USA citizens. But it wasn’t always so easy to disqualify from being a USA citizen: when I renounced my USA citizenship 10 years ago, the USA wanted a ransom payment of $2,500 and a lot of paperwork to officially “let me go“.

Germany did not tolerate dual-citizenship except in extreme cases in 2015, the year I ditched my USA citizenship. In that year 5000 USA citizens renounced their citizenship, DOUBLING within 2 years. The USA even publishes its “list-of-shame”, containing the names of Americans who chose to give up citizenship. I was hoping to soon see my name standing alongside such greats as Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam, film director John Huston, or Tina Turner.

It was in fact, Tina Turner’s fault that within one year the USA raised the fee for expatriation from $450 to $2,500 in 2014, since her move to Switzerland was framed as proof that only rich, unpatriotic egoists would renounce USA citizenship. The 1st Trump administration decided that they should pay a painful fee for this dishonor.

But here’s the hack: you still CAN get rid of your USA citizenship, without paying, if you fulfill “certain conditions“.  The trick is in the wording: not to actively “renounce“ your citizenship but to passively “relinquish” it. The trick requires at least one of the following requirements though:

+ You have served in a foreign army

+ You are a member of a terrorist organization

+ You already possess another nationality

Of course, I made jokes with my friends about fulfilling one of the first two requirements, but it was actually the third one that got  me excited. I simply had to convince the Germans to bend their own rules, to issue me THEIR nationality first, and then they’d get the paper they needed from the Americans, without me paying the blackmail fee. This was not the usual sequence for the process and the German official who was handling my case did not seem amused with my attempt to hijack the system. At the same time she was curious to hear about American bureaucratic rules she had not yet encountered. Something new.

But she needed a German bureaucratic argument if she was to attempt to go down this brave new route. I was ready: the $2,500 fee demanded by the Americans was more than my monthly salary, which would qualify me as being a “hardship”-case requiring special attention. She agreed, but had to verify all my claims about what the USA could and would do: she would contact her boss in the Interior Ministry to write a query to the Americans. She seemed almost as excited as me. I was supposed to come back in a month.

To hedge my bet, I did check about German Army “Bundeswehr” enlistment limits, but there were a number of problems with that, the least of which was a recent scandal over right-wing extremism in the Bundeswehr.

When I returned a month later I was met with a mood of grave seriousness from my case worker. She declared that the Americans had not responded to the query from Germany’s Interior Minister: the wrath of the Germany bureaucracy at being ignored worked in my favor. The German authorities were willing to accept my proposal and issue me German nationality under certain pre-conditions. She presented me the first of a series of papers which basically stated I would receive German citizenship, but should the USA refuse to discharge me, I would have to give my German passport back and voluntarily reject any legal recourse against the German government.

 I was ecstatic, signed everything she wanted from me, and yet I also thought: I am perhaps on my way to becoming a Stateless person, one rung above Palestinian exiles? At the end I even took some solemn oath to the German State, which I have no recollection of: she shook my hand, smiling, and gave me the information/document I needed to get my German ID and passport. Later, friends would say that I looked Turkish on the photo of my new German ID.

Normally this story would end here, but an epilogue is necessary because the USA officials were NOT AMUSED. When I informed the US embassy that I was no longer “renouncing” my citizenship but rather was “relinquishing” my citizenship, I first met with a wall of silence. Like a jilted lover, my emails to the embassy remained unanswered; my calls got re-directed to a dead-end. Then the Germans started threatening me: where was the USA DS-4080 release-from-citizenship-certificate? Two months had already passed of their 3-month deadline.

The US embassy finally responded my emails, first questioning whether I was at all eligible for relinquishment, instead of renouncing my citizenship. (Somebody there already had plans for my 2.5 grand.) Other threats followed, such as the emphasis that what I was doing was an “extremely serious and irrevocable act”, and of course I would have to file a mysterious “IRS form 8854” immediately after losing my citizenship. Wait: I thought one perk of getting rid of my citizenship would be getting rid of IRS harassment, and then they claim even after losing my USA citizenship I have to fill out IRS forms?

The situation with the USA bureaucrats became increasingly worrisome: after sending them a copy of my beautiful new German I.D. as proof I was eligible to “relinquish”, the embassy went into a denial-mode. They stated:

We are presently waiting for guidance from the Department of State in Washington, D.C., regarding how relinquishment cases should be dealt with since taking on German citizenship would usually not lead to loss of U.S. citizenship.  We will contact you again once we have heard back from the Department.

It took another 3 emails to convince the embassy that I knew this was an “extremely serious and irrevocable act” but I was doing this voluntarily, I desired it , I needed it , I craved the DS-4080 release certificate more than they craved Iraqi oil. Their answer was not really reassuring:

As you will have heard the in the media, the State Department has recently been inundated with requests for relinquishment and renunciation.  The processing of these requests is therefore taking a lot longer than usual. We will advise you as soon as we hear back from the State Department in your specific case.

So. They were “inundated” with requests for relinquishment and renunciation? Were desperate US citizens storming the borders to Canada and Mexico? Had I missed something else “in the media”? Would the Germans accept this excuse from the USA embassy, as to why I still did not have the release form after their 3-month time limit? What if the Germans decided to deport me for breaking my signed agreement? The pressure from the German side was mounting: now the Interior Ministry, not the local municipal offices, informed me that in was “in my own best interests” to “increase my efforts” in obtaining my release from USA, repeating that my German citizenship would otherwise be cancelled. “Increase my efforts”? Should I join a terrorist group, go on a hunger strike in front of the USA embassy?

Nevertheless, perseverance and patience did pay off. After a 6-month wait the Americans issued me an appointment to relinquish my citizenship. The kicker for me, was the date: May 1, which is a national holiday in most of Europe, celebrating the workers’ movement, Mayday. But not for the USA, so it was with considerable festivity that I showed up at the long line in front of the USA embassy on Mayday, 2016, to rid myself once and for all of USA citizenship. It was as if the Mayday crowds I passed on my way to the embassy had gathered in anticipation of my new freedom.

Now there was an epilogue to this epilogue. Although the Americans had given me a long list of documentation I had to bring (e.g. where and how long I had worked the last 25 years) they had omitted a crucial detail. When my name was called in the embassy waiting room, that resembled a Greyhound bus station in Cleveland, the embassy worker behind the bullet-proof glass first confirmed that I was present to commit the “extremely serious and irrevocable act of relinquishing my citizenship”, and then asked me where my witness was. But they hadn’t written to me anything about bringing a witness! The official explained I had to orally swear in person, right in front of him, that I was doing this voluntarily and this act had to be witnessed by a third person.

I was infuriated, repeated that never had anyone informed me of this requirement. The clerk responded with a shrug and with a wave of her hand suggested that perhaps I could ask someone else waiting here to be my witness. Since the PA-speaker behind the bullet-proof glass offered no “discretion zone” everyone, mostly US military personnel stationed in Berlin, had heard why I was here and glared back or turned their heads away, nonchalantly signaling  that they were not likely to help a traitor such as me. But I focused on one sympathetic-looking Latino guy who either spoke little English or had not eavesdropped on my case. I hope today, ICE is leaving this friendly person alone. Would he be a witness for me? He calmly agreed, sat next to me as I solemnly raised my right hand – a gesture that seemed absurd to me, but I had to mimic and repeat what the embassy clerk recited, about willfully and voluntarily relinquishing my USA citizenship. Both me and the Latino guy signed the cherished DS-4080 release certificate.

Muchas gracias. I was free. Free at last.

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