US Citizenship and Its Exclusionary Force

Service greater than self - Hayles
published: Sunday | September 30, 2007

Having lived in the United States, Hayles acquired dual citizenship. He claims that he gave up his U.S. citizenship prior to nomination day, August 7, and is now awaiting ratification.

Hayles comments tha he wants to visit his children and other family members in the U.S., he has to wait, and he hopes that a December visa application is successful. But the father of three children feels that "services and sacrifice is for causes greater than one's personal self."

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I could be wrong, but it seems that Ian Hayles has only applied for his citizenship to be revoked, but it has not been approved.

 

I am no lawyer, but it seems to make sense to me that only the US government can revoke citizenship, in much the same way that it is the only authority that can grant it.

 

I have been doing some searching on the internet, and cannot find any information on how long it takes to revoke US citizenship.  All I have is the evidence of a friend who says that he went through the process more than five years ago that and it took a month.

 

Does this mean that Hayles is a US citizen, and was also one on nomination and election days?

 

Is this the kind of question that we really want to be answering to determine which party should form our government?

 

In a separate Gleaner article : http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070930/lead/lead5.html

 

Jamaicans abroad say that they should be given the right to participate in the government, if they so wished.  They argue that they were encouraged by the past government to seek citizenship in their respective countries, but were never dvsed that doing so would obstruct their chances of entering representational politics.

 

Also, remittances remain the largest earner of foreign exchange, acting as a subsidy to the Jamaican economy.

 

What should the government's policy be?

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On a separate note, it's hard to imagine that Jamaicans abroad are happy to discover that the US citizenship that the government urged them to acquire prohibits them from running for political office.

I think this article sums up the sentiment well (click on the headline for the link):

... Jamaican Diaspora wants changes to Constitution
published: Sunday | September 30, 2007

Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

Diaspora mini-conference workshop groups in Florida, earlier this year. - Contributed

 Members of the Jamaican Diaspora want the Jamaican Constitution to be amended to allow persons with dual citizenship to participate in political representation.