Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/31/the-super-rich-are-hedging-the.html
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In some cases you do not have to be a 1%er to get a second passport. If you married someone who has dual citizenship (like I did), some nations allow spouses to get a passport from their nation as well.
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I use to have two (dual citizenship), i think i could technically get an Italian passport because of Italian family ties on my mom’s side and maybe Spanish passport on my dad’s side… but its way too much trouble. And honestly idgaf
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If America is every so screwed up that trying to hide in another country becomes a systematically good idea… the world will be so screwed up that hiding in another country won’t help very much. In an individual case, there may be reason to jump ship, but St. Kitts isn’t going to exactly ride out the global storm if the United States is swamped and foundering.
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Pro tip:
If you don’t obtain your spare passports through official channels, you get to choose the name they put in it!
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A friend – who barely speaks a lick of Italian – got his Italian citizenship because his father’s father’s father was an Italian citizen. It would not have descended through any woman.
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Qualification
STEP 1:
Before you can find out if you qualify for Italian citizenship jure sanguinis, you must know:
the year of birth of every relative in a direct line between you and your Italian ancestor.
Orly? It doesn’t say only male lineage qualifies. It says direct line. My mom is directly related to her dad, who is directly related to my great grand dad.
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this. In many cases you have to jump through so many hoops that it is just a total PITA. I sort of look at it this way…if the US crumbles into chaos to the point that you want a passport from another nation to go elsewhere…the rest of the world may also be fucked beyond repair too. I mean if all the boats are sinking simultaneously, does it matter which one your jumping off?
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Passport buying is not a new thing, and I’m not sure it’s about anything other than greed. These places offer tax shelters to both companies and individuals. But it’s not really about having a bug-out option for the 1%. Fleeing to island nations will be a bad plan in the face of environmental catastrophe (hurricanes and sea-level rise, disconnectedness), and it’s difficult to predict how a world war, nuclear holocaust or massive social insurrection might change the meaning of people’s wealth.
You can more or less buy citizenship in Canada, too - however, there are residency and investment requirements.
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Yes - though they’re trying to escape the mess they made.
I’m considering getting dual citizenship via where part of my family immigrated from in Europe. I’m worried about trans and lgb people being among the first targeted if things go full Nazi. Just as the Magnus Hirschfeld Institute was in Germany.
And - there are reports of passport difficulties for trans people under Trump. So - if one needed to run - what if you can’t? Better to have an option - and to be able to stay somewhere else without a visa for as long as I might like in my dreamy little dreams for when retirement comes. A year of expat living or two would be an adventure.
The canaries help others in that coal mine. But it’s not a great deal for them.
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One of the extra-nice things about being a scientist is that there are often expedited visa and citizenship tracks that are open to us. I’m from the USA originally, but I now have Australian citizenship and will have EU permanent residency in a couple of years just due to moving around for jobs. Didn’t cost much money, either, which is good because I am definitely not one of the super-rich.
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Plus, the US passport is the gold standard for global travel. You may enter around 160 countries without a visa.
http://www.globalallianz.org/visa-free-countries-for-us-citizens/
Same thing with EU countries.
Pandas eating popcorn is a myth.
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Is this from a movie because if not, I always suspected Matt Damon may be a secret Russian spy.
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There are others listed above the US in the Global Passport Index. And I have to wonder if we won’t slip more given the treatment of other countries.
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I’ve always been troubled by the thought that eventually, trump or any other fascist following behind him will simply not allow Amerikan citizens to leave the country at all.
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At the moment this phenomenon is more about formalising the existing transnational status of wealthy elites whose money already allows them to come and go as they please. For many decades additional passports havw also facilitated various tax and business dodges for them. With the resurgence of right-wing populism in the West, though, more wealthy people are now looking at multiple nationalities from the perspective of the dark history of the 1930s and 40s.
From that point of view, the main practical purpose of a second passport (or maybe a third – anything more is billionaire Pokemon) is to get you out of your home country if things go pear-shaped for you as a targetted individual or member of a targetted class. It’s not going to save anyone from a global catastrophe but if you see the storm coming and know that you and your assets are on the autocrat’s hit list it will allow you to avoid it where others in your position without another passport won’t.*
As others here have mentioned, there are other ways to get a foreign passport besides buying one. If one had no other choice except to shell out cash then St. Lucia and Antigua seem like the sweetest deals.
[* to get an idea of what would happen in modern America in such a situation episode 2 of the second season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” offers a particularly harrowing flashback sequence. History provides all too many real-life examples]
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The only issue I have with this line of thinking is that for Trump or anyone else to enforce such things the military needs to be lock step in support of them (see the example of Nazi Germany). Our military will not go there with them. Despite what many a civilian thinks…as a veteran I do not think that is the case.
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