jason365

In this document, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/94675.pdf (scroll all the way to the bottom), it said that US citizens can chose to use their city of birth rather than the country. It also warns people who do it that they may be denied visas to other countries and also they may not be allowed in certain countries.

My question is, Has anyone did this before and have they run into such troubles?

tfar

Interesting. It says: "United States citizens born abroad may list the city or town, rather than the country, of their birth in United States passports when there is an objection to the country listing as established by the Department of State." See link above for source.

Maybe this is a matter of a state being recognized such as Palestine. You'd then write Bethlehem instead of Israel for example.

Only thing I can imagine.

Till

vicarious_MR'er

Yes, I am pretty sure that this example and other similar scenarios are the reason for this.

kaylla334

Canada has a similar thing, but you can omit your place of birth because it would cause immediate visa refusal, but it is only allowed for iffy places like taipei, macau and palestine

jason365

Immediate visa refusal? You won't be allowed a visa if your country of birth is not in your passport?

jspira

I thought it might have something to do with the country changing while the city stayed the same.

For example, someone born in Vienna in 1940 (after the Anschluß) was born in Germany.

european28

My thought as well. Very applicable to former Soviet republics and East Germany.

peachfront

Yeah, my previous passport listed the city of my birth. It was never a problem. The State Dept. or whoever took it on themselves to change it from the city to the state when they issued my new passport. Who knows why. Nobody cares.

alanh

It's definitely in response to some territorial disputes where the US doesn't want to make a definitive statement, notably the Middle East and Taiwan. This was in the news lately:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,4151921.story

In reaction to the State Department policy of allowing just a city name, Congress passed a law in 2002 saying that passports of people born in Jerusalem can have "Israel" on their passports, but the Bush and Obama administrations have refused to do it saying it infringed on the executive's right to set foreign policy.

All the current ruling did was grant that the person had grounds to sue, and that the case could go forward.

(Do the moderators a favor: if you have an opinion on whether this is right or wrong, start a thread in OMNI as that's where it will end up anyway.)

ajax

I was born in the US. My US passport lists only the state and country. My UK passport lists only the city. Very odd.

GUWonder

Some countries -- including places in the EU -- routinely list the wrong city of birth in passports because they register the place of birth as the city address of the parent(s) (as the parental address was listed with the government) at the time of birth and do not list the city in which the hospital birth physically happened. Many ordinary Swedish passports, for example, have this issue and they mostly no longer include the country of birth in the ordinary passports.

US passports issued for natural-born US citizens abroad who were born abroad routinely only include the country of birth.

45128

There is a case being considered right now by the United States Supreme Court on this very subject.

See http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/05/co...olicy-dispute/

tfar

Good point. I hadn't thought of that but you're right, of course. That's another reason why this rule is in place.

Till

SQ421

The Australian passport application lets the applicant choose whether their place of birth will be displayed on the passport.

45128

Many British people (and probably other nationalities, too) who are "slightly older" will no doubt remember when the holder's "trade or profession" was entered in passports. I once had occasion to inspect the passport of an English baronet; his "trade or profession" was Gentleman.

There was a peculiar anomaly in my relative's first UK passport, issued in 1938. In the slit on the cover of his blue passport, with the royal coat of arms proudly emblazoned in gold, his name was shown as "Mr Louis Neckovitch". However - in the same handwriting and on same date of issue - there was an amendment on the "observations" page attesting that the holder's name was Nickovitch.

This, I suppose, pointed to a certain frugality on the part of the issuing clerk. Either that, or he/she did not wish to have his/her all-too blatant error discovered.

Not that it mattered all that much: all too soon, in the autumn of 1939, most civilian travel overseas was abruptly halted.