Christopher's examples about conflicts of dual-(shared-Danish)-nationality both concern naturalisation, either as becoming a Danish citizen or as a Danish citizen naturalising elsewhere. I can envisage having both Danish and another citizenship through birth - take, for instance, the child of two Danes who is born in the United States.

Take, for that matter, the child of two Malaysian citizens born in the US (or Japanese, or of many others whose citizenship laws prohibit staying a citizen of said country whilst naturalising as another). Danish citizenship would be conferred by the parents; US citizenship would be conferred by place of birth.

I am interested to know what these countries do in these instances.

Of all places in the US, I would find it astonishingly ironic that a public servant in a state that bordered Mexico and presumably with a high Latin-American population would be ignorant of the possibility of dual nationality. I am originally from a city quite close to the Mexican border and I was well aware of it as a child. How very weird.

I have always wondered about using dual passports. Wouldn't the airline/passport control discover that you've used different passports to check in/pass passport control and board the flight? They may even deny you to check in especially if you need a visa on one of your ordinary passports. How do you solve that kind of problems? Also the immigration in let's say USA may wonder about why you don't have a British stamp in your passport if you're arriving from UK on an American passport...

I am eglible for a British passport, but I haven't applied for one since my Norwegian citizenship has almost the same visa requirements as the British citizenship out in the world.

[QUOTE=Captain Schmidt;14930821]
This makes me think you are confusing UK immigration officials (who deal with both entry and exit from the UK) with someone else (maybe airport security?). You do not need a passport to travel domestically within the UK. You don't even need ID, though the LCCs insist on photo-ID as part of their conditions of carriage (as a revenue protection method). I'm guessing you were flying easyJet out of STN and if so you can use a UK driving licence which proves absolutely nothing about one's immigration status.

What normally happens at UK airports that have common departure areas (which is most of them these days I think) is that they take a photo of you at security if you are flying on a domestic flight and that photo then appears at the gate for them to ensure it is still you when you go to board.[/QUOTE

Correct. I was flying easyJet out of STN.

But no, I was not confusing UK immigration officials with airport security. I've traveled enough to know the difference (and I know the difference between Customs and Immigration, which many people seem to confuse ).

What happened was this: Early morning flight. All passengers (International and Domestic) going through the same gateway into the secure area. ID Documents checked - I used passport, because I had returned from overseas the day before and passport was readily to hand. Then we moved into the next area, where security screening was performed.

I actually queried the procedure, as in "Sheesh, I'm only going to Edinburgh. Do you really need to see this?" I was told, in a po-faced manner, "That's what we do here."

If you need a visa for the country you are visiting then obviously you show the passport with the visa in. Airline doesn't care if you have dual nationality - they just need to ensure that you have the appropriate travel docs.

And entering the US is certainly not an issue. Mrs Schmidt is a UK/US dual national and only ever uses her US passport to enter the US and for travel to/from Mexico and Canada otherwise she uses the British one. Never gets asked anything.

One time though we took the TurboJet from HK to Macau once where she left HK on her UK one and because she was running very low on space, decided to use the US one to enter Macau. She confused the immigration guy in Macau for ages before we realised he was looking for the exit stamp from HK, so showed him the British passport with the HK exit stamp and he then stamped the US one.

In the case of Malaysia, as in a good number of other former British colonies that got independence post-WW2, push comes to shove as soon as the child (of non-diplomats) hits the age of majority, if the government constitutionally prohibiting dual citizenship to its nationals finds out/remembers.

In the case of Denmark, push comes to shove even earlier and more systematically, as starts to becomes evident when the non-diplomat Danish parents and/or child deals with the Danish government to try to acquire a passport for the child in the country of birth and/or have a need for a national ID number and services made available in conjunction with such. Fortunately for most Danish parents in such situations, it's pretty easy for the minor child to acquire Danish citizenship at later points, including once located back in Denmark, but that will involve giving up Danish citizenship.

I've been completely amused by the musical chairs of nationality surrender/acquisition that apply to the Nordic Council countries' citizens, even as there's been a liberalization in parts in terms of the holding of dual-citizenship (for example by Swedes, who have legally been allowed to hold dual citizenship for something approaching just a decade currently).

The reference was to Colorado being the probable state -- that doesn't border Mexico, but it now does have a rather high proportion of Latin American immigrants.

How strange, I've definitely never encountered this at STN though it's been some time since I did a domestic from there. Were you to have shown say a British driving licence with a domestic boarding pass I can't see what option they would have had but to have waved you past.

I think it varies from country to country. Some (e.g. India) seem to (effectively) turn a blind eye to it provided that the person doesn't take out the passport of the other country. This can cause problems, particularly for children born in the USA of Indian parents, since US law requires the children to enter the USA on a US passport and Indian law requires that they don't possess a US passport.

Others require the person to choose one of the citizenships at a particular age (typically the age of majority or a couple of years older than that), sometimes with concessions if, e.g. the person has lived in the country or has maintained in some way a link with the country.

Others accept that people can have dual nationality from birth.

It can be problematic for some people born in this situation.


Well, therein lies another issue: it could be that this public servant was using her views (whether real or manufactured) to make a petty, quasi-political point, along the lines of "I don't think a person should be able to have two passports, and I'm in a position to make it difficult for this person who does". Equally, it could still have been crass ignorance.

The applicant was not Mexican, he was a dual French�US citizen.

At Heathrow Terminal 5 everyone goes through the same channel. However, I believe that photo-ID is required of domestic travellers, not a passport, and domestic travellers aren't subjected to "immigration" checks (using "immigration" in the sense of checks by the immigration authorities). The point is that immigration checks for the departing passengers has been coalesced into one with security checks, but that doesn't mean that the two processes are the same.

I have heard stories of some airlines (though not I think BA) seeming to require domestic travellers to present a passport as the acceptable proof of identity at check-in, although I don't know if that is true: in other words, would something like a photo driving licence be acceptable to those airlines?

Well of course the provisions of the Nordic Passport Union render it to some extent irrelevant which Nordic citizenship one holds if one is living in one of the Nordic countries, and the naturalisation requirements are in many cases more relaxed for citizens of other Nordic countries. Sweden, Finland and Iceland have all now relaxed their rules about dual nationality; Norway and Denmark have not.

Across the mentioned countries, the "naturalization" requirements are more relaxed for citizens of the Nordic Council countries.

FR does "passport check" on domestic flights [had it in UK and PT] for non-EU nationals - and I find that ridiculous...

Also, they do it on flights within Schengen zone + W6 as well...

Photo-ID isn't needed for a BA domestic - at least I've never been asked and anyway, I believe that the BA Exec card is proof of ID for BA. No photo-ID is needed to get through security, however if you are on a domestic flight, I believe that they take a photo of you at security and then check that at the gate to ensure you are still you.


As jms_uk says, FR falls into this camp, however easyJet doesn't (per the STN example above). Their web-site clearly states that while passport or national ID card is needed for an international flight, it isn't for a domestic flight (though other photo ID is), and nor is for UK-ROI flights for British and Irish citizens.

I cannot see how this can be true. When traveling domestically, you cannot be expected to carry a passport; indeed, there are millions of British Citizens who are not even in possession of passports.

I know, and this can be a problem. I was also once told that supplying a passport was a requirement for hiring a car in Inverness. I happened to have it with me, so I didn't argue the toss, but it seemed very odd: I had booked the car in the UK, and the company (obviously) had sight of my driving licence, which carries a photo...