Dual Citizen and travel between country of birth and parents' country

[jefkorn]

The native country of parents allows dual citizenship and child was born in US (hence US citizen by birth):
Can the child (under the age of 1):

• enter her parent's country on that country's passport?
• enter US on her US passport?
• Are there potential issues with that?

Thanks

[Ron Gotcher]

This is really going to depend on the unique factual issues and circumstances involved.

[jefkorn]

Hi Ron,
If parent's country allows dual citizenship, it would not have any issue letting the child enter on the passport its consulate issued to the US Citizen child in US. While traveling back to US from the other country, when presenting US passport to enter, what are the pitfalls? (for starters, the US passport will not have any record of recent entry into another country but will have the departure from the other country)

Is this a problematic situation?

Should the child apply for a visa to visit her parents' country of birth and not use that country's passport to travel?

I would think this happens quite often with kids whose parents' country of birth allows dual citizenship.

Thanks

[Ron Gotcher]

If you are talking about travel only between the two countries for which the child holds citizenship, then the child does not need a visa for either and may use his/her passport as an entry document.

[jefkorn]

Thank you, that clarifies it. I do have a follow up question:

If the child has to travel with her parents to a third country that requires visa from one of the countries that the child holds citizenship of, is it then parent's "choice" (in this case, child is too young to decide) which passport to present when entering to the third country?

I promise I won't add a fourth country to the mix :-)

[Ron Gotcher]

It doesn't matter which passport is used. Though, if there is a problem in that country and the child's parents wish to invoke the protection of the US, it would be better to have used the US passport to enter.

On a side note, while it is nice to make questions nice and general, it can also be confusing - at least to me. I originally read this question as asking about travel between two countries, neither of which was the US.

[jefkorn]

Thank you again. Will work on unambiguous writing next time kinda like lawyers :-)