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brother Augustine Yarofalyar and company.
brother Augustine Yarofalyar and company.
Why in the world would I need to have a Dual Citizenship? What’s in it for me? Our forefathers had decided against such a thing, why now? According to Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money,” so why do it? These are the type of questions, I hope I can find answers to.

But first, let me copy and paste something from our friends at Wikipedia and here it goes,

Dual citizenship: Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, as well as 7 FSMC § 201, prohibit dual citizenship, stating that “A citizen of the Federated States of Micronesia who is recognized as a citizen of another nation shall, within 3 years of his 18th birthday, or within 3 years of the effective date of this Constitution, whichever is later, register his intent to remain a citizen of the Federated States and renounce his citizenship of another nation. If he fails to comply with this Section, he becomes a national of the Federated States of Micronesia.”[3][4]

In 2004, Public Law 13-65 proposed to repeal Article III, Section 3 of the constitution, which as President Joseph Urusemal described it, “eliminates the constitutional barrier to dual citizenship”, but would not actually permit dual citizenship unless Congress passed legislation defining cases in which dual citizenship would be permitted.[5] When put to a referendum during the 2005 elections, however, this amendment failed to garner the 75% support in the popular vote that it required in order to become effective.[6]

There’s some confusion as to whether Dual citizenship is allowed or not in the FSM, and as you can see from the above paragraphs, Dual Citizenship is PROHIBITED under the FSM constitution. And from the following paragraph, you can see that the United States of America is neutral on this issue. As of now, Dual citizenship is allowed in the U.S. I am not sure what a president TRUMP would do, being the reason I said as of now. :).

According to our friends at the CIS (Center for Immigration Studies), “The United States does not formally recognize dual citizenship, but neither does it take any stand – politically or legally — against it. No American citizen can lose his or her citizenship by undertaking the responsibilities of citizenship in one or more other countries. This is true even if those responsibilities include obtaining a second or even a third citizenship, swearing allegiance to a foreign state, voting in another country’s election, serving in the armed forces (even in combat positions, and even if the state is a “hostile” one), running for office, and if successful, serving.11 Informed constitutional judgment suggests Congress could legislatively address any of these or other issues arising out of these multiple, perhaps conflicting, responsibilities.12 Yet, to date, it has chosen not to do so.”

Now that I cleared those up, let’s see if we can find some cons and pros to a Dual Citizenship.

The lamest argument that I heard against Dual Citizenship is this, those peeps left the FSM, why bothered. In other words, they are not patriotic enough and don’t care a bit about the FSM. They have no contributions to our nation. Let them be! :).

This is just pure ignorance. Have you not heard the saying, “YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF THE COUNTRY BUT YOU CANNOT TAKE THE COUNTRY OUT OF THE BOY.”? Well, think of this on a more personal level. Your son or daughter left you to join the US armed forces, would you say forget them because they chose to leave you? Of course not, you will do everything in your power to help them, either bowing before BUDDHA every morning, pay your church dues every Sunday, or fasting in your little world.

Joyjoy and Rosie, both US citizens with FSM parents...
Joyjoy and Rosie, both US citizens with FSM parents…
Land will be sold to foreign nationals. If you call these FSM citizens foreign nationals, then yes land will be sold to foreign nationals. If my memory serves me well, Congressman Urusemal told me that land cannot be sold to foreign nationals. If the congressman is right, then why are we afraid? The US may demand that we allow US citizens to apply for citizenship? Is that it? Well, there is a reason we have negotiators from both sides. And there has to be something the FSM congress can do to protect the FSM lands. I doubt that lands will be sold based on Dual citizenship alone.

I tried to be biased and to find more cons to Dual Citizenship, but I can only come up with the two above. I searched the internet and talk to a few peeps but I cannot find any. Please help me out. If you find any reason(s) against Dual Citizenship, please let me know so I can include it here for my readers.

Dual Citizenship will be helpful to those of us that seek for more opportunities, whether it be education, healthcare, or just simply exploring our world. It can be beneficial to the FSM nation too.

I fully supported Dual Citizenship because I am an FSM patriot! I wanted to fully embrace and have the rights and responsibilities of my adopted country, in this case the USA but I do not want to loose the rights and responsibilities to my native FSM. I wanted to fully partake in the benefits and privileges of my adopted country but I still love my native FSM. I wanted to fully enjoy the American Dream, but I don’t want to loose my native FSM. If you are thoughtful enough, you would notice that someone with this mindset loves the FSM and never wanted to give up his/her FSM citizenship. He or she could have easily give it up, but that would mean no love for the native land. The best possible way to have both worlds is to give him or her a Dual Citizenship.

Let me clear this up a little bit more. There are tons of benefits stemming from a US citizenship, one of which is money for Education. As of now, FSM citizens are not allowed to use the US dept. of Education loan or Work Study programs. These are money that FSM citizens can utilize to educate themselves. A Dual Citizenship will allow an FSM student, a patriotic FSMer to keep his FSM citizenship while partaking in these programs. Simple as that. It’s not because he/she doesn’t love the FSM but rather to keep the FSM citizenship and still be able to partake in these programs, as a US citizen.

He/She can simply apply to become a US citizen to take advantage of these programs but that means loosing the one thing so dear to his/her heart, the FSM CITIZENSHIP.

Many of our young men and women are proudly serve in the US armed forces and can become US citizens easily. But one thing they will loose is the thing dear to their hearts, the FSM CITIZENSHIP. They cannot hold the highest military ranks until they become US citizens, which means they’ll have to give up the one thing dear to their hearts, their FSM CITIZENSHIP.

I have not seen any FSMer that is not proud of our young men and women in the US arm forces. All of these young men and women represent our country! So why not allowing them to have DUAL CITIZENSHIP so they can go as high up in the ranks without loosing the FSM?

There are reports out there that FSMers abroad sent somewhere from $5 million to $10 million annually into the FSM! That’s money for our FSM economy, ladies and gentlemen. If these FSM soldiers I talked about above have a Dual Citizenship and move up in the ranks, they will get more $$$$DOLLAR and will have more spare to send it to family, relatives and friends in the FSM. Again, more $$$$MONEY for our economy.

More of our citizens will be able to work for the US government and represent our country on important matters such as POLICING, EDUCATION and the ENVIRONMENT. Won’t you love to see more FSMers in the Guam Police Department? Won’t you love to see a few FSM citizens in the GUAM LEGISLATURE? Won’t you love to see an FSM citizen in the Oregon Legislature or the Washington Legislature? I bet you do. The one thing that hampers our FSM citizen from joining these Elite clubs is our status. Our peeps are too patriotic to give up their FSM citizenship. The only way to give our people more opportunities is through a Dual Citizenship.

FSM stands to gain a lot from empowering its citizens with Dual Citizenship. As I pointed out earlier, it’s hard to find anything against this measure. The ones I found are silly and unfounded concerns. There are laws to protect lands in the FSM and to think of FSMers living abroad as non patriotic is a pure unfounded, unfathomable, not so-familial, childish, bullish, stupid concern.

Seeing all these politicians travel distances to meet their constituents speak volumes. It shows the world how important FSMers living abroad are to our nation, to our people and to these politicians. We represent the FSM! And yes, we are the US tax payers that send you money!!!!! We pay into the US tax system and the US congress take some and send it to you, FSM locals. Hahaha. It’s the truth.

Most of my Ifagalz readers are smart people that can see the many possibilities that come with a Dual Citizenship. Start the conversations today! Let’s create this movement to drive this to fruition. Let’s forget the politics of the past and move forward with a united front to ensure that our peeps get the best of both worlds.

One of the things I asked congressman Joe Urusemal was Dual Citizenship. He didn’t give me his opinion on the issue, one way or the other, but he was just responding to my inquiries. I asked what state supported Dual Citizenship the most and he told me Kosrae which was surprising because I’ve heard it before that Yap and Kosrae were the two states that didn’t support the measure. If Kosrae has changed its mind, then I believe Yap will soon. It’s a matter of educating our folks back home on WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM!

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