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Comment by Simon_says | Hacker News Reader

Really? That’s not my read of it. A kid is born in the US to naturalized US citizens of Korean ethnicity. Unbeknownst to him a relative enters him on some registry. He goes to Korea under a visa for ethnically Korean foreigners, and he in no way takes advantage of his supposed citizenship.

This sounds to me like the Korean government made a mistake and jailed an American citizen for two years without due process. I bet with a better lawyer he could have avoided it.

If I were him I would be more angry, too.

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There was no mistake: by Korean law he's Korean and thus has to be conscripted. Of course it sucks that he wasn't aware of this, but the letter of the law was followed here.

I'm curious if it matters that he was born in the US to US citizens. When his parents became naturalized, they were required to renounce their Korean citizenship and were no longer dual citizens. So his father was not Korean nationality.

Just because you renounced you previous citizenship in the US, doesn't mean you lost it. Uruguayan law says you retain your citizenship even if you renounce it in order to obtain another.

Brazilian law, OTH, says you lose it if you voluntarily obtain another, even if you don't renounce.

> Uruguayan law says you retain your citizenship even if you renounce it in order to obtain another.

Not sure I understand this. When you renounce a citizenship, you file renunciation papers with the government of the country in question. If you are abroad, you do it with the embassy if that country. Renunciation is a explicit, unambiguous legally binding step recognized by the country in question.

Once approved, you lose that citizenship. How does one still retain citizenship, assuming the renunciation succeeds?

Unless you’re talking about assumed loss of citizenship by taking on another citizenship?

AFAIK, when you become a US citizen, you take an oath or sign something stating that you renounce all other allegiances. It doesn't mean you have to communicate your previous country.

Brazil, for instance, rarely does anything about it. The only case I know of is of a woman who returned to Brazil after being wanted for murder. The supreme court then ruled that she had lost her Brazilian citizenship and handed her over to the US (which they would not do were she Brazilian still).

Oh I see what you mean. Yes, the US thing technically that doesn’t fall under the legal meaning of renunciation. One country’s laws isn’t recognized by another country’s which is why there are loopholes that can be exploited in multiple citizenships, and may also be why people get into trouble if they don’t understand the rights and responsibilities of their citizenship.

As someone who once held multiple citizenships, I’ve learned that the only laws that count with respect to citizenship are the laws of the country of citizenship (principle of sovereignty). Whether they enforce it or not is another question, but no laws of another country apply to citizenship of a given country.

I’ve heard some comical examples in the past where the new country takes your old passport, and then your old country promptly sends it right back to you since it’s still valid.

Does it matter that the relative who wrote in some registry mistakenly wrote that he was born in Seoul? That's the kind of mistake that a good lawyer would have looked closely at.

I wonder if, had he asked a lawyer before going to Korea, he could have found this out at all? Knowing that Korea has conscription, it wouldn't have been a stupid thing to do, to try to get this 100% clear.

But if the crucial piece of the puzzle was what some 2nd cousin scribbled on some form in another country, it's possible that there was no way to find this out before travelling. The US lawyer would have had his US birth certificate, and given advice based on that. Could the Korean embassy grant you a letter confirming that you are not Korean? I sort-of think you'd be laughed out for asking.

I posted our family's very similar situation above. The S.Korean gov was quite reasonable about it. I have to wonder if there's things being left unsaid.

Thanks, that sounds entirely sane. You cleared this up while in the US?

The article makes it sound like living in Korea, and at the exact time some pop star was in the news for seemingly abusing privilege, was part of the reason. Although I'd be a little surprised if any bureaucrat senior enough to care about the news cycle was involved here (without knowing much about Korea).

What law are you referring to, specifically?

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