The New American Status Symbol? A Second Passport
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I would guess this to be an easier move for someone who has retired than somebody in their working years.
It's a hedge against the fall of American society. Nobody wants to live in a society that's all about FU, I got mine. And the rich have a means to escape it.
Maybe, but most super-wealthy people/corporations want to profit from such a society, including those in less "FU, I got mine", more socialist societies, like many in Europe. That way they get to enjoy the quality-of-life benefits that come with more redistributive societies while also enjoying the profits that come from the US's environment.
The example that immediately comes to mind are non-US pharmaceutical firms whose business model for developing medication is sometimes predicated on selling them in the US market, with it's unregulated medication prices.
This phenomenon rolls down the increasingly "FU society" hill from the US, too. One need look no further than the US' supporting fascist dictators in Latin America in exchange for more friction-less resource extraction from those countries.
The rich often absolutely do want to live in a society that is about that, who do you think “has theirs” and is saying FU you everyone else, in the first place?
But the rich, some of them at least, realize that that is unsustainable, but rather than investing in fixing the problems they've created it's cheaper to buy an exit ticket so they can go create the same unsustainable but beneficial-for-them-in-the-short-term situation somewhere else.
For the affluent, obtaining a second passport though e.g. citzenship-by-investment programs is all done through intermediaries. You pay a law firm a few tens of thousands of euro and they take care of everything – the only action required from you is going to an office to pick up your passport at the very end of the process. Since these affluent individuals are so used to relying on expert assistance, no knowledge of the local language is ever really necessary.
For less affluent people, especially those obtaining citizenship through ancestry, there are sometimes requirements to prove a B1 command of the local language, so in that case actually learning the language is a must.
The article says "with a passport from a country in the Schengen zone, her children will be able to live and work in most of Europe.", but this is inexact. If this were the year 2015 (pre-Brexit), the UK and Ireland were not part of Schengen but part of EU, and a EU citizen would've been able to live and work and travel without restriction in and out of those countries as well.
Anyways, that's why I've looked into dual-citizenship. I agree with one of the premises of the article: the cost of healthcare (and basic necessities) for Americans is too high, and its a good idea to diversify your hedges and get dual passports/citizenship if you can.
https://americansoverseas.org/en/knowledge-centre/us-taxes-a...
I suppose you could just toss it in the ocean and not formally renounce your citizenship, but you’d need to keep up on your taxes to avoid it in the future.