Hi,
Long-time lurker on the forum and have finally gotten around to getting all documents required to begin my application for Hungarian citizenship.
Some background:
- My grandparent's on my father's side and my father were all born in Budapest, Hungary. I have their original Hungarian birth certificates and marriage certificate. As well, they were all Hungarian citizens. I have my grandfather's very old Hungarian passport that has my father on it. So not a valid passport, but a passport showing that they are Hungarian.
From doing research off of the various Hungarian websites and internet, it appears that I would be able to get Hungarian citizenship based on the Jus sanguinis principle. This process is (I'm assuming) different than the naturalization process.
I have questions that hopefully some who have gone through the process would be able to answer.
- A lot of the research on obtaining Hungarian citizenship is based on descent. Does this "descent" mean not their direct parent (as in, previous generations)? Specifically, it seems to me that if your parent never renounced their Hungarian citizenship, then you are automatically a Hungarian citizen at birth (even if you are born abroad as is my case). In my case, my father never renounced his Hungarian citizenship and did become a naturalized US citizen.
- Does the language requirement still apply? It seems that many people who are in the process of obtaining Hungarian citizenship require a language test. Is this because they are obtaining it through the "simplified naturalization process" and not via "descent"? Is there a difference?
- It looks like I need to register my birth with Hungary. After this is registered, what exactly do I need to do to obtain citizenship? It seems that the registration will give me a Hungarian birth certificate; however I have also seen that having a Hungarian birth certificate doesn't mean that you are a Hungarian citizen. It doesn't make sense to me that they would issue a Hungarian birth certificate to someone who was not born in Hungary.
Any clarification would be greatly appreciated. I'm confused by the "simplified naturalization citizenship"; while I am a "foreign-born" person, would I not simply be a Hungarian citizen once I was born? So this should be a paper exercise? Is there some other process that I would be doing?
Hungarian Citizenship via descent - Questions
It is complicated.
For example, the current nationality law does not have a retroactive effect (prior citizenship laws may apply at different times) -- i.e. before 1929 if one left Hungary for more than 10 years one lost their Hungarian citizenship thus breaking any rights to citizenship for their decedents. See for more details:
http://washington.kormany.hu/hungarian- … ip-general
In short, every case is different. And the best solution is to contact your local Hungarian Consulate for advise and procedures.
klsallee wrote:....For example, the current nationality law does not have a retroactive effect (prior citizenship laws may apply at different times) -- i.e. before 1929 if one left Hungary for more than 10 years one lost their Hungarian citizenship thus breaking any rights to citizenship for their decedents. ....
This has happened even in relatively recently times. There was a time when certain people in Australia lost their citizenship simply because of either a drafting error or nationalist tendency in their laws (forgotten which). But they were eventually restored to full nationality.
However, there's almost no chance of anyone becoming stateless in an EU country as it would infringe their civil rights.
The UK for example does not allow people to become stateless (refugees are an exception). It can withdraw British citizenship but only if the person has another citizenship at the same time.
fluffy2560 wrote:there's almost no chance of anyone becoming stateless in an EU country
True, but not relevant here. The author's Father became an American citizen. The author is thus an American citizen. No one today risks being stateless.
The issue is not about statelessness today, but about Jus sanguinis, or nationality by decent. And the Hungarian Embassy in Washington indicates such older laws may have broken Jus sanguinis in the past for the applicant, so it can be an issue for some. No details by the author were provided on timing of his family moving to the US. So I simply provided a section of the Hungarian Embassy to show details matter, that it may be complicated, and the Hungarian Consulate can provide the best answers and ways forward once the documents and full information on this issue are disclosed to the staff at the local Hungarian Consulate.
Further, while the OP says his father never renounced his Hungarian citizenship, he also says he became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and the U.S. naturalization procedure includes a renunciation, though I don't know whether Hungary recognizes it as a renunciation of Hungarian citizenship.
And around 1938/39, Hungarian citizenship law was amended to automatically revoke citizenship from those who acquired citizenship elsewhere; this provision was ultimately removed after the war, though I'm not sure precisely when.
Point is, in any particular case problems can arise out of nowhere, which is why Simpified Naturalization is indeed much simpler: just show your descent from someone who, at least for a time, was a Hungarian citizen. And speak Hungarian to some degree.
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