Working

I’ve actually been doing my job for about a month – including adjudicating passports and births abroad, and helping folks establish their US citizenship. Every day is different, every day is interesting. In the last month I’ve reported fraud, pended cases for more information, sought a legal opinion from Washington, requested DNA evidence to prove a relationship, and confiscated a passport, all while deciding whether the person at my window qualifies for services. Sometimes I conduct the interviews in Spanish, sometimes in English, sometimes a mixture of both. I’ve gotten really fluent at saying in Spanish, “Do you swear or affirm that all of the information in your application, as well as everything you say during this interview, is the truth and only the truth?”

In regard to documenting US citizen births abroad, most people don’t realize that there are certain rules that govern whether or not you can “transmit” citizenship to your child. Before I joined the Foreign Service I assumed, like everyone I knew, that if you’re a US citizen then any child you have is a US citizen immediately – slam dunk. Not true. There are several scenarios that might come in to play, and the rules are a bit different depending on where a person’s circumstances fall. Really, the only time a child receives citizenship at birth is if that child is born in the US or one of its territories (Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam, and Northern Marianas), but there are times when even that isn’t enough. Each circumstance has certain factors that must be taken into consideration when deciding citizenship.  Learn more about all the rules on my favorite site on the Internet, Wikipedia.  When doing your job involves granting US citizenship, it’s critical that each case is carefully and thoroughly considered in order to make the right decision.

In addition to the interviews at the window, each officer in American Citizen Services (ACS) is assigned a portfolio. These include: welfare/whereabouts, deaths, victims of crime, repatriation (this is when destitute US citizens want to return to the US), children’s issues, and arrests. These portfolios are the most challenging part of the work in ACS. Sometimes US citizens abroad make bad decisions - we try to help as much as we can, but sometimes there just isn't anything we can do. Those are the difficult cases.

And finally, after only a week in country, I volunteered to record a question/answer session for broadcast on a local radio program. A colleague and I had the opportunity to talk with a DJ about the different types of visas available to Dominicans and the work that we do in helping US citizens. We didn’t take live questions – I’m not ready for that yet – but it was still interesting. I keep trying to push myself outside of my comfort zone so I’ll grow and improve; by that measure, I grew a foot that day!

At the radio station.