native emigration from the u.s
TRANSCRIPT
EXPLORING PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF NATIVE -BORN AMERICAN EMIGRATION ABROAD AND
THE RENUNCIATION OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP…THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
“Renunciation is the most
unequivocal way in which a person
can manifest an intention to
relinquish U.S. citizenship.”
-- U.S Department of State
PRESENTATION OVERVIEW
A paradox
Historical reasons for renouncing citizenship
Highlights from the (scant) literature
Native emigration from the U.S. Destination countries
Challenges of counting…expats and citizenship renouncers Expats
Foreign and domestic databases
Dynamic information
Renunciations
State Department and consular renunciations
U.S. Treasury and IRS renunciations
Social media approaches Article networks on Wikipedia
Video networks on YouTube
#hashtagged conversations on Twitter
Keyword searches on Twitter
User networks on Twitter
Related tags networks on Flickr
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SOME TERMS
U.S. citizenship
Jus soli (right of the soil)
Jus sanguinis (right of blood)
Green card (for lawful permanent residents who are foreign nationals) and naturalization (based on the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act)
Dual citizenship
Expatriation
Relinquishment / renunciation of citizenship (rights and responsibilities)
“Exit tax”
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A PARADOX
The U.S. is a dream destination for many would-be immigrants in the world, and yet, there are others (both native-born and foreign-born naturalized citizens and holders of green cards) heading in the other direction (out).
Why does this happen? (at the micro, meso, and macro levels)
What is the size of this issue? How is this issue officially measured?
What is currently knowable about this topic from widely available sources?
What may be added to the current knowledge in terms of skimming data from social media platforms?
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SOME HISTORICAL REASONS FOR U.S. CITIZENSHIP (AND GREEN CARD PERMANENT RESIDENCY) RENUNCIATIONPolitical stances and “costly signaling”
American expats in Paris’ Left Bank
Various fighters burning their passports
Sheltering wealth from taxation
Marriage to a foreign national (in a national context that disallows dual citizenship)
Return to a sending country for those who achieved green card status
Exit-voice-loyalty (dissatisfaction, disempowerment, lack of voice) dynamics
and others
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FORCED LOSS OF CITIZENSHIP
Section 349 of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1481), as amended, states that U.S. nationals are subject to loss of nationality if they perform certain specified acts voluntarily and with the intention to relinquish U.S. nationality. Briefly stated, these acts include:
obtaining naturalization in a foreign state upon one's own application after the age of 18 (Sec. 349 (a) (1) INA);
taking an oath, affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state or its political subdivisions after the age of 18 (Sec. 349 (a) (2) INA);
entering or serving in the armed forces of a foreign state engaged in hostilities against the United States or serving as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer in the armed forces of a foreign state (Sec. 349 (a) (3) INA);
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FORCED LOSS OF CITIZENSHIP (CONT.)
accepting employment with a foreign government after the age of 18 if (a) one has the nationality of that foreign state or (b) an oath or declaration of allegiance is required in accepting the position (Sec. 349 (a) (4) INA);
formally renouncing U.S. nationality before a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer outside the United States (sec. 349 (a) (5) INA);
formally renouncing U.S. nationality within the United States (The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for implementing this section of the law) (Sec. 349 (a) (6) INA);
conviction for an act of treason against the Government of the United States or for attempting to force to overthrow the Government of the United States (Sec. 349 (a) (7) INA). (“Advice about Possible Loss…” 2015)
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE (SCANT) LITERATURE
Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) stopped collecting American emigration data in 1957 (Bratsberg & Terrell, 1996, pp. 788 - 789).
Congress has been trying to institute some data collection method about U.S. emigration (both for native-born and foreign-born) since 1999 (“Americans Abroad, How Can We Count Them?” 2001, p. 1)
Challenges with reach, data validation, people not coming forward to claim citizenship, transient U.S. citizenship, data decay at embassies and consulates, privacy protections, fraudulent claims, lack of expertise and resources at State, challenges with trust of foreign databases, and others
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE (SCANT) LITERATURE (CONT.)
Tendencies to use a number of datasets: domestic and foreign, administrative, tax-based, consular-services based, United Nations data, and others
U.S. has Potential Net Migration Index (PNMI) of 60% (vs. 260% for Singapore, 175% for New Zealand, 170% for Canada, 145% for Australia, 70% for France, and 65% for the United Kingdom) (Rice, 2010)
The PNMI subtracts the number of adults who would move out of a country from those who would move to that same country and represents that percentage as a portion of the total adult population. This is a rough measure of potential population churn.
World regional attractiveness (based on 154-country Gallup surveys from 2010 – 2012): Americas (13), Europe (10), Middle East and North Africa (4), Asia (-6), and Sub-Saharan Africa (-24) (Esipova, Pugliese, & Ray, 2014)
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DESTINATION COUNTRIES FOR EXPATS
Country (or Territory) Estimated American Émigré Counts
Mexico 738,100
Philippines 300,000
Israel 200,000
Liberia 160,000
Canada 137,000
Costa Rica 130,000
South Korea 120,000
United Kingdom 115,000
Germany 107,755
France 100,000
Australia 99,349
(“American Diaspora,” 2015)
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SOME (MICRO) GOALS OF AMERICAN MIGRATIONGoals of Migration
(Locus of concern) Expressive Instrumental
Self Group A
Adventure / travel
Alienation
Religioethnic identity and self-
fulfillment
Group B
Entrepreneurship
Job opportunities
Attending School
Others Group C
Family unity
Spouse’s desire to return to
homeland
Alienated family head
Group D
Medical service personnel
Educational service personnel
(Dashefsky, DeAmicis, Lazerwitz, & Tabory, 1992, p. 40) 12
231
742
1534
1781
933
3000
3415
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Num
bers
of
People
Year
Recent American Emigration
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DESTINATION COUNTRIES (MAP)
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THE CHALLENGES OF COUNTING…EXPATS AND RENOUNCERS
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CHALLENGES OF COUNTING U.S. EXPATS Unclaimed citizenships
Lack of documentation for some citizenships
“Transient” citizenship without documentation
Low levels of information-sharing with consulates, fast decay of consular information (and high mobility)
Logistics (and a lack of expertise in U.S. consulates for conducting censuses)
Privacy protections for American citizens
Fraudulent citizenship claims and verifiability
Challenges trusting foreign datasets and databases
Sheer numbers (in 2000: 60 million tourism trips abroad, 114 million study abroad students, 44,000 children born to Americans abroad, 7 million passports issued, 6000 American deaths abroad) (“Americans Abroad, How Can We Count Them?” 2001 / Congressional report)
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WAYS OF COUNTING U.S. EXPATRIATES ABROAD
Knowability
Administrative databases (like tax records)
Foreign government databases (that are made available)
Censuses (domestic and foreign)
Surveys
501(c)3 organizations
Projections, Models
Linear regressions
Multivariate regressions
Predictive or forecasting models
Residual method (residual as the difference between observed values and the prediction / forecast; the amount of error)
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A RESIDUAL CALCULATION METHOD
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RESIDUAL CALCULATION METHOD VARIABLES
E = net number of foreign-born emigrants in the U.S. during a decade time period
P1960 = foreign-born population of the select age cohort in 1960
P1970 = foreign-born population of the select age cohort in 1970
D = number of foreign-born immigrant deaths stateside overall
S = survival probability of the foreign born
I = number of immigrants between 1960 and 1970
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A RESIDUAL CALCULATION METHOD
E = P1960 – D + I – P1970
E = P1960’ – P1960’ x (1 - s) + I – P1970
E = P1960’ x s + I – P1970
(Warren and Peck, 1980, as cited by Schwabish, 2009, p. 4)
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COUNTING RENUNCIATIONS OF U.S. CITIZENSHIP
U.S. Department of State: Consular Renunciations
From abroad at a consulate
A signed oath renouncing citizenship
Relinquishment of citizenship
Does not suspend “military service obligations”
Does not suspend tax obligations
Does not erase criminal liabilities
Does not allow remaining on U.S. soil (no residual territorial rights)
May leave a person stateless unless he or she already has another citizenship on-going
U.S. Treasury: IRS Renunciations
Must have been compliant with U.S. tax laws for at least the five years preceding the date of relinquishment of citizenship
Need to pay extant taxes
Need to pay an expatriation tax if their network is > $2 million or average net income tax for the prior five years is $155,000 or more
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WAYS OF COUNTING RENOUNCERS (FORMER U.S. CITIZENS)
U.S. Treasury / IRS databases (must make public by law via “Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate,” Section 6039G of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, IRC Section, IRS of the U.S. Treasury)
Consulate databases (non-public?)
Others?
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WAYS OF COUNTING RENOUNCERS (FOREIGN-BORN WORKERS)
“Totalization agreements”: U.S. international Social Security agreements to protect foreign workers in the U.S. from paying for social security in both the sending and receiving host countries (“U.S. International Social Security Agreements,” 2015)
Identification of those who’ve renounced their green cards in terms of the leaving both the U.S. and exiting the Social Security system
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SOCIAL MEDIACrowd-sourced endeavors
Content-sharing sites
Microblogging messaging
Social networking sites
A political community is largely “imagined because the members of even the
smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even
hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”
B. Anderson (2006, 1983, p. 6), in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the
Origin and Spread of Nationalism
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SOME DATA ANALYSIS METHODS
Data extractions from social media sites (through open structures and application programming interfaces / APIs)
Types of analyses:
Network analysis (content networks, social media account networks, and others)
Content analyses
Geolocational mapping (and also from location to contents)
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ARTICLE NETWORKS ON WIKIPEDIA
4.7 million articles on the English Wikipedia
“article networks” as showing outlinks from a Wikipedia article page to show related ideas
Can be used as a way to understand related ideas and leads for other information
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Emigration_from_the_
United_States article
network on Wikipedia
(1 deg.)
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List_of_former_United
_States_citizens_who
_relinquished_their_n
ationality article
network on Wikipedia
(1 deg.)
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American_diaspora
article network on
Wikipedia (1 deg.)
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VIDEO NETWORKS ON YOUTUBE
Involves linked videos that are somewhat similar in meaning
Provides a sense of “gist” in terms of the similar video clusters
Can be used to identify authors (social media users)
Can be used to identify conversations in terms of replies (both textual and video-based)
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“United States” video
network on YouTube
(unlimited)
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“expat” video
network on YouTube
(unlimited)
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#HASHTAGGED CONVERSATIONS ON TWITTER
Topic-based conversations labeled with hashtags
May refer to events (allowing the drawing of “eventgraphs”)
Indicates nodes (social media accounts) that are “mayors of the hashtag” (based on in-degree and betweenness centrality, among others)
Indicates “SMS” (short message service) messaging, including @accounts, URLs, Vine videos, and others
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“#expat” hashtag
search on Twitter
(basic network);
vertical sine wave
layout algorithm
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“#abroad” hashtag
search on Twitter
(basic network);
Harel-Koren Fast
Multiscale layout
algorithm
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“#stateless” hashtag
search on Twitter
(basic network); ring
lattice (circle) layout
algorithm
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KEYWORD SEARCHES ON TWITTER
Captures a variety of word senses and word-use contexts
Is somewhat less disambiguated and less focused than a hashtag search on Twitter
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“American” keyword
search on Twitter
(basic network); grid
layout algorithm
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“mycountry” keyword
search on Twitter
(basic network);
Harel-Koren Fast
Multiscale layout
algorithm
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“emigrant” keyword
search on Twitter
(basic network);
boxed Fruchterman-
Reingold force-based
layout algorithm
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USER NETWORKS ON TWITTER
Direct ties between @accounts with others based on relationships
Follower-following
Replies
May be mapped out 1 deg., 1.5 deg. (transitivity), and 2 deg.
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@aaro user network
on Twitter (1 deg.)
(Association of
Americans Resident
Overseas)
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@aaro Tweetstream
word cloud
(Association of
Americans Resident
Overseas)
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@AARO TWITTERSTREAM MAP
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“American
emigration” on
Twitter (sentiment
analysis); Tweet
Analyzer in Maltego
Carbon 3.5.3 and
Chlorine 3.6.0
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L2 FOOTPRINTING OF AARO.ORG
AS
DNS name
iPv4 address
NS record
Netblock
Domain
MX record
Email address
Website
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RELATED TAGS NETWORKS ON FLICKR
Built from the “tags” applied to the images and videos on Flickr, the content sharing site (owned by Yahoo)
Shows related words used as co-descriptors of such digital and multimedia contents
May be captured as 1, 1.5, and 2 degree networks
Creates a meta-graph from amateur tagging (labeling using key words)
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“citizen” related tags
network on
Flickr
(1 deg.)
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“foreigner” related
tags network on Flickr
(1 deg.)
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“passport” related
tags network on Flickr
(1 deg.)
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“Americana” related
tags network on Flickr
(1 deg.)
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“expatriate” related
tags network on Flickr
(1 deg.)
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FOLLOW-ON RESEARCH
Analyze messaging for sentiment and meanings
Analyze multimedia contents for more insights
Engage with various user accounts and elicit information
Measure out 1.5, 2 degrees, to find more diffuse connections
Employ geolocational methods to extract location- based social media information
Employ sociotemporal information around events related to citizenship and expatriation and citizenship renunciation
Research from other-country contexts
Capture others’ perceptions of American emigrants / émigrés
and others…
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SOME QUESTIONS
1. Policy Interests: Does the U.S. government have a “policy interest” in those who renounce their U.S. citizenship or long-term residency green card status? If so, what would their interest be? If not, why not?
2. State Interests vs. Citizenship Interests: Are there some citizens (and long-term residents) whose importance is so critical that the U.S. government would disallow their exit out-of-hand? If so, what are the factors that would make such individuals that critical? On what basis could the U.S. government prohibit such travel? Such movement? (In cases where there is a mass exodus of individuals from another country, who would the U.S. be interested in recruiting and why?) Whose interests should predominate, and why?
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SOME QUESTIONS (CONT.)
4. Counting: What are some better ways to count those who are American expats? Those who are citizenship renouncers? How would you get around the challenges mentioned? Why would your counting be an improvement on what is currently done? (How would you count those thinking of renouncing their citizenship?)
5. Basket of Goods: What is in the U.S. “basket of goods” for its citizens to encourage people to stay? Its long-term residents? Its residents? How stable is this “basket of goods”? How expensive is this “basket of goods” for those who want to be citizens or long-term residents? What is in the U.S. context that discourages some from staying?
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SOME QUESTIONS (CONT.)
5. Renouncer-Returnees: What might be learned by talking to those who’ve renounced their U.S. citizenship but then changed their minds and re-applied for citizenship? (a subset of a subset) How would you find these people? What could you learn from them? What could the unique aspects of their cases show?
6. Making it Formal / Leaving it Informal: A lot of Americans go abroad and plan to remain abroad for the rest of their lives. Some are activists. Some are retirees. Some are burned out on the country, and they just go off-the-grid. Does the U.S. government have an interest in those who do not make their leaving formal? Why or why not? How would you count these? How would you verify status?
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CONCLUSION
The software tools used for the data extractions and visualizations were NodeXL, NVivo, and Maltego Carbon 3.5.3/ Chlorine 3.6.0. Tableau Public was used for one map and NVivo 10 for another.
Full citations are available in the full chapter forthcoming in Dr. N. Raghavendra Rao’s Social Media Listening and Monitoring for Business Applications (2017).
This is an informational presentation only. None of this is to be construed as advisement.
Imagery: The images on the slideshow cover, Slides 22 and 23, were shared via Creative Commons licensure and used here by that permission. There were a few screenshots of social media sites. The other images were created by the presenter.
May 2015
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