• I was born in the US but have ancestral ties to both Poland and Portugal.
• Gathering all the necessary documents to apply for dual citizenship took time and effort.
• I'm glad I hired local immigration lawyers and joined social-media groups to make things easier.

I was born in the United States but travel widely and often think about moving abroad. I also want my children to have the option if they ever want to leave the US.

In more recent years, as I became increasingly concerned about the political landscape in America and the impact it could have on my family's lives, I got serious about looking for ways to gain citizenship in another country.

This process isn't possible for everyone. Among other obstacles, some people are unable to trace their roots because their ancestors were brought to the US as slaves.

However, after doing a lot of research and submitting so much paperwork, I was granted citizenship in Poland and Portugal before ever setting foot in either country.

Here are the steps I took.

I started by creating a detailed family tree

To build my tree, I did research on where each of my ancestors was born and the date they immigrated to the US.

Then, I filled in the gaps by asking relatives and conducting research online. US government databases and Ancestry.com were my main sources for verifying things I'd already been told and looking into further immigration information.

In my experience, details as small as the exact year someone immigrated or where they were buried were critical.

After looking into immigration laws, I found the documents I needed

Once I had my tree, I researched immigration laws.

Through my research, I found a few paths to citizenship but focused on Poland. My grandfather was Polish, and I had his Polish passport, so the process was straightforward.

Most countries require original documents issued in that country, such as a birth certificate or baptismal certificate, to successfully apply for citizenship.

In some cases, immigration attorneys can help track down these types of documents.

It was worth it for me to look into alternative paths to citizenship, too

Although a common path to citizenship is through descent, several countries offer alternate avenues. It's worth looking into different immigration laws, especially if tracing exact roots and finding original documents isn't possible.

I was able to get Portuguese citizenship by proving I'm a descendant of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th Century. Though the deadline to apply for nationality under that specific Portuguese law was January 1, 2024, similar laws may exist in other countries.

For example, Spain grants citizenship to those who fled the Franco dictatorship during the Spanish Civil War and their descendants. Austria and Germany also offer it to the descendants of Jews who fled the Nazis.

In some cases, countries will even give you citizenship in exchange for a sizable investment, such as real estate.

Connecting with others going through the same process helped

One of the best decisions I made was joining social-media groups for Americans looking to gain dual citizenship.

I regularly received tips and swift answers to questions from people who were experiencing the same thing as me. It was also a great way to connect with people with similar heritage.

Hiring a local immigration attorney gave me a lot of peace

Before investing a lot of time and money in the citizenship process, I wanted to get an honest assessment of my chances.

To ease my mind, I had free consultations with an attorney in Poland and one in Portugal. From there, I hired them to help me troubleshoot problems.

Although hiring an attorney isn't always required, I thought it was time and money well spent. I was also glad I used local attorneys who were experts in their country's process.

I had to gather a lot of documents before submitting my applications

Poland and Portugal required a ton of documents to apply for citizenship.

In both cases, my local attorney filled out the necessary forms, but I was responsible for obtaining everything else. I needed to submit my birth certificate and marriage certificate, among others.

Because my Polish citizenship is based on descent, I also needed to submit documents proving that I was descended from my grandfather, including my grandparent's marriage certificate and my parents' birth certificates.

For my Portuguese citizenship, I was able to submit a letter from a rabbi about cultural practices and proof that my grandfather was buried in a Sephardic section of a cemetery. I also needed to submit an FBI background check.

Once I gathered all the documents, my attorneys submitted my applications for me.

It took a long time to get citizenship

After submitting, there was nothing to do but wait.

My application for Polish citizenship was granted in about a year. I didn't get Portuguese citizenship until nearly three years after I applied.

Waiting was the most frustrating part of the process. Once I held my new passports in my hands, however, I forgot about it.

I love having the freedom to move abroad. Now that my children have dual citizenship, I rest easy knowing they have the same opportunity.

This story was originally published on November 7, 2024, and most recently updated on March 7, 2025.

• Eighteen states sued to block Donald Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship.
• The lawsuit claims Trump's order violates the 14th Amendment.
• Ending birthright citizenship could affect thousands of US-born children.

Attorneys general from 18 states, along with the top law enforcement officers of Washington, DC, and San Francisco, sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday to block his executive order to end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship.

Trump's move to abolish birthright citizenship — a policy that guarantees citizenship to anyone born on US soil — is a "flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage," the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, says that the "principle of birthright citizenship has been enshrined in the Constitution for more than 150 years" and that Trump's order "expressly violates" the 14th Amendment.

Trump's order targeting birthright citizenship, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," was signed shortly after Trump was sworn into office for a second presidential term on Monday. It is scheduled to take effect 30 days after its signing.

Under the order, federal agencies are barred from issuing documents recognizing the citizenship of babies born in the US to parents who are in the country unlawfully or in cases where the mother was in the country legally, but temporarily, and the father was not a US citizen or lawful permanent resident.

"President Trump's public statements make clear that he wishes to end birthright citizenship purely as a policy tactic to purportedly deter immigration to the United States," the lawsuit says. "Despite a President's broad powers to set immigration policy, however, the Citizenship Stripping Order falls far outside the legal bounds of the President's authority."

The lawsuit, filed by the group of states which includes New Jersey, New York, California, and Massachusetts, adds that if the "unprecedented executive action" moves forward, "both Plaintiffs and their residents will suffer immediate and irreparable harm."

"Every year, thousands of children are born in Plaintiffs' jurisdictions to parents who lack legal status or have a lawful status on a temporary basis," the lawsuit says.

The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider on Tuesday.

The executive order, if put into effect, would likely impact thousands of children in every corner of the US. The ACLU lawsuit brought on Monday, similar to the attorneys general suit, said that at least 150,000 children whose parents lacked legal status would not receive citizenship.

Using data from the 2022 American Community Survey, the most recently available data, the Pew Research Center calculated that among the 22 million people in households with an immigrant living in the US illegally, 1.3 million are adults born in the US to such immigrants.

Additionally, Pew found that about 4.4 million people under the age of 18 who were born in the US live with a parent living in the US illegally. Over 8% of households in Nevada, California, New Jersey, and Texas are inhabited by at least one immigrant in the US illegally.

Future generations of children could be substantially impacted by the abolition of birthright citizenship. A Pew analysis from 2018 using 2016 Census data found that about 6% of births that year were to immigrant parents living in the US illegally, or about 250,000 babies. This was down from about 390,000 babies in 2007 but still significantly higher than 30,000 in 1980.

When expanding the scope to foreign-born mothers, about 843,200 births in 2023 were to foreign-born mothers, or about 24% of all births, per the Annie E. Casey Foundation. This percentage is relatively in line with the past two decades.

The executive order targeting birthright citizenship was joined by other immigration- and deportation-oriented executive orders including declaring a national emergency, removing the CBP One app allowing migrants to submit information to seek asylum, and instructing federal agencies to select countries from which to suspend migrants if their governments fail to provide detailed information about their citizens.