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In reply to the discussion: OMFG!! with new news to make this more clear. [View all]DFW
(54,370 posts)§ 7 says:
Spätaussiedler und die in den Aufnahmebescheid einbezogenen Familienangehörigen erwerben mit der Ausstellung der Bescheinigung nach § 15 Abs. 1 oder Abs. 2 des Bundesvertriebenengesetzes die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit.
This refers to ethnic Germans (and their descendants) of the dispora of previous centuries recently on the receiving end of discrimination or expulsion orders (e.g. the Transylvanian Saxons, the Volga Germans, the Sudeten Germans, in general, the "Vertriebenen" of the Bundesvertriebenengesetz) presenting proper documentation for "returning home" to Germany. As my colleague does not fall under this category (Vertrieben, i.e. sent out/expelled from the area their ancestors had settled in), paragraph 7 wouldn't have been applied. None of his family has been expelled from either Colombia or California. Nor have they been harassed there due to their German ethnicity.
I haven't reviewed all paragraphs of the statute, but the clause of "one grandparent German, you're German" obviously exists somewhere, as he has shown me his German passport. If he has retained his Colombian passport, he has done so with the blessing of the German authorities, as he wouldn't have been given his German passport if turning in his Colombian passport was a requirement for obtaining it.
By the way, this seems to be common practice in a few EU countries. Not only did my wife's NY friend obtain her Irish passport as a second passport, a Colorado woman I know who wanted to move to Brussels without any justification other than a whim, found out her grandfather had left Luxembourg as a baby in March of 1900. Luxembourg law says you can obtain a Luxembourg passport as a second nationality if at least one Luxembourg-born grandparent can definitively be shown to have still been in Luxembourg after January 1, 1900. She did the research, and found the necessary documentation in the archives of the Grand Duchy. It took a year, but sure enough, she got her Luxemboug passport without having to give up her USA passport, and is now living in Brussels with full EU legitimacy.