Honorary citizenship of the United States by proclamation. What rights and privileges honorary citizenship bestows, if any, is unclear. According to State Department documents, it does not grant eligibility for United States passports. Despite widespread belief that Lafayette received honorary citizenship of the United States before Churchill, he did not receive honorary citizenship until 2002. Lafayette did become a natural-born citizen during his lifetime. On 28 December 1784, the Maryland General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Lafayette and his male heirs "forever shall be...natural born Citizens" of the state. This made him a natural-born citizen of the United States under the Articles of Confederation and
Citizenship of the United States a U.S. citizen, he or she must relocate to another part of the United States, initiate the naturalization process, pay the $680 fee (as of February 11, 2014), pass a good moral character assessment, be fingerprinted and pass an English/civics examination. In addition, residents of the Northern Mariana Islands who automatically gained U.S. citizenship in 1986 as a result of the Covenant between the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. could elect to become U.S. noncitizen nationals within 6 months of the implementation of the Covenant or within 6 months of turning 18. The nationality status of a person born