Moving from Traverse City, Michigan to Da Nang

QUOTE
I plan on marrying my girlfriend, who is Native Vietnamese. After marrying her, would I have automatic citizenship?
UNQUOTE

No, you have no right to VN citizenship. A fellow I know in Khanh Hoa with A VN wife and daughter tried for fifteen years to get VN citizenship with no luck at all.

In fact, foreigners don't have much in the way of rights at all in Vietnam. For details of visas, residence permits and all that, have a look around the site, there are a number of threads dealing wit such matters.

Basically, if you want to get married in Vietnam to a Vietnamese citizen, there is a bureaucratic route that you have to follow that will take you a couple of months. It isn't that hard actually but you need to get the steps in place one by one and the best bit of advice I can give you is: Make Sure Your Paperwork Is In Order, to avoid frustration!

Better advice: Get married somewhere OTHER than in VIetnam. 

[from one who did get married in Vietnam in 2002 and it took five months or more]

ralphnhatrang wrote:

Better advice: Get married somewhere OTHER than in VIetnam. 

[from one who did get married in Vietnam in 2002 and it took five months or more]

Um, yeah, Ralph, but in 2002 the country was still opening up to foreigners. Getting married in Vietnam is still a lengthy process but it shouldn't take 5 months nowadays. Ours took three months but I was away for part of that time and we had to deal with the British Embassy in Hanoi and the British Consulate in Saigon. Some of the staff at both those locations need horsewhipping to galvanize them and to strip out their arrogant complacency.

Reorandy wrote:

After marrying her, would I have automatic citizenship? Can I have dual citizenship with the US? How does that work?

You should check out the sticky thread regarding the new 3 year Temporary Residency Card.  It sounds fairly easy to obtain and avoids all the pratfalls of frequent visa renewal.   Remember that you must be legally married by the government, not only in a church.

Citizenship is another matter.  Last I knew, Vietnamese citizenship was only granted to a few foreigners who had contributed to the cause of socialist liberation.  So unless could show that you fought against the US in a prior life, I doubt that you qualify.  Of course maybe you could blow up a Chinese oil derrick in the East Sea.   You could perhaps find a cure for Dengue Fever or Malaria.  I think you get the point.

Anyway, if Hillary Clinton is too far left for you, why would you want to be a citizen of an actual Socialist Republic?