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Press Mentions
LuxCitizenship in the Press
Journalists in Luxembourg, Brazil and the United States have followed the resurgence of a diaspora two centuries in the making. A selection of the stories that have featured our work and our clients.
Complete archive
Every story, 2017 to today
48 pieces of coverage from Luxembourg, Brazil, the United States and Germany: national broadcasters, newspapers of record and the Luxembourg government’s own open-data portal.
20267 stories
More Luxembourgers Now Live in the USA Than in Germany
Luxembourg Times reports that 23,690 Luxembourg citizens now live in the United States, more than in Germany. Between July and September 2026, 952 new citizens were registered there. Daniel Atz, founder of LuxCitizenship, explains that applications have kept coming through the option and recognition pathways since the December 2025 deadline passed.
Data & researchEN
Luxembourger Keeps Clean Sheet in First Start for US National Football Team
Brian Schwake, Nashville SC goalkeeper and a LuxCitizenship client since 2020, kept a clean sheet in his first start for the US men's national team, a 1-0 win over Canada. Luxembourg Times follows his path from his great-great-grandmother's Luxembourg roots to professional soccer in Scotland, Spain and Major League Soccer. At the MLS All-Star game he wore both the US and Luxembourg flags on his shirt.
Client storiesEN
Americans Are Rushing To Claim Luxembourg Citizenship
Newsweek follows LuxCitizenship client Carys Cassidy from Denver. She traced her eligibility to a Luxembourg ancestor, obtained her citizenship in March 2026 and set off for a new life in Europe. Her story frames the record 3,574 Americans who became Luxembourgers in a single year. Daniel Atz explains what is behind the demand and how far a Luxembourg passport reaches.
US demandEN
3,574 More Within a Year: Surge in US-Based Luxembourgers Raises Questions About Nationality Law
Luxembourg's population register counted 20,954 citizens in the United States at the end of 2025, up from 17,380 a year earlier. RTL explains that most of the increase came from people who were already Luxembourgers by law and were registered for the first time. Justice Minister Elisabeth Margue used the figures to open a discussion on the 2017 nationality law.
Nationality lawLB · EN · FR
“A Third of Luxembourgers Live Abroad”, Says Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel
Asked on air about the growth of the diaspora, Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel confirmed that 157,000 of Luxembourg's 526,000 citizens live outside the country, with Brazil and the United States leading the way. He outlined four options for how voters abroad could be represented in future elections. The exchange followed RTL's interview with LuxCitizenship founder Daniel Atz four days earlier.
Diaspora & electionsFR
Daniel Atz, the Man Helping Americans Claim Luxembourgish Citizenship
RTL's Sunday interview, filmed in Pescatore Park, follows Daniel Atz from Nebraska to a Luxembourg passport through his great-grandmother Marguerite Kruchten of Esch-sur-Alzette. It revisits the 2017 RTL report that reunited him with living relatives. Daniel also talks about the roughly 30,000 Brazilians and 20,000 Americans who now hold Luxembourg citizenship, and about what the next chapter of the diaspora could look like.
Nationality lawLB · EN · FR
An Overview of the Luxembourgish Community in Argentina
Ahead of the film's Sunday-evening broadcast and its release on RTL Play, RTL previewed a chapter of emigration history that few Luxembourgers know: the 19th-century departures for Argentina, decades before the settlement of Brazil. The report explains how a 2022 gathering of South American families of Luxembourgish descent grew into a documentary.
Argentina documentaryLB
202512 stories
Luxembourg Nationality Consultant Dismissive of Bill to Ban Dual Citizenship
When a bill on exclusive citizenship was introduced in the US Senate, the Luxembourg Times asked Daniel Atz what it would mean for dual citizens. Daniel explained that none of the 3,100 Americans LuxCitizenship had helped to Luxembourg citizenship had faced any official issue over it, and that a single bill is a long way from becoming law.
Nationality lawEN
Astor Schiantarelli and the Journey to His Roots in Heckbous
Astor Schiantarelli, the Argentine cinematographer who shot the Argentina documentary, turned out to be part of the story he was filming. He answered a casting call during the pandemic and mentioned relatives near Arlon. Research traced his family to a great-great-grandfather born in Schwebach. He, his mother and his brother received their citizenship certificates in spring 2024, and he now lives three kilometers from where his ancestors did.
Client storiesDE
Luxembourgish Roots Rediscovered Thanks to Covid
A culture-desk interview with Daniel Atz on how the pandemic led a generation of Argentines to look for Luxembourg. Around 1850, some 180 Luxembourgish families emigrated to Argentina, and within a generation the language was gone. Four of the descendants in the finished film first came to LuxCitizenship as clients.
Argentina documentaryDE
Documentary Sheds Light on Luxembourgish Heritage in Argentina
L'essentiel reports from the preview screening at Ciné Utopia, where the 52-minute film was shown as part of European Arthouse Cinema Day after being selected by Kinepolis Luxembourg. It is the first documentary produced in both Luxembourgish and Spanish.
Argentina documentaryDE · FR
Documentary Tells of Little-Known Hardships of Luxembourgers in 1880s Argentina
The fullest English-language account of the history behind the film. Between 1856 and 1890, around a thousand Luxembourgers sailed for Buenos Aires and Entre Ríos, most of them in their early twenties and more than half from the Esch and Grevenmacher regions. Their descendants are now rediscovering that heritage, and the film tells their story.
Argentina documentaryEN
An American Rediscovers Her Luxembourgish Origins and Gets the Passport
Brayden Beckius grew up in Indiana knowing only that part of her family came from somewhere in Europe. Genealogy during lockdown, a hand-drawn family tree and a helpful county clerk in Iowa led her to a 19th-century emigrant from Wormeldange, and to Article 7. She had her certificate within a year and her first Luxembourg passport a few months later. On her first visit to the village in spring 2024 she found about thirty headstones carrying her surname.
Client storiesFR
Daniel Atz Builds a Bridge Between the United States and Luxembourg
A profile of Daniel Atz built around the woman the whole story goes back to: his great-grandmother from Esch-sur-Alzette, who reached the United States after the First World War and raised her family there through hard times. L'essentiel also notes that roughly 500 LuxCitizenship applications were in progress at the time.
Client storiesFR · DE
Americans Flock to the Luxembourgish Passport
The quarterly population-register release showed Luxembourgish citizens in the United States rising 5% in three months, from 18,004 at the end of March to 18,889 at the end of June 2025. It was the second-largest quarterly increase ever recorded. L'essentiel reports the figures and what is driving them.
Data & researchFR · DE
LuxCitizenship: He Helps Americans Become Luxembourgers
A business profile of LuxCitizenship and Daniel Atz. Ministry of Justice filings rose from 13 in February 2025 to 64 in March, and our application volume doubled compared with the first Trump term. The article also tells the company's origin story: the Canadian immigration website that crashed under traffic in November 2016.
US demandFR · DE
The Trump Effect: Ever More Americans Want a Luxembourg Passport
A German regional newspaper looks across the border at LuxCitizenship, with 500 open files and more than 1,200 new inquiries since the US election. The reporting explains the research challenges well, from American civil records lost in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 to the common confusion between the Grand Duchy and the Belgian province of Luxembourg.
US demandDE
How Trump Triggered a Rush for Luxembourg Citizenship
The most detailed account of the shift in demand. LuxCitizenship eligibility assessments ran at about 800 in a normal year, 1,201 in 2024, and 390 in the first ten weeks of 2025 alone. An analysis of incoming requests found the words stability, security, future and democracy far more common than before.
US demandDE · FR
“Trump Effect”: More and More Americans Are Seeking Luxembourg Citizenship
Contacto pairs the post-election rise in applications with LuxCitizenship survey data on why people apply. Among 469 respondents polled before the election, 79% named pride in their Luxembourgish roots, 63% wanted a better life for their children and grandchildren, and 56% cited social and political reasons. For most applicants the qualifying ancestor is six generations back.
US demandPT · FR
202411 stories
Surge in Luxembourg Citizenship Enquiries Following Trump Win
Around fifty inquiries reached LuxCitizenship on the day the election was called. In this piece Daniel Atz first described the "21-day delay": the lag between a major event in the United States and the peak in applications, a pattern he traced back through the Roe v. Wade decision in June 2022 and the events of July 2024.
US demandEN
What Could a Donald Trump Victory Mean for Luxembourg?
On the eve of the US election, Wort gathered seven Luxembourgish voices, among them the Chamber of Commerce director-general, the Defense Minister and the Foreign Minister. Daniel Atz gave the migration view, citing a July 2023 LuxCitizenship survey in which 56% of 416 new citizens said recent political or social events had prompted them to take a second nationality.
US demandDE · PT
The Man for the Luxembourgish Roots
Télécran's Interview of the Week with Daniel Atz sizes up the potential: Library of Congress records suggest around 35,000 Luxembourgers emigrated to the United States, and Americans holding a Luxembourg passport already make up about two percent of Luxembourg's electorate. Minneapolis-Saint Paul has the densest concentration of dual citizens anywhere.
Nationality lawDE
She Has Luxembourgish Roots and Is Revolutionizing Airport Security Worldwide
Thea Feyereisen, a researcher living near Minneapolis and a Luxembourgish citizen by descent, is building a system to keep aircraft from getting in each other's way on the ground at major airports. Wort profiles one of the most remarkable professional stories to come out of the American diaspora.
Client storiesDE
Is Trump an Extra Motivation to Become Luxembourgish?
In 2023, some 936 Americans took Luxembourgish nationality through their ancestry. RTL asked two of them, Amy Chidester and Norm Veenstra, what drew them to their ancestors' homeland and what the coming US election had to do with it.
Client storiesLB
Mixed Feelings Among Luxembourgish Democrats in the US
With the question of Joe Biden's candidacy still open, RTL spoke with two American Democrats who hold Luxembourgish citizenship, Norm Veenstra and Amy Chidester, for a view from inside the diaspora.
Client storiesLB
Video: Luxembourg Is Celebrated in Brazil Too
Ten thousand kilometers from the Grand Duchy, descendants of 19th-century emigrants gathered in Florianópolis, São Pedro de Alcântara and other towns to celebrate National Day. For many of them, the connection to Luxembourg was discovered only in the last few years.
BrazilPT
Luxembourgish Descendants Celebrate National Day in Argentina
RTL reported from Rosario, birthplace of the Argentine flag, where the country marks Flag Day each June 20 at the national monument. Descendants of Luxembourgish emigrants now march there carrying their ancestors' flag alongside it.
Argentina documentaryLB
Luxembourgers in Brazil Want to Strengthen Business Ties With the Grand Duchy
At the second South American Meeting of Luxembourgish Families in Florianópolis, opened by the president of Luxembourg's Chamber of Deputies, Brazilians who had recovered their citizenship discussed using Luxembourg as a business gateway into Europe. Contacto reports on a diaspora that is organizing and making itself heard.
BrazilPT
More Americans Applied for Luxembourg Citizenship After Roe v Wade Overturn
In the first quarter of 2024, 730 Americans obtained Luxembourgish nationality, putting the United States ahead of Brazil for the first time. The reporting sets out the history behind it: some 45,000 Luxembourgers emigrated to the US in the 19th century, leaving around 100,000 American descendants today. Daniel Atz comments on the timing of the applications.
US demandEN · PT
“43,145 Luxembourgers Are on the American Continent”
The Ministry of Justice counts new citizens; the population register counts people. Working from the register, Daniel Atz put 27,632 Luxembourgers in Brazil, 14,972 in the United States and 541 in Argentina, 43,145 in all, or 31% of all Luxembourgers living abroad. On that measure Brazil sits second only to France.
Data & researchFR
202312 stories
Luxembourg's Election Has a Brazilian Electorate and a Brazilian Candidate
An election-day explainer for a Brazilian audience: more than 27,000 Brazilians now hold Luxembourgish nationality, more than ten times the number five years earlier and equal to about 4% of Luxembourg's population. LuxCitizenship research gave CNN Brasil the numbers on how many of them held a Luxembourgish passport and how many had requested a ballot.
Diaspora & electionsPT
Low Turnout for Postal Ballots From Luxembourgers Abroad
Luxembourg City sent 803 election convocations abroad, 188 to Brazil and 149 to the United States, for an overseas electorate that had grown from 69,000 in 2018 to 133,500. RTL used LuxCitizenship polling on how many Luxembourgers in Brazil and the US planned to vote by mail.
Diaspora & electionsLB · EN
Luxembourg Politicians Compete for the Votes of Brazilians With Dual Citizenship
Brazil's largest newspaper on an electorate that grew almost twelvefold in five years: 26,743 Luxembourgish citizens living in Brazil by June 2023, up from 2,307 in 2018. A LuxCitizenship survey of 581 of them showed how many intended to vote and how many were still deciding, numbers that mattered to a government holding a one-seat majority.
Diaspora & electionsPT
Hi, Cousins!
A long read on Luxembourg's parties campaigning through Santa Catarina, Paraná and São Paulo, with five meetings in four days for a single CSV delegation. Land sets out the scale of the new electorate: around 130,000 Luxembourgers abroad, compared with 73,000 voters in the Centre constituency.
Diaspora & electionsFR
On the Trail of Luxembourgers Across the Atlantic
The Luxembourg government's own open-data portal profiled LuxCitizenship's work, a rare case of the state publishing an outside analysis of its own population register. The figures: around 130,000 Luxembourgers abroad as of March 31, 2023, up from roughly 66,000 in 2018, with Brazil rising from 2,307 to 25,587 and the United States from 3,147 to 13,474 in five years.
Data & researchFR
A Wave of Brazilian Votes Expected in Luxembourg's Legislative Elections
As the window to request a ballot from abroad opened, LuxCitizenship survey data showed about 24% of Luxembourgers in Brazil intending to vote. Since 2018 more than 41,000 people in the US and Brazil had acquired the nationality, and Contacto explains what that means for the election.
Diaspora & electionsPT · FR
Discovering the Lives of First-Generation Immigrants, Letter by Letter
A pan-European feature on migration, memory and identity told through the letters of first-generation immigrants. LuxCitizenship's work reconnecting families across borders is part of the wider picture.
Data & researchIT
This Goalkeeper Is Taking Off in Scotland Thanks to a Luxembourg Passport
A US-born goalkeeper moves to Europe and earns a professional start in Scotland. His Luxembourg passport, obtained through his ancestry, opened the door that stays closed to most American players: the right to work in Europe.
Client storiesDE
Transatlantic Election
An eight-hour congress at the Teatro Governador Pedro Ivo in Florianópolis drew 460 people and delegations from five Luxembourgish parties. Daniel Atz presented the population-register figures, 19,939 Luxembourgish citizens in Brazil at the end of 2022, and walked the room through an electoral system most of them were about to use for the first time.
Diaspora & electionsFR
Association Promotes Event on Luxembourgish Citizenship in Rio Negro
Rio Negro was settled with the help of four Luxembourgish families, the Bleys, Greins, Krausses and Stressers, and the town turned out for the visit. Local coverage of an ACLUX meeting at the Antônio Cândido do Amaral theater, a reception at city hall and filming with RTL.
BrazilPT
Rio Negro City Hall Presents the Municipality's Potential to a Luxembourg Delegation
The municipal side of the same visit. Officials in Rio Negro presented the town's economic and cultural strengths to a delegation from Luxembourg, part of a wider effort to build lasting ties between the Grand Duchy and the Brazilian regions its emigrants settled.
BrazilPT
The Fifth Constituency
The piece that gave the new diaspora its name. Recovery filings under the 2008 law went from 22 in 2019 to 4,273 in 2022, putting the number of new Luxembourgers on course to pass 47,000. Land argued that they amounted to an unofficial fifth constituency.
Diaspora & electionsFR
20221 story
Luxembourg's Last Call for Citizenship by Descent
An American explainer on the closing window under Article 89 of the 2008 nationality law: who qualified, what the chain of documents had to prove, and why the deadline mattered.
Nationality lawEN
20211 story
Some of Them Want to Come and Live Here
By 2021, 2,436 Americans had become Luxembourgers through recovery of nationality, and about one in five of those contacting LuxCitizenship said they wanted to move to the Grand Duchy one day. RTL followed two of them as they planned the move.
Client storiesLB
20201 story
Coronavirus Complications for Luxembourg Nationality Applications
Applicants had to appear in person in Luxembourg before the end of 2020, and the borders were closed. Fifty-six people in Brazil and the United States recorded video messages to the Ministry of Justice. Justice Minister Sam Tanson confirmed that a bill was already being prepared to extend the deadline to the end of 2021. Around 15,000 people stood to benefit.
Nationality lawLB · EN · FR
20191 story
1,465 Americans Gained Luxembourgish Citizenship in Ten Years
A ten-year tally as the first recovery window closed: of 20,832 people granted citizenship on those grounds between 2009 and 2018, 1,465 were American. A LuxCitizenship survey of 241 clients found them concentrated in Minnesota and highly educated, most with at least a bachelor's degree and many with doctorates.
Data & researchLB · EN
20181 story
Daniel Atz Meets His Luxembourgish Family
The sequel to RTL's 2017 report. A viewer recognized the photographs of a great-grandmother from Esch-sur-Alzette and got in touch. A few weeks later Daniel Atz was in the village meeting relatives for the first time. That moment is the reason LuxCitizenship exists in the shape it does today.
Client storiesPrint / offline LB
20171 story
More and More Americans Want to Become Luxembourgers
The first broadcast about any of this. RTL's De Magazin found 315 American applications in 2017 alone, against roughly 800 in the eight years since the law came into force, and filmed a young New Yorker explaining, over a bowl of bean soup, why a country he had visited once mattered so much to him.
Nationality lawLB
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