The assumed protection of having a US passport is vastly overrated. If you get in any trouble, the assistance of US consular officers almost guarantees you will be in more serious trouble, even doing time that you would not have had to do without their assistance.
This is kind of a ridiculous statement. I fully agree that there's little to no intrinsic protection in having a US passport. Couldn't agree more, honestly. Thinking your US passport "protects you" is akin to thinking you can't get HIV because you have a condom in your wallet.
Michael, forgive me if I mis-interpreted your statement, but saying US consular offices will make a problem worse is even more ignorant than thinking your passport will protect you. I believe this if you're heading into a failed state, or a third world port of entry that's so far off the map that "people just disappear." Believe it or not, most nations on earth - yes, even the remote ones, and the ones who aren't huge fans of the US - play nice when things get political. I'll grant you the "gray area" between the time you say "I would like to contact my embassy" and the time the embassy/consulate is able to react
could get uncomfortable, IF you're dealing with a less-than-respectable crew of folks. But that takes me back to "why did you put yourself in that position to begin with?" and still remains quite unlikely.
I happen to know several US Consular officers personally. Some of them have been doing the job longer than I've been making mistakes. They rotate to new locations/countries regularly, meaning an average career can easily present a dozen or more countries to a consular officer. I had dinner a couple of weeks ago with a friend who happens to be the current chief consular officer for a country with a rather troubled and violent recent history, and experience in the same job in more countries than I've even seen from an airplane window. I asked for an opinion about the advice of "clam up and cry for your embassy," in regards to Michael's statement that consulate involvement can make things worse. Keep in mind, the US diplomatic service may be large by global standards, but it's a rather small number of individuals, and is a surprisingly small community. Without hesitating, she was able to identify every situation a consulate's involvement had a perceived negative impact on a situation. There were so few she's even heard of, she could remember each one individually. She was quick to point out 99% of her job is helping to coordinate adoptions, immigrations, and visas, and rarely to never is it helping someone out of a legal bind.
I can hear it already, "Oh but she probably didn't hear about the worst of them!" Do you honestly believe the consulate/embassy is going to
not follow up with a citizen after an incident that was bad enough to require their involvement in the first place?
I agree, involving your consulate
might result in an extra night or two in jail while the politics play out. You
may have been able to simply talk your way out of the same situation in a couple of hours with smiles, courteous cooperation, and maybe some "taxes" paid. But I don't believe for a moment that a phone call to my consulate is going to result in an extra month in a circus cage. And what "more serious trouble?" You're suggesting they're going to levy murder charges, or plant something to say you were smuggling it in now that you've elevated the issue? Generally speaking, once the consulate is involved, everybody plays strictly by the rules and ensures nobody's beating you, starving you, etc. because
nobody wants that visibility. Saying otherwise is simply ignorant fearmongering, unless you'd care to share enough first-hand examples to be statistically significant, and not just one or two bad-luck situations where things went badly?
As I said, treating your US passport as if it protects you from anything is simply irresponsible and poor planning. Proactively avoid bad situations to the best of your ability. If you find yourself in one, do all you can to de-escalate and resolve the situation with a smile on your face. That advice works regardless of what passport you're carrying.
@GirlonFire - assuming having a passport qualifies one as "a national," then your friend has the right. Unless I'm mistaken, simply
having a US passport affords you any "protections" one might believe in. So even if your friend traveled on a Philippine passport and found himself in a situation where he needed to utilize the US embassy, it's still available to him by virtue of being a US citizen. Personally, if I were in his shoes, I'd use whichever passport I felt was most likely to give me the lowest profile anywhere I went and not think twice about the "what if" stuff. Again, I'd rather avoid attention and any risk of escalating a situation before I even leave my house, then there's no situation that will need resolution. If he's really concerned, travel on the Philippine passport and log the travel ahead of time with the US Bureau of Consular Affairs'
STEP program. Then if travel restrictions swing the other way while he's out and about, he's not lost in the wind.