sime303

assume if you moved here to marry a USC or ended marrying one after coming to the US for other reasons that you are an automatic USC?

Sorry if this question has been asked many times before but I am new and I was just wondering because it happens to me all the time. I then have to explain the whole process to them so they can see at the moment I am still British (I'll have dual if I ever get my lazy rear in gear). Thank you all for you patience with a newb lol.

BritGuyTN

nope

my wife automatically explains I would never have moved, if not for her...

sime303

Yeah but I meant do they think you're a citizen because you are married to her?

BritGuyTN

yes

because they are ignorant

sime303

Then why are you friends with them. Sorry just had to ask. lol

cindyabs

It's just my life experience, but just because someone is mistaken in one area doesn't preclude having a friendship with them..........

My grandmother was Canadian but became a USC when she married my grandfather, however things were different in 1920...

neil

Exactly, I have friends and family in the UK who assume the same; why would they know the ins and outs of US immigration?

elfman

Flying out of Heathrow a couple of years ago I had a BAA employee at the departure gate who, when seeing I did not have a return ticket to the USA, asked to see my green card “to prove you’re a US citizen” I tried to tell her that if anything, it proved the opposite, and tried to tell her the difference between USC and LPR, but she just wouldn’t have it. The Mrs had to pull me away because we were starting to hold up the boarding queue.

Rete

Yes and no. Most assume that marriage to a USC means you don't have through the immigration system's long and drawn out processing but that there is a quick and easy process.

I have seen this same thought process from many world citizens about their own country. Unless you need to use a government agency, you have no real conception of the process involved. It is not a matter of being stupid. It is simply a matter of not knowing because there is no need to know.

As for friendship with someone that doesn't know about US immigration processing, why would their NOT knowing the process involved exclude them from being a friend. So I have knowledge about one field while they might have knowledge about another. We can learn from each other.

Roland Hulme

Thank goodness! Otherwise I'd have no friends at all!

cindyabs

Yes, I in fact wouldn't be married since my DH is a math wiz (he can do all this stuff in his head faster than I can put it into a calculator) and I never understood algebra.

Tracym

It is a very common misconception here that marriage to a USC pretty much automatically lets you live here/become a USC.

If fact, I've never met anyone who hasn't tangled with immigration themself, who didn't think that.

In fairness. I think some years ago, it was almost automatic - much more difficult these days.

anabella

Yes, but not only here.. In England everybody was surprised to see that I had to go through an immigration process, they assumed that, because I was married to a USC, I was allowed to live/work here..

Bill_S

Of course. It's hardly unusual that native-born citizens don't know the ins and outs of their country's immigration laws. Most of my wife's friends assumed I magically became a US citizen immediately upon marriage. With all the talk of illegal immigration and work permits, though, it was a bit surprising to discover that quite a few Americans assume that Canadians can simply move to the US, take up residence, get a job, etc, with no interaction with the immigration system.

chicagojlo

I think that mis-information about immigration is just as widespread here as it is in the UK. I wonder if any of you have the same thing as I do with my husband's family, which is that they have no problem ranting on about the 'bloody immigrants', when they have a bunch of British emigrants in their own family!