shak

ok i hope i explain this clearly enough...

I'm a UK citizen, who's also a US resident...i've been living in the US for years and years... and i've been a permanent resident for almost 10 yrs..
Now my boyfriend is a UK citizen, i've pretty much gathered the easiest way for my bf and i to live in the US before/after marriage is for me to become a US citizen(which i don't mind too much). At least i believe that will make the process much easier for him to live there...
I was wondering once you become a US citizen, do you automatically lose your original countries citizenship? Since my boyfriend will technically still be a British citizen after marriage(right?), does that automatically still allow me to be a UK citizen? Or...is it that if he marries a US citizen(me eventually), that he'll lose is UK citizenship?...or will that allow him to have dual citizenship as well? whew...i hope all that wasnt too confuzing and makes some kinda sense!
Well any help in clearing this up in my head would be appreciated... thanks!

sphyrapicus

Neither one of you will lose either citizenship. You can retain both citizenships if you desire.

You can also do a search for dual citizenship on here. We've discussed it ad nauseum (i.e. lots of posts about it).

shak

quick reply..thanks! i'm new here...so i havent looked around at all the posts... thanks again.

grioghair

I think I've got your question right.

Marriage to a US citizen will not alter your citizenship at all - not even altering your status to a permanent resident alters that. The only thing that alters your status to American citizen - for your boyfriend - will be if he becomes naturalised. He can take the Oath of Allegiance, but it is not recognised by Britain...so it will not matter. He will be dual - and so will you. The US authorities don't like this, but that is the way it works in practice.

Steve

sphyrapicus

Welcome aboard. You will soon become addicted and not able to go a day without taking a peak at what's being discussed.

When are you going to apply for citizenship? And have you thought about what type of visa you will seek to bring your bf over?

shak

thanks again... i was planning on applying sometime next year. hmm... how many types of visa choices are there? i assume the one relating to allowing fiancees to live in the US in anticipation of marriage.. im not sure really

sphyrapicus

I guess it all depends on how quickly you want to move things along. Every step takes months and months so the longer you wait to apply for citizenship, the longer it will be until you can get him over here. It sounds like you want to use the K1 fiance visa where you will have to marry within 90 days of his arrival. There are tons and tons of folks on here that can give you all the ins and outs of that process. What state do you live in so people can tell you about how long your particular service center takes to process applications?

alex_lg

Here is the gov link to the explanation of dual citizenship.

http://www.amcits.com/dual.asp

Basically the U.S. law doesn't authorize the U.S. gov to make you to give up your citizenship.

So what authorizes the U.S. gov to make you "renounce your allegiance" to your former gov when you swear in? This is a very clever play of words by the U.S. gov. Since the U.S. law doesn't authorize the gov to force you to 'renouce your former citizenship', they came up with this ambiguous phrase - renouce your allegiance, which practically doesn't mean much at all.

A person can hate his former gov from A to Z, but that doesn't necessarily mean losing his citizenship! However, people generalize and jump to conclusion quick and as far as the U.S. gov is concerned, your mis-interpretation of the language plays right into their favor. They certainly wouldn't bother to clear the myth.

There are instances like this left and right and a gov can easily mislead the public w/o even lying, and they can always counter it's your own fault to generalize if you try to blame them. Remember back in 91 the gov kept telling us 40% of the oil consumption in the U.S. relied on import to build up the support to go to war to kick Saddam out of Kuwait? They only had to tell the 'truth' enough times and before long people jumped to the conclusion that all 40% were from the middle east! The American public were so afraid of losing that oil supply. The gov. never lied in this case! But they know they can achieve the same effect! The fact is most imported oil for the U.S. is from UK. Long live the Queen!

Unless your former gov doesn't allow dual citizenship, you would be just fine.

shak

Well thanks again for all the help, i think i pretty much understand it now... by the way i live in Pennsylvania. I'll be sure to look into it more now that i have a better understanding of the process... i suppose the earlier i start, the better! Also, that link isn't working at the moment..so i'll try again another time.

Squire

In article <[email protected]>, shak <member19670@bri
tish_expats.com> writes
    >Originally posted by sphyrapicus
    >> When are you going to apply for citizenship? And have you thought
    >> about what type of visa you will seek to bring your bf over?
    >thanks again... i was planning on applying sometime next year. hmm...
    >how many types of visa choices are there? i assume the one relating to
    >allowing fiancees to live in the US in anticipation of marriage.. im not
    >sure really

Whatever choice you make the first thing to do is obtain US Nationality
and thereafter obtain a US passport. However, as you would then still
hold a UK passport you might wish to investigate doing DCF (Direct
Consular Filing) at the US Embassy in London. This will require you to
get married first (either in US or UK) and to physically attend an
interview in London. If the London Consulate allow you to DCF (and you
should confirm with them that holding a UK passport sufficiently
qualifies you) then your spouse's successful processing would obviate
any need for subsequent AOS, AP (Advance Parole) or EAD (Employment
Authorisation) after arrival in USA, a considerable saving in time and
bureaucracy and expense.

Search for DCF (a newsgroup term, not an official one) when deciding
your options.


--
squire
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. (Groucho)