pejpm1

Hi, I'm obviously a long way from this but I was just wondering....

I'm moving over on an L1B soon, my girlfriend of 3 years is a USC and we are planning on marrying before my Visa expires (i.e at some point in the next few years)...anyway, say I adjust for status and get a green card ....could I one day get dual citizenship if i wanted or would I have to give up my UK passport? If I could get both then I'd probably do it, but I would never give up my UK passport. Also, hypothetically once I get my green card through marriage, could I just live on that forever? Could I feasibly live for the rest of my life in the US without giving up my UK passport?

Obviously this has no bearing on anything right now, was just wondering and thinking of the future!

Noorah101

You are allowed to hold dual UK / US citizenship. You would then have 2 passports, a UK one and a US one.

If you choose not to become a USC, you will have to renew your green card every 10 years.

Best Wishes,
Rene

pejpm1

sorry, i should have looked...a thread about this very subject is two threads below this one

Cool! I know I'm getting ahead of myself but as I'm moving over with the possibility of getting married one day it really has got me thinking about the future. I'm glad I could get both if I wanted. Dont get me wrong, I have nothing against the US (well, almost nothing ) but I couldnt give up my UK citizenship ever. What do most people do? Do most Brits in the states longterm go for citizenship or do most just extend gc every 10 years?

meauxna

bonk bonk bonk!

Did you find the wiki page?

You can also search, particularly in the USA Lifestyle forum on the topic.. actually there is a wiki page already for the pros and cons, IIRC.. to find out what many/most people do.
My DH naturalized. With a UK + a US passport, many more places are open to us, to live in.
When you are on a Green Card (Permanent Resident) you can not vote, and you can still be removed (deported).

ian-mstm

I doubt there are any hard statistics on this... but I'm guessing most remain PRs because, like you, they believe that they will lose their UK citizenship by becoming a USC. The reason... they *think* that renouncing allegiance to the crown is the same as renouncing your citizenship. It isn't... but they don't know that.

Ian - dual UKC/USC

pejpm1

You have to renounce your allegiance to the crown? mmm, dont think I could do that. What does that actually mean?

augigi

Nothing really. You have to say the US is your #1 - but you don't actually have to officially renounce your UK citizenship, so it's a technicality. There is a whole PDF booklet at uscis.gov about becoming a citizen which explains it all.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

The actual oath of allegiance to become a US citizen includes a formal renunciation of all prior allegiances -- it uses some pretty archaic language, but it is in there.

What happens is that you make formal declaration tell Liz to go to Hell, but Liz says you can't do that.

Bottom line -- you have dual nationality.

In regards to other countries -- they DO recognize the renunciation. Republic of Korea and India are two countries that come to mind.

ian-mstm

You say that as though it actually has any validity as far as the UK is concerned. It doesn't. Oddly enough, the UK is *not* subject to US law... nor does it recognize the US oath as being binding on the UK.


What it *actually* means, is that when you are in the US, or dealing with US authorities, you are recognized as being *only* a US citizen, and any citizenship of any other country is irrelevant to those US authorities.

Ian

pejpm1

Funnily enough, I'm aware that the UK is not subject to US law. I just meant that I would find it hard to do it, regardless of the legal in's and out's.

Why do you do *this* all the time?

meauxna

He wants to be like me.


It's an old Usenet thing.. shows emphasis. Some of us forget we now have special text features like bolding and italics to do the job.

The Oath is posted on the Naturalization Wiki page if you'd like to see what it *actually* says.

ian-mstm

Because it's a throwback to the early days of UUCP... long before Web browsers and the World Wide Web were common. I've been online since 1983... when everything was text based, and Microsoft's version of Windows as a graphic user interface was still 2 years away! Geez, I still have my original 300 bps modem. Okay... here's a bit of Ian trivia... in 1993, my parents bribed me with a high speed modem (14.4k) if I would cut off my ponytail. I did! I still think I got the better end of the deal.

The youngsters today have no idea of how easy they've got it.

When I learned to use a keyboard, it was attached to a thing called a typewriter. BTW, I learned to type on an Olivetti Underwood Lettera 32. This was when I was in grade 9... 1967. Typing is the *only* course that has truly served me well all these years!

Ian