ian-mstm

I'm not sure you can actually get English citizenship! I'm pretty sure it's all rolled in to something called UK citizenship.

As for the rest... your views on citizenship are impractical, although quaint.

Ian

beatle2102

Well, sort of. The only way I can move to the UK is by way of an ancestry visa (yes, yes, I know!), which requires that I reside only in England for, like, 500 years until I get ILR and then citizenship. So you're right, I end up with UK citizenship. But I can't use my UK ancestry visa to live in Wales or Scotland (an incredible loss for both countries).

JAJ

Where on earth did you get that idea? Ancestry Visa holders may live anywhere in the United Kingdom - England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

beatle2102

Haven't the faintest clue, but I will gladly be wrong on that one! From memory, I read that if the ancestry visa was used, one had to reside in the country of the grandparent of whom you were claiming ancestry.

You're right though, in looking at the UK Border Agency website -- all references are to living in the UK, and say nothing of living in the specific country of the grandparent. There's hope for the Welsh after all.

Correction much appreciated!

JAJ

Although noting that the right to vote, etc, usually requires residence as well as citizenship. (The United States is different in that respect).

By the way, if you were born on or after 15 February 1977, and your Canadian parent was a citizen by descent, you may have lost your Canadian citizenship at age 28.



Most people have never met their great-grandparents.


You may not know but NZ citizens by descent born in 1978 or later had to register their citizenship by descent by age 22 or they lost it. Around 2000, as this requirement started kicking in, this age limit was raised to 24 and then removed (retrospectively) so no-one lost out.


But not every child born overseas to an American parent is American. In some cases, they do have to apply for citizenship:
http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Americ...en_Born_Abroad


If your parents didn't apply for Australian citizenship by descent for you, since 2007 you can pursue it independently aged 25+. No-one is "shut out" to use your phrase. Except that it's always harder to gather documents, etc, from many years ago.

As for arriving with a foreign passport, read,
http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Austra...eign_Passports

beatle2102

True, but residence of the US (or insert your country of choice) is much more easier to attain if you're already an American (or whatever) citizen. I understand that you need both in order to, for example, exercise the right to vote (and also understand that there are exceptions), but it's far easier to attain one requirement (residence) if you already have another (citizenship).

Well yes, my point exactly.

Which doesn't say anything to my assertion that I was a kiwi citizen at birth regardless of registration. Children of one Japanese parent may lose their Japanese citizenship if they fail to renounce their other citizenship(s) at 20, but that doesn't mean that they were not Japanese citizens at birth. I don't think that's an unimportant distinction.

I readily agree, but again, I'm not sure what your statement has to do with the price of fish in China. My point was that most, say, British-born citizens with an American parent can walk right into America, while the offspring of an illegal immigrant who has lived in America since childhood would have little right to remain in the US.

I'm absolutely not intending to imply that citizenship by descendancy is wrong, just that if the idea is that people should be allowed to be or become citizens on the basis of 'ties' to a country, it seems crazy to base those ties on descendancy over physical presence.

In the case of Australia, yes, but, as you mentioned upthread, you do have to satisfy a good character requirement. If someone committed a crime involving moral turpitude (although I'm sure Australia has a different term for this) at age 16 and his/her parents applied for Australian citizenship by descendancy for that child, that child would be granted Australian citizenship, yes? But if those parents failed to apply for citizenship for their child, and said child applied for Australian citizenship by descendancy at 18, 19, 45, whatever, s/he might run into trouble, yes? In the case of Ireland, citizenship CAN depend on one's parent's applying for their own citizenship. As I said, it's not pure citizenship by 'descendancy', it's citizenship by 'descendancy and your parents kept up to date with citizenship requirements so you got the best outcome possible'.



My original response to you was nothing more than the earth-shattering conclusion that citizenship by descendancy is generally a haphazard concept and appears to have been created by sadists. I'm a bit surprised that it's meeting such opposition, frankly.

JAJ

The USA does just that! A US citizen can only pass on US citizenship (at least, automatically) if that US citizen has lived for a period of time in the United States, or unless both parents are US citizens.

Australia does impose a physical presence requirement if the Australian parent is a citizen by descent.

In Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand it's correct to say that it's possible to be a citizen by descent based on a parent who was born in that country, left at a very young age, and never returned. An anomaly? Perhaps, but not one that any of these countries has been minded to address.

The fundamental reason citizenship by descent exists is to deal with cases where citizens are living overseas and have a child. As not all countries give citizenship based on birth, a country that did not make any provision for citizenship by descent would have a problem with overseas born children of its citizens being stateless.


Might, yes. Depends on the offence concerned.

Note that the child can apply for Australian citizenship by descent as an individual before age 18.


In the case of Ireland, if parent was born in Ireland, you're automatically a citizen. If grandparent was born in Ireland, you have to register. If you do register before the next generation is born, you can pass on to the next generation.

This is an extremely generous provision. There is no equivalent in Canada, for example, where the second generation can only get citizenship by moving to Canada as a child.