dolydd

This is my first post on this site.

I am married to an American, have PR and waiting for citizenship. Is it possible for my 2 year old US born/citizen to get dual citizenship with the UK. If so how do you go about getting it started.

Any information much appreciated

excpomea

I would imagain that you contact the British Embassy staff here in the US and register the birth of your child, albeit a little late.

BrigieDarling

Welcome dolydd!

ELAINE LISS

Same situation. Child will automatically be dual as long as you maintain resident status. As far as I know, if you apply for citizinship you have to relinquish dual chitizinship for your children. I know people who did this though and returned to Scotland and simply applied for british citizinship again - and got it - no problem. I can't imagine Britain ever refusing.

dgsyd1

I could be wrong here, but from what I remember, any child born to a British citizen is automatically recognised as a British citizen. One of the advantages of the UK recognising dual citizenship. I hope I'm not wrong, expecially with a baby due in 3 months!

ELAINE LISS

dgsyd is right. Born to one - you will always be one, even if the nationality of parent changes. Even if parents are expired.

I had this all checked out a few years ago, and thought I had it right. but after seeking medical care I was left to wonder. On a temporary return to Scotland - where we wern't sure if and when we would return to US, I took my 10 year old to NHS doctor - and they refused to treat her - totally unbelievable. I know its illegal to refuse to treat any child anywhere under any circumstances but they did - because she was American and they firstly wanted her US insurance ID. We ended up in the ER, where they of course didn't care who she was. Stuff like this goes on all the time. The point is she is a British Citizen because she was born to me. As such, I always believed she would be entitled to NHS services. I am still a British Citizen after all!

MrsLondon

Actually entitlement to the NHS is decided by residency in the UK, not by British citizenship. So, foreign students in the UK, foreign spouses of UKC, work permit holders etc, can use the NHS. But British expats cannot. Though I think really it depends on the doctor. Some doctors can't be bothered with the paperwork and will treat tourists without charging them, others will baulk at treating an ex-pat.

Patrick

I just want to say that MrsL is correct. Any child of Brit is automatically british. Residency is the key to NHS treatment and not nationality

Patrick

Taffyles

Yep that's correct. Dolydd your 2 year old is already a British Citizen by descent - I don't think you have to register anymore, you can apply for a British passport for the child, but a simple phone call to the Embassy should sort that out. As long as you are residing in the US though it would be better for your child to use his/her US passport to travel in and out of the US. Apparently the US can strip someone of their citizenship for taking out other nationality, but the UK can't. The only way you can lose your British citizenship is if you formally renounce it in front of a British consulate.

Pulaski

It is not possible to renounce British citizenship by swearing it away to an official of another country. The UK does not accept it, and therefore it is irrelevant for determining whether you have British citizenship.

In any case, in practice, the US doen't have a problem with dual nationality these days.

Pulaski

That is a legal requirement under US law - all US citizens must travel into and out of the US on US passports. If an immigration officer finds another country's passport on a US citizen they can, and do, confiscate it.
If that is still the case, and I'm not sure that it is, then it is a theoretical possibility. There may be isolated instances (I'm sure that if I said there were no cases then somebody would find one to prove me wrong) but I bet they are very rare, and under peculiar circumstances, ..... maybe an American defector to the USSR who took Soviet citizenship might have been striped of his US citizenship.

adamfdz

Hello Dollydd,
I am doing this right now. For my US born son, all I (and you) need to do is fill out some paperwork the embassy send you, and wait a couple of months and then the passport comes in the post.
You need to write to:

Registrar,
Consular Section,
British Embassy,
10 Observatory Circle NW,
Washington DC, 20008-3600

BTW It also costs a couple of hundred quid.

Good luck!!

effi

I think I may be right in saying that the child has to be 18 before they can hold a British passport, if one of the parents is American and before he can make the decision to take dual citizenship. If you are British and intend to take the child to UK by yourself, then you must get permission from the other parent in writing.

On another note on medical treatment in the UK. There was a post on this site not too long ago about the same thing. A British doctor actually wrote in and said that no British citizen would be refused medical treatment in the UK, regardless of how long they have been out of the country, it is their right.

CharlieS

Interesting topic which I am carefully watching.
I have a 4 year old USC daughter and have toyed with the idea of obtaining dual-status for her. So far noone has definitively told me how to go about it.

My main question would be applying if none of us are actually living within the UK (even though I am from the Uk originally)

Patrick

Through the British embassy in Washington (or one of the Consulates in NY, Boston, LA, Miami, Phoenix, Seatle, Atlanta, Orlando, SF, Denver, Houston, and Dallas)

http://www.britainusa.com/

Patrick