Anybody up on UK and/or German citizenship laws?

[berdoingg]

Yes, I have two colleagues who have joint UK/US citizenship. The only possible downside in the US is if you get drafted you either have to sign up or lose your US citizenship forever and leave the country immediately.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Holy cow, I can't believe that this thread actually has something to do with RPGs.

This is nothing. On the Delta Green Mailing List, we regularly discuss such diverse topics as the structure of government organizations, natural phenomena, politics, advertising, linguistics, movies, terrorism, UFOs, and telephone sex.

And we all manage to fit that into a role-playing game context!

 

[Samnell]

Did they live in Germany for some time after he was born, and did they make sure to get him a German passport - or did they visit a German embassy or consulate in the USA to fill out the paperwork? If yes, no problem. If no, thigs get problematic - he has the right to German citizenship because of his mother, but if he only decides to get it later in life he might get asked to give up his US one.

I think his mother would have done the embassy notification deal. He was born in the States, but they do a lot of holidays in Germany and the UK. Neither parent is terribly patriotic or anything, but they didn't want to cause problems for him later in life if he decided he wanted to live and work in Europe. Neat.

Apparently, you went through the US ceremony thing and handed over your UK passport, and then just trotted to the nearest British embassy and told them that you needed a new UK passport because the Americans had just confiscated yours during the citizenship process.

My reading says that appears to be more or less true. Standard US naturalization procedures involve swearing an oath that renounces any other citizenships. These days, it's treated as a pro forma artifact. But Wikipedia is telling me that it is possible for you to renounce and resume your UK citizenship once during your life to step around a second country's naturalization process.

You basically just need to get one EU passport and then the whole EU opens up to you. It's all pretty relaxed within Europe itself.

Which is damn neat. Sometimes I envy you Europeans and your border-crossing ways.

 

[Henry]

Sometimes I envy you Europeans and your border-crossing ways.

Big deal - I can cross the border from South Carolina to North Carolina anytime!

Seriously, I'm glad the EU has opened up like it has over the past 50 years.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The UK does allow multiple citizenships - having one parent would allow British citizenship to be applied for, and as far as I can recall there is no age cutoff.

The fact that the father is British sidesteps another problem.

These days, I believe either parent being a citizen qualifies you for a British passport. But that's only been the case since some time in the 80s. If you were born before the law changed, you only qualify if your father (or, from memory, your father's father) was British.

My mother's English; I was born in the 70s; I don't qualify for a British passport.

-Hyp.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Apparently, being a First Nations Canadian by virtue of the Indian Act, I'm entitled to claim U.S. citizenship as well as Canadian. I have never actually seen any official confirmation of this, so I don't know if it's true or not. It would make crossing the border more convenient for me if I could claim to be an American citizen, especially now that they have the Spanish Inquisition on staff. But who knows how I would attempt to make it official? Not that I have any plans to go anywhere beyond an hour's travel from my house any time soon, anyway.

 

[Andor]

The fact that the father is British sidesteps another problem.

These days, I believe either parent being a citizen qualifies you for a British passport. But that's only been the case since some time in the 80s. If you were born before the law changed, you only qualify if your father (or, from memory, your father's father) was British.

My mother's English; I was born in the 70s; I don't qualify for a British passport.

-Hyp.

Yah. Technically that's true (or was true) however when I went to the embassy in 1989 to get my dual citizenship (British Mother) they saw that in the books, decided it was stupid and gave me and my brother citizenship anyway.

-Andor

 

[haiiro]

The fact that the father is British sidesteps another problem.

These days, I believe either parent being a citizen qualifies you for a British passport. But that's only been the case since some time in the 80s. If you were born before the law changed, you only qualify if your father (or, from memory, your father's father) was British.

My mother's English; I was born in the 70s; I don't qualify for a British passport.

You might want to take another look, Hyp -- I was born in '77, my Mom is British, and I was able to get UK citizenship through her when they changed the laws.

I also have US citizenship, and I've never gotten any legal guff over having both.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

Which is damn neat. Sometimes I envy you Europeans and your border-crossing ways.

Actually, the key thing isn't that we can cross borders without visas but that we can work without work permits. As an EU citizen I have the right to both live and work anywhere in the EU I please - which I think is pretty neat.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Actually, the key thing isn't that we can cross borders without visas but that we can work without work permits. As an EU citizen I have the right to both live and work anywhere in the EU I please - which I think is pretty neat.

We even can vote in some local elections if we reside there...