citizenship- is it worth it?

[katkit]

hello,

first real AIBU (other one was on the fairly safe topic of buggies), so pleease be nice...

my husband's from outside the EU, i'm, british. we've been married 3 years and have a baby together.

he has the right to stay here for ever and ever, works, pays tax, votes etc. his visa will never expire.

he has often talked about applying for citizenship, but this week i was horrified to hear that it might cost £750!...when i told him how expensive it is he said it is still worth doing!

the only benefit i can see is that when we go abroad (very rarely) we could both go through the same passport queue.

is this citzenship business just another way of border control taking big chunks of money from people? he works and pays tax as it is.

i'm wondering if anyone can explain if there are any benefits to paying a huge wad of money to get citizenship? (other than a shorter queue at the airport).

AIBU in hoping that he forgets all about it cos it looks the same as flushing a big wad of money down the loo?

Also, we hold joint citizenship - IIRC the UK does not make you surrender your other passport and citizenship, but you are not excused from any obligations you have wrt the other citizenship eg military service

"No, only citizens can vote in GEs. He might be eligible to vote in local ones. Sounds like a cock up, never mind"

Not true. As a New Zealand citizen with an Indefinite Right to Remain visa, I was able to vote in GEs. My (Kiwi) brother has a Highly Skilled Migrant visa, and likewise voted in May.

I do not remember paying anything like that amount when I got my British citizenship, but that was in 1996.

One thing worth considering is if you have indefinite leave to remain, and you leave the country for more than 2 years (say you go to live somewhere else on secondment or whatever for 2 and a bit years) then you might have to reapply for indefinite leave again and might not get it. So citizenship, with a passport, is the only true permenant one.

I could vote before I got citizenship but I'm commonwealth.

The inheritance tax thing is very interesting - £800 quid now or £800,000 in 40/50/60 years time? Consider it an investment and do it now before it goes up - I didn't pay that much for my citizenship (several years ago now)

The fact that he says its "still worth it" means he may well have an allegiance to the country (for want of a better word) - a loyalty, a love. That's a good thing worth nurturing and probably the only real reason anyone should get citizenship. I reckon you should try and do it if you can.

thanks all... lots to think about. next time we will jump in the same passport queue.

i now think we might do it. even if we could've got a lot of pimms/ pampers for £735.

I had the same dilemma and decided to go for it. Most of all it was a pain in the neck to get a visa to go anywhere outside the UK with a Russian passport - any holiday abroad or to visit friends/family outside the UK and Russia. Every time i needed to spend a day go to London to get a visa as we live not far enough to qualify for a postal application (Midlands). The last straw was when coming back from holiday DH and DS had to wait for me at the airport for more than an hour as our plane from Spain landed just after 3 massive planes from outside EU and the queue at the passport control was horrendous.

Sloany...very well said!! We want to do some more overseas posting, so for me, having citizenship, in addition to the financial benefit, makes things a whole bunch easier.

Those are the practical reasons, though. The thing is, if I have UK citizenship, it means that my little family will ALL have at least one citizenship all in common. Plus, I have been living here, did my Master's Degree at a UK university, and have a job working in a school. So, I feel very much a part of this country, and feel like it's right to acknowledge that formally.

My DH is Australian and he was sent polling cards for local elections when we were in the UK as well. Commonwealth citizens are eligible to vote, I'm pretty sure it says so on the electoral roll form you fill in (or maybe the website, one or t'other).

The price is about right if my application for a resident visa for Australia is anything to go by - £660 starter plus sundry other expenses, added up to around £900 by the time I got it. I can't apply for citizenship until I've been here 4y - not sure how much it costs but I doubt it's cheap![fear emoticon]

Do some countries still have issues with holders of SA passports? If so, that might be a very good reason for your DH to get British citizenship.

thanks thumb- i think some countries do have ishoos with sa passports, but not ones we'll be going to, boohoo.

there are some countries that allow greater freedom of travel for UK subjects than they do for other nationalities. SA is one country that can, still, be viewed as suspicious (drug & diamond smuggling) - i had a friend who got body searched one too many times & became a UK subject after that.

i'm surprised by eve's comment - we have a resident's visa, but not allowed to queue in the residents' line when re-entering the US - they are v strict that you have to line up according to the passport you hold & do split families up accordingly, even making parents go through the non-residents' line if their kids don't qualify.

it can affect the nationality of your kids - not sure that they could claim dual nationality if he gives up SA status, would that bother him?

also, does it affect things like pensions, health provision etc?

fwiw, i think 750 is v cheap - we're applying for green card status & it cost 1000s. it does actually take quite a lot of work to process these things & check that people are who they say they are, not fugitives trying to use a fake id etc.

off to change nappy, feed baby but will check back later...

kickassangel...we've never had a problem with it...DCs and I have US passports, DH has a UK, but we're allowed to go through together when re-entering either country...we've never been made to separate.

I will be applying for UK citizenship this year, as soon as I get the paperwork and test sorted. I want to be able to vote, and as we plan on spending the rest of our lives here and our sons have UK citizenship that it's important for me to have it as well.

Oh sorry, my info very out of date (I used to have inside knowledge, I worked at the Nationality Office years ago, when a spouse obtained c/ship for half price ) I shall blame the Tories, even though I guess the price hike hasn't been since the Budget!

Nope, the massive rise in ILR/citizenship costs were all nu labour...

Eric: Commonwealth citizens can vote in General Elections.

There are many reasons for being a citizen, although these are diluted if you are a Commonwealth citizen.

Having lived abroad as a permanent resident/non-citizen, I felt a bit vulnerable about being on the wrong side of he law (and I am a very upright person). You have very few rights as a non-citizen and could easily be deported, even for soething quite minor.

Beyond that, I think a very compelling reason for getting British citizenship is that it allows you to reside anywhere in Europe. Also, if you were to leave the UK as a family, you can easily return with citizenship instead of going through the visa process again.

Financially, it is my understanding that you now have to pay for new visa stickers when you renew your passport, and this is in hte order of several hundred pounds. If you are planning on living out your adult life in the UK, the visa fee savings with citizenship will be real.

DP voted in the general election, he only has limited leave to remain at the moment. He is from Zimbabwe though so another commonwealth country.

I'm Irish and I was allowed vote in the 1992 General Elections when I lived in London. I was never eligible to become a British citizen as I only lived there 4 years.

I was on indefinite leave to remain for years and voted in every election. The big advantage of getting citizenship was having freedom to travel in Europe, without getting in the long queues and having the passport filled with stamps (I do travel a hell of a lot so that may not be a problem for others).

I worked with a chap with a SA passport and he had so much trouble at airports all over the world. It was a true pain in the arse.

The strangest thing was doing the test, and studying for it. I thought they would have questions to prove some kind of kindred spirit with the UK such as about the rules of cricket, English history or the lyrics to Beatles songs. Instead there was a pile of questions about Welsh, English, Scots, NI national days and patron saints. Heaps of questions about the roles of the upper and lower houses of parliament, the role of the Whip, the electoral system. Basically, a test most current citizens would definitely fail.

A test made by career civil servants institutionalised in some Whitehall dungeon, whose idea of "Britishness" is a deep knowledge of the Westminster system, rather than a fondness for Pimms, queueing politely, muddy festivals and beating the Australians in sporting contests.

I swotted nonetheless and did pass the test with great aplomb, BTW.

Yes, its worth it if he wants to travel around Europe, and several other countries without the need for a visa (depends on what passport he currently holds) There is also an advantage that he will be able to work in several other European countries without needing a work permit.

No, its not worth it, if he does not require visas, or doesn't mind applying for them if and when you may want to take a holiday.

Its brutally expensive and I find all the charges have been stumped up pretty arbitarily and with no justification or transparency. It does not cost that much to process a citizenship application and the Home Office is taking the piss.

Been there and done that myself, and wish I had used the money for a holiday instead. And I am sure I am going to get flamed for this

I think I read somewhere that some countries will not let you have dual nationality. So would your DH lose the nationality of his home country if he applied for citizenship? And could that affect his legal rights there? Am afraid I have no idea of the answer, but just thought it something worth flagging.

All citizens of Commonwealth countries resident in the UK can vote in British parliamentary and local elections. God knows why. Before I became a British citizen, I could vote as a member of the Commonwealth, but not as the spouse of a British citizen -- go figure.

I became British because it saved hassle at immigration. And because the UK is now home.

I felt going the final stage and getting citizenship was worth it (although having already paid so much to the UKBA it's pretty frustrating) and I could already vote being a Commonwealth Citizen.

They key things for me was

1. We may want to go back to NZ at some point and I wouldn't want to lose my right to come back to the UK (or have to go through the whole process again).
2. I deal with immigration in my job and the UKBA constantly changes the rules - the chances are the cost will continue to go up and it will become much harder to get citizenship in future (e.g. they were consulting last year on forcing individuals to do community service and various other things to be eligible)
3. There are some very weird rules about ancestry and in some cases it can be an advantage to have citizenship through naturalisation compared to through descent for future generations.

HOWEVER, I am able to hold dual citizenship - if you South African you are meant to surrender your SA citizenship if you take another. They don't really monitor this but I've heard of some individuals having horrendous issues when they've been caught out. If he intends to travel back to SA in future even just for holidays make sure that you do follow their rules.

It also depends on how much hassle he gets while travelling - several SA nationals I know have found travel in Europe difficult.

I myself have been on the receiving end of extra questioning on my kiwi passport coming back into the UK (even though travelling with my British spouse) which was definitely part of the reason I wanted to get citizenship (and again, if you have kids it's preferable to be able to all go through the same queue - in my experience the UK has always been very strict on this and I've seen some very upset parents/children before although in NZ we queued separately and got told off and sent to queue together in the NZ citizens queue).

Btw - the citizenship test is hilarious (and SO easy)... and the study book is quite disturbing in it's contradictions, omissions and general fluff - almost worth reading to see just where the mindset of the civil servant is.

My DH is not british and also from outside the EU, but inside the EEA (he is swiss). He has lived here since he was a child and has the right to remain, etc etc. He pays british tax, Ni etc , and feels he has no need to become a british citizen. I, however, did adopt his home country and became a dual national (as have our children).

How is right of abode different to indefinate leave to remain?