Dual nationality?

[tethersjinglebellend]

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but hoping someone can help

My DD is half English (me) half French (dp), and as yet has no passport. We live in England. I have a British Passport, DP a French one.

Can I apply for a French passport for my DD? Would this be instead of a British one, or could she hold both? What documentation would be required?

Is it even a good idea? Does anyone know the advantages/disadvantages of doing this?

Too many questions?

TIA

Are you married? the UK registrars keep telling us that as DH recognised DD it makes no differences, but I am not so sure they actually know what they are talking about.

We are the same me french and DH british (DP at the time). Even if DD was born in england they refused to give her the british passeport claiming she wasn't british.
We still don't know if it was because we were not married or because DH is not born in the UK.
So DD is only french.
If you are the mother and british, you can apply for the british passeport, I think your DD should get it. Check on the gouvernment web site what you need, you can pick up the files in selected post office.
You can definitely apply for a french passeport, by the way it is easier than for a UK one and cheaper. Go to the ambassy web site and you will have all the details (probably easier if your DP do it). If you go to the ambassy all 3 of you it will get done much quicker (the huge queue in london is for visas, there is another door for passeports). children passeport are only valid 5 years and usually cost less than adults ones, delays are 6 weeks at least for the british one by post (you can pay extra to have a fast delivery one if you drop it in london and wait for it), and 4 weeks for french one (quicker if you send it and go to the ambassy for picking it up)
I think she could hold both, but before 18 and with europe what is the point?
The only advantage of having 2 passeport is if travelling to US and forbidden country (i.e. israel/egypt....afganistan, cuba...) so you can stamp one with the "bad visa" and still have one clean to travel to picky countries. I guess your DD is too young to travel on her own?
may be it will help having both to have the same country passeport if you or your DP travel with her alone? I travelled alone with my DD (same passeport) but my DH never did so I don't know if him and her being of different nationalities could create any problem. Does someone else knows?
happy new year

Mamaloco, if I've understood it correctly the reason your DD doesn't have British nationality is because your husband wasn't born in the UK. I remember looking it up when DS was born in France (we're both British, so he is too, but I have discovered that he can't pass British nationality on to any putative offspring he might have because he wasn't born in UK). Likewise he could choose to have French nationality when he's older but would probably have to rescind his British nationality. Obviously that's completely up to him! I think that Tethers' DD could have joint nationality if they want her so could probably have both passports, assuming she (the mother) was born in UK.

Wow, thank you that's really helpful

I had not thought about the point of having dual nationality... Food for thought, definitely. DD is only 1, so the solo trip to afghanistan is off the cards for a while , but definitely useful to think about travelling alone with her- DP plans to do this. We are not married BTW.

I will try and get DP to navigate the French embassy website.

Your DD is British because you are British (assuming that either you or DD was born in the UK). This is a fact and not conditional upon any other citizenship.

Some countries demand that you have only their citizenship, but the UK is not like that. The UK doesn't care about other countries' citizenship laws.

The key thing is to work out France's attitude to granting citizenship.

You can get her both nationalities.

Incidentally, brioche, your DS would only need to spend 3 years in the UK (university counts) for it to count as a strong tie and him be able to pass on his citizenship. Or if he had children with another Brit born overseas because otherwise the children wouldn't be entitled to any nationality! There are ways around the citizenship by descent rules but you have to think about them before you have children.

Our children have 3 nationalities - my nationality, my husband's and British.

When we travel as a family we often have 3 different passports (as we use the children's British ones), but we've never had any problems whatsoever (although we've had a few funny looks/smiles ).

One of the childrens' citizenship is German and, altough Germany does normally not allow dual citizenship, I understand that if they receive them from birth they can keep them forever (although I am happy to be corrected).

The UK definitely allows dual nationality and for a person to hold two passports. However, the other country in the dual situation may not allow it and insist on the individual only possessing one passport.

There's something called a Certificate of Entitlement issued by the British government for its citizens that hold a passport from a country that doesn't allow two passports. Relatively easy to get, you fill out a form and hand over your passport. It comes back with the sticker in it. You simply present this page in your passport when entering the UK.

I've never understood why it wouldn't be okay to hold more then one nationality, and indeed how anyone would know?!

Being a dual national isn't a get out clause-in most passports it actually says that holding that nationality doesn't exempt you from any obligations you may have as a result of having another nationality such as military service.

mopsyflopsy - Germany has now been forced to accept dual nationality for EU citizens. It still pretends though that there is no dual nationality on principle and that any cases that exist (your family, for instance, or Europeans) are just exceptions. There's one other way of having a German passport as well as British - dd2 has British, Irish and German nationalities - if both parents are EU citzens and have lived in Germany longer than 8 years then the child automatically gets German nationality at birth. However, s/he must decide at 18 whether to give up the German passport or the others. BUT, given that Europeans now can apply for dual citizenship as adults anyway , you would be in the weird position of giving up your German passport at 18 and reapplying for it straight away. We're not too worried - dd2 is only 7 and I imagine the law will have changed again in the next decade.

Thanks for clarifying that, Blauer Engel.

This would mean that if our dd (who has 3 nationalities) were to marry someone with 3 different nationalities, then their children would have 6 nationalities (or possibly 7 if they both lived in yet another country for a certain period)!!

One disadvantage of having dual nationality is that if one country decides to e.g. imprison you while you're on their territory, there's very little the other country can do about it.

frakkin my DH spent more than 3 years in the UK (more like 15 or 20) and still can't pass is nationality to DD even if she is born in the UK and lived there for 3 year herself. We could pay 200 pounds (too much for us at the time) to fill a file, though, and submit it to the prime minister who can grant her (or not) the british nationality if he is in a good mood and cotas for the year haven't been passed.

DH never ask for his swedish passport because he would have had to do a very lenghty military service.

mamalocco that does not sound right?
Even a child born in the UK to non british permanent residents is entitled to citizenship.

mamalocco, I agree with slim22 - that really does not sound right. Our children got their British nationality exactly because my dh (not British) has British permanent residence.

And regarding military service, a lot can change within the next 18 years - in fact there is a good chance that Germany will abolish the compulsory service by then. If not, we'll have to look at options (including then giving up the German citizenship then), although ds might even benefit from doing it (language practice etc). In other words, why make the decision now when you've got 18 years?

And vesala, I don't see that as a disadvantage of dual/triple nationality - you get imprisoned if you something wrong. I don't understand what having more nationalities has to do with this?

You can naturalise after 5. 3 years to naturalise if you marry a British citizen but then it's rather pointless if you're doing it so you can pass on by descent!

IIRC being born in the uk and living there until you're 10 means you can apply for citizenship regardless of parental nationality but that's slightly academic!

This explains about the 3 year thing.

Thanks
www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Passports/WhoiseligibleforaBritishpassport/DG_174145
Your link seems a bit out of date, but apparently following this my DD did not get it because we weren't married at the time (she is born in 2005).
It so confusing that even british admisnitration kept giving us different answers, the only things they agreed on was that DD wasn't british.
I am about to have DD2 in two weeks I better check if she can have the british nationality, even if she will be born abroad. It sounds that the law has changed after DD1 was born, and she could be british afterall (we are married too now) [where is the confused emoticon, I would use it a lot]

oops what's tat big white space?

I thought that children could have dual nationality until they are 18 or something like that then they decide?

My DS has dual nationality British/Kenyan and Kenya does not "allow" dual nationality.

We just applied for a British passport for him (I am British and he was born in UK) and then got a Kenyan Birth Cert for him from the High Commission and then a Kenyan passport a few months after.

No problems at all....

We only use the Kenyan one for him to get in/out of Kenya without having to get a visa.

I have had dual citizenship my whole life, without any issues, and never had to choose. I think for my nephew (who also has both, but was born in Britain) he will have to choose whether or not he wants to retain the SAn citizenship when he turns 18, and would probably have to go and stay there for a while to do so (he's 2 at the moment, so this is all a bit academic). Ultimately, it is up to the individual country. I have to retain my South African passport if I want to visit the country, as it is illegal for a SAn citizen (born there) to enter the country on a foreign passport. I think the US has the same policy (but enforces it more).

CHildren can have dual nationality until they are 18 in the case of countries that do not allow dual nationalities. My children have dual Swedish/British nationality and we were told when they were born that this would only be until they were 1, but Sweden has recently changed its rules, so it seems they can now retain it forever.

I am thinking of applying for British citizenship and keeping my Swedish now it's allowed. Seems highly unlikely that there will ever be a conflict of loyalties, such as either country going to war with the other.

I'm pretty sure the UKBA are up to date with their info and part of the reason I'm confident of that is because one of my best friends from uni who is BBD and only spent the 3 years of his course there has passed his citizenship down to the baby his wife had recently. Plus the law hasn't changed regarding this, as far as I'm aware, since I stopped doing advice work in 2008. However your site links to mine so they may both be out of date!

I agree with your assumption that your DD1 didn't get it because you weren't married though as that particular piece of legislation only changed in 2006 which seems awfully late given the prevalence of unmarried partnerships. Mind you they only changed the legislation to allow citizenship to pass down the maternal line for people born between 1971 and 1983 in something lke 2003 which seems awfully discriminatory to me so perhaps it's not suprising. Anyway it's likely your DC2 will be allowed British citizenship automatically as long as the other criteria are met, which I'm pretty sure is the case for brioche's DS who the advice was originally aimed at. Immigration is pretty complex and I wouldn't want to give anyone false hope because I don't know their situation but from what you've said it's entirely possible that if your DC2 is granted British nationality it may apply retrospectively to DD1. However everyone's circa are different and I only offered that advice to brioche because I happen to know her and have met her in RL so anyone else finding this thread please do check carefully!

Hey all,
perhaps I can butt in with a question as well? Any thoughts would be well appreciated.

Just for the background, my mum is English born and raised, my father is Swiss. My mum gained Swiss citizenship the day she married my father (things have changed LOTS since then) but didn't lose her British citizenship. I was born in Pakistan, and grew up in Switzerland, but moved to England a good three years ago. Until I was 15 or so, I only had Swiss citizenship, but then the law changed and I applied for and was granted British citizenship as well.

Now I'm pregnant and expecting my first baby. My partner (not married) is all Swiss but we live together in England.

I'm assuming that if our baby is born in England, it will get British citizenship. But what if it is born abroad? Say if it arrives early whilst I'm on a trip. Given that I was not born in the UK, and only acquired British citizenship at age 15, and my partner is not British, any chance that the baby would still be granted British citizenship?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Are you a naturalised British citizen or BC by descent?

The not-passing-down only applies if your citizenship 'category' is BC by descent. If you're naturalised then you're a full citizen IYSWIM and can pass on your nationality to your baby regardless. That said I would avoid taking the risk!

frakkin, tbh I'm not totally sure - I'll check on my citizenship certificate when I next get hold of it.

I sort of assume that it's by descent. For a long time we children weren't eligible for citizenship as our only link was due to being born (abroad) to a British (born and raised) mum. But then the law changed - just in time for DSis who was 17 - and anyone not yet 18 born to a British mum could request citizenship. So that would be by descent - a kind of descent that wasn't acknowledged earlier but now is - I assume.

If that is correct, do I understand this right: It's the fact that I was born outside of Britain that means that if I have a baby in the UK, it gets British citizenship, but not if I have a baby abroad? Whereas if I had been born in the UK, it wouldn't matter where my baby was born?