The struggle to be British: my life as a second-class citizen
March 2, 2017 4:03 AM   Subscribe

But in the last 15 years, citizenship, participation and “shared values” have been given ever more emphasis. They have also been accompanied by a deepening atmosphere of suspicion around people of Muslim background, particularly those who were born overseas or hold dual nationality. This is making people like me, who have struggled to become British, feel like second-class citizens. [slGuardian]
posted by ellieBOA (7 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Very well written and simply heart breaking.

My wife is a naturalized US citizen and the possibility that it could be revoked or that there could be legal distinctions between treatment of naturalized citizens and those born citizens is her biggest fear under the new regime.

There was a pretty recent Ask about this (in the US) and it was minorly comforting to know that the list of people to whom the US has done this to consists primarily of those who lied about their role in Nazi horrors in WW2 and a few people convicted of terror plots. For now.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 5:39 AM on March 2, 2017 [3 favorites]


It is worth clarifying, since the article doesn't (or perhaps it assumes the reader understands), that only the citizenship of those who already hold citizenship in another state can be taken back—both in the US and in the UK. Someone who holds only US or UK citizenship cannot have theirs revoked, because to do so would render them stateless. (Even conservatives tend to grudgingly acknowledge that this is a bad thing.)

Also, in the US, revocation of naturalized citizenship relies on essentially demonstrating that the person in question lied, and was not eligible for citizenship if they had told the truth and therefore obtained it fraudulently. (E.g. former Nazis implicated in war crimes are not eligible for naturalization, so therefore if it's discovered later that you were involved in Nazi war crimes, you must have lied. QED, "we fixed the glitch.") The alternative, I suppose, would be to put the burden onto the state of thoroughly researching everyone's background and answers on their naturalization paperwork, but I don't think this would really be an improvement: it would slow down the already-interminable process of naturalization for everyone just because of a few really awful people. Better to trust by default and punish the exceptional cases, than distrust everyone. It should always be shame on you for lying, not shame on everyone else for believing you.

While I'm not sure of the history of dual citizenship in the UK, in the US it's a relatively new concept; the key court case occurred in 1967: Afroyim v. Rusk. While this opened the door to letting US citizens hold dual citizenship, the unintended effect is that it puts a sort of asterisk next to some people. "Sure, you're a citizen," it implies, "but... not entirely."

The "not entirely" being the implied, and perhaps actual, loyalty to some other country. This raises some uncomfortable questions particularly around sensitive positions and security clearances, both in military and civilian employment. And while it may seem silly and academic when relations between countries are good, when they go downhill, it's hard to get around the problem of a person swearing allegiance to two countries with mutually-exclusive goals. De facto if not de jure, eventually there are situations where a person will have to choose one vs. the other.

A few years ago, the LA Times—not exactly Breitbart—wrote an interesting editorial basically arguing against the concept of dual citizenship from a pro-immigration/pro-immigrant standpoint. Their point, which I don't know if I agree with entirely but is at least worth considering, seems to be that while the right of residence and equal protection under the law should be available to anyone who lives in a state's jurisdiction, citizenship and the expression of allegiance that it implies should be both voluntary, but also exclusive. (Though I'm not sure how they envision that working as it applies to the rights conferred by citizenship but not by residence, e.g. voting.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:15 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


That LA times article is obviously written by someone who has never had to go through the process of getting a work permit.

Sorting out immigration and visas for most western countries is really hard work, and it seems to be getting harder day by day. Who can blame anyone for wanting to retain dual citizenship, and wanting to secure it for their children if possible? Life plans change for everyone, and I'd say most people I know have far more loyalty to their family and friendship networks than any abstract concept of their country. Dual citizenship lets you have peace of mind in knowing that if for whatever reason you need to go to the other country (where you probably have family living), the bureaucratic apparatus of the state won't cause even more pain.

Some of the guys I work with are going through the process of getting British citizenship right now. It is incredibly tedious - they have to fill out forms hundreds of pages long, list every time they've left the country for significant amounts of time, pay ludicrous fees. It's a serious slog, and far more of a commitment to the country than I've ever made. Emerging from the other side of that should be evidence enough of loyalty to the UK.
posted by leo_r at 3:26 PM on March 2, 2017 [4 favorites]


With Brexit looming, I know several couples who are investigating dual citizenship, so as to be on both sides of the split: Swiss wife with English husband, French husband with English wife. And if Scotland ever leaves the union, I may be glad that my wife was born north of the border...

to do so would render them stateless. (Even conservatives tend to grudgingly acknowledge that this is a bad thing.)

A lady of our acquaintance was over here studying from Zimbabwe, and during that time the Zimbabwe government revoked her citizenship and canceled her passport. She applied for asylum, but is at the moment actually stateless.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 4:47 PM on March 2, 2017


Who can blame anyone for wanting to retain dual citizenship

Very true. Most of the time, it's been a pretty great deal for the person holding both passports. More options for employment, potentially more options for travel or more flexible visa requirements, maybe even better healthcare or social security options. Pretty nice.

But it's not clear that's necessarily always the case. The obvious low-probability/high-severity risk is what happens if the two countries you're holding passports from end up at war? Treatment of people with perceived conflicts of interest far below the level of actually holding an adversary's passport has traditionally... not been great. It's unlikely if you're dealing with, say, Ireland and the US, but you don't have to have a lot of imagination to envision an Iranian or Syrian citizenship becoming a liability rather than an asset, if your life is primarily in the US. Even if it's just entry or customs-clearing hassle.

There are also practical issues; one is the revocation of citizenship risk faced by Einashe (described in the article). Holding onto a secondary citizenship "just in case", or to aid occasional travel, if you really don't intend to ever leave your primary place of residence, could be dangerous insofar as it creates a mechanism -- not so much in the US, because of how the USSC has ruled on the issue, but in the UK and in other places -- whereby you could have your "real" citizenship revoked and be deported to your "just in case" country involuntarily. (Or even if it's not actually used, it potentially gives the government legal leverage on you that you might prefer they not have. E.g. suggesting that you become an informant if you prefer the weather in London to that of Mogadishu this time of year.)

The other issue is exposure to extraterritorial laws. It's more of a theoretical thing, but it's something I've heard tossed around as a potential downside that we could see more of: right now there are a variety of laws that apply to states' citizens regardless of where they are or whose physical jurisdiction they're in. E.g. the US prohibits buying sex from someone under the age of 18, regardless of whether the transaction is legal where it takes place. This isn't especially controversial, since it mostly stops really creepy behavior, but you could easily apply the same logic to, say, abortion. (This choice isn't entirely random on my part: pre Roe, the extraterritoriality of US state laws restricting abortion was a hot topic. And there have been similar arguments in Ireland over the years, which have mostly been undermined by EU harmonization but could potentially reassert themselves in a grimdark post-EU world.) Some countries have also pushed for various aspects of their drug laws to be applicable extraterritorially, too. Combine this with better surveillance and intelligence sharing, and the net effect could be the necessity to be very careful what you do, lest you travel on the wrong passport and suddenly find yourself getting extradited for something that would have been fine, had you not been a citizen.

Anyway, the allowance of multiple nationality has basically been a boon to individuals during the past half-century or so, but this isn't necessarily the case; my general point is that it's perhaps only seemed that way because geopolitical conditions happened to be pretty favorable. It may be the case that in the future there's... a more delicate balancing of risk vs reward that needs to happen, and of the relative value of a second passport as a liability vs an asset, depending on who you are and what you want to do.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:29 AM on March 3, 2017


Honestly, I think a lot of the US discussion about dual citizenship comes from a place where one is oblivious to the realities of immigration and nationality, like it's assumed dual citizens are all white people who are the Nth generation born in the US and seek out EU citizenship because they happen to have an ancestor from a country with particularly heritable citizenship. But if you're a dual citizen because of circumstances more immediate to your birth or because you were naturalized, you grew up wondering what would happen in the event of a war (I was an anxious child, but I thought the Pledge of Allegiance was a loyalty oath and this caused me some distress), you already stress about whether you can get a job in the federal government, let alone a security clearance, and so on.

And there's social cost. Let's be clear, I have a lot of privilege along axes involving immigration. I still grew up being told I wasn't a "real" American. People assume that I'm holding a second passport as convenience and that I should be happy to renounce in exchange for a security clearance*, as if that wouldn't be like spitting in my mother's face. Right now, that passport is something of a comfort because it's a way out if Trump puts me in an untenable situation as a trans person, but I know viscerally, like I've known since I was a child, that it's also a reason nationalists might come after me.

*I once had a phone interview stop dead over the security clearance issue (it had been unclear to that point whether the job needed clearance). Even though I knew it was possible and had tried to prepare myself for it, it still felt like elementary school all over again. Interestingly, the interviewer is pretty much the only person who's ever not taken it for granted that I would be willing to renounce.
posted by hoyland at 3:59 AM on March 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


And while it may seem silly and academic when relations between countries are good, when they go downhill, it's hard to get around the problem of a person swearing allegiance to two countries with mutually-exclusive goals.

If I'm born in Ireland, I never "swear allegiance" to Ireland to qualify for my citizenship. It is only when I also become a citizen of the US that I take an oath. I have therefore not functionally sworn allegiance to two nations.

But regardless, I am aghast that we are actually debating dual citizenship on Mefi. The notion that non-US born citizens are inherently less trustworthy is abhorrent and is how you get to internment camps.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:59 AM on March 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


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