An Average Citizen...

I had only thought of this fleetingly before, but was suddenly inspired to look it up today for some reason. As I am a US citizen, and TheLimey is a UK citizen, what nationality(ies) will our child have if born here in the US? Will the baby have dual citizenship?

I was actually a bit surprised to find that s/he will indeed have dual (US/UK) citizenship, and would have to actually renounce UK citizenship after age 18 to change this.

The US is a jealous god and doesn't like its citizens to show any kind of official liking for any other country, so if you're a US citizen and get citizenship elsewhere, you're out of US graces forever. The UK, on the other hand, is somewhat more laissez-faire. If you (a UK citizen) get citizenship elsewhere, you're still a UK citizen.

I picture this illustrated thusly:

Here's the UK (caricatured as a kindly older woman in a frilly apron, silhouetted in a cozy cottage doorway): "'Bye, dear! Have a good time! Come home for the hols!"

And here's the US: (caricatured as a scraggly white guy in a dirty tank undershirt, shaking a half-empty bottle in his fist from the rip-screened doorway of a shotgun shack): "If you walk outta this door you can never come back! You hear me? Never!"

* * * * * *

TheLimey has a slightly different take on the apparently flexible UK attitude: "It's more like, 'No, you can never disown me, because I need your tax money--forever.' "