This hoop's for you.

For those of you who don't know, I have recently discovered that I'm eligible to apply for UK Citizenship. I had thought that you had to wait until 5 years after you received what they (without a trace of irony) call "indefinite leave to remain" to even think about doing the citizenship thing. But, somewhat by accident, I found out a few weeks ago that in fact, if you are married to a British person (which I am) and have been in the country for a total of three years (which I have been) then you can apply. The clock on your eligibility starts ticking the moment you enter the UK on a settlement visa (which I did on 11 September 2004, on a "spousal" visa), not the "indefinite" visa as I had previously thought.

Ergo, as of 11 September 2007, I could decide if having permanent status is worth the many hoops the UK government has decided to put in place in order to prove that you really, really want to stay.

Now, I don't HAVE to apply. My status means that I can work, play, mingle with the locals and all that good stuff. I pay taxes, I go to Tesco, I discuss East Enders. The two things that don't apply to me are 1) a British passport and 2) Elections. I can't vote, and I'm not a citizen, so I don't have a UK passport (which means whenever we travel in the EU I have to stand in the "Non-EU" passport queue, which is always long and slow).

Oh, and technically, they can at any point decide that they don't want me anymore and kick me out of the country. But, of course, they can't do that as easily as if I was illegal or a tourist or on a temporary visa or whatever. They'd have to have a darn good reason (and so far, I don't think this blog entry has been treasonous, so I think I'm still ok).

The other thing is that if I went and lived someplace else, say the States, for a while, if/when we moved back to the UK, I would have to apply all over again for my "indefinite leave to remain" status (and pay £500 again). This is not life-threatening--I mean we did once already so we'd know what to expect--but it's kind of a pain.

SO, if I go ahead and go for citizenship, then I become a dual-citizen, and as far as I know, move about the countries more freely. There doesn't seem to be much reason not to go ahead and go for it, since it's likely that we have many more immigration applications to make in our future anyway. It's really becoming a bit of a hobby.

Which reminds me, I need to go study...for the TEST!

(How's that for a cliff hanger? Tune in tomorrow, folks to find out... "is Jessica British enough?")