And what the UK *does* have is a means for children born with their parents to regularise their status and also after 5 years, you can get ILR. To understand why US birthright citizenship is more important than it would be in the UK you have to understand the rest of the US immigration system - ThreadSky

dlknowles.bsky.social • 41 days ago

And what the UK *does* have is a means for children born with their parents to regularise their status and also after 5 years, you can get ILR. To understand why US birthright citizenship is more important than it would be in the UK you have to understand the rest of the US immigration system

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grahamjohnson.bsky.social•41 days ago

Fair enough. I understand the UK immigration system as a Chicagoan who settled in England.

dlknowles.bsky.social•41 days ago

Aha! The reverse. Tbf I kind of think the UK system is a mess too. Also I am unsure when they changed it to only be ILR - I'm fairly sure not that long ago the child of anyone with legal residency (so including students, etc, but not tourists) qualified for automatic UK citizenship

grahamjohnson.bsky.social•41 days ago

I think it's 1983, but certainly that's when birthright citizenship was abolished in the UK.

dlknowles.bsky.social•41 days ago

Yes I am probably imagining that it was different before, and they just clarify it more. As Windrush proved, Britain has had... some problems with explaining our citizenship laws

dlknowles.bsky.social•41 days ago

If you live in the UK for five years legally, you qualify for ILR. In the US, being on a work visa doesn't give you an automatic entitlement to to get permanent residency even if you stay decades. It's a whole new process. With quotas that effectively block citizens from some countries entirely

grahamjohnson.bsky.social•41 days ago

I wouldn't say there's automatic entitlement to ILR but at least you get to apply for it after five years (it used to be four - they changed it while I was already in the system). Can those on a work visa not even apply for whatever the legal term for permanent residency is in the US?

dlknowles.bsky.social•41 days ago

Yes fair, automatic not exactly the right word. But the qualification is having lived legally in the UK for five years. In the US you have to get an "immigrant" visa. Some visas (like mine, the L1) can be converted to permanent in country, but it's still a process with a wholly different criteria

dlknowles.bsky.social•41 days ago

A lot of which is just... bureaucratic hoop jumping. But for example, to convert, your employer might have to advertise your job to prove that no US citizen is qualified to do it. Just having been here years doesn't actually add anything to the application

dlknowles.bsky.social•41 days ago

And if you're from India or China, the annual country cap on employment green cards means there is no actual way to convert even if you can get through all of the bureaucratic hoops. So people stay stuck on H1Bs visas or whatever forever

wanderthedesert.bsky.social•41 days ago

😢

grahamjohnson.bsky.social•41 days ago

That’s a bad system. I imagine an issue in any country is that most people will be unaware of immigration policy (this is certainly true in the US and UK) and assume it’s kinder, less bureaucratic and stressful than it is. Anyone who thinks British is a ‘soft touch’ has never experienced the system.

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