British Naturalization

[The_Eye_Of_Sauron]

Comments anyone !

The price of joining the family

After 18 years here, American Vanessa Whitting decided to become British. Here, she describes the tricky process

When I first arrived in Britain in 1987 at the age of 24, I expected I'd last maybe a couple of years, then return to the US and get on with the business of becoming a grown-up. I'm still here at 42 because I love it, in the way that only foreigners can love their adopted country.

But I have become increasingly fed up with the hassles and restrictions of being a "resident alien" — that old chestnut, "taxation without representation", always bothers us Yanks. And waiting for hours in airport immigration queues when I come "home" is not fun either.

So, I decided late last year that it was time to make it official. I printed off the 13-page citizenship application form on the Home Office website and took the first step into the surreal, looking-glass world of government bureaucracy.

The process seemed straightforward at first: send in the completed form with a cheque for £218 and wait eight months for a decision. If it was approved, I would have to attend a Citizenship Ceremony, after which I could apply for a British passport. If I was lucky, I might get in before the introduction of the citizenship test in the summer of 2005.

The first problem was the requirement that I send in my passport with the form. As I travel frequently for work, it is not possible for me to surrender my passport for up to eight months. Besides, my passport is the only place where my ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain) is recorded. I would sooner eat my own knees than trust it to the post.

The only alternative was to engage a solicitor, who would certify a copy of the passport, leaving me free to carry on with my work, knees intact. That was the first major bill: an estimated £450 plus VAT.

Then a second problem emerged. My application was rejected because I had not demonstrated proof of my proficiency in English. I write freelance articles for national newspapers in Britain, and have spent 18 years in academic publishing. But apparently this is not sufficient proof of my ability in English.

According to my solicitor, I needed a Notary to attest to my language skills. She glossed over the fact that this requirement had somehow been missed in our discussions. And,of course, it was going to cost money; by now my solic­ itor's bill had risen to £680.

Amazingly, I was able to get an appointment with the local Notary for the same day. His services would cost £70. I decided to check the Home Office's website. The proof of proficiency requirement did indeed appear, but it said they would accept a copyof a higher degree certificate from an English-speaking country.

I just happened to have my Bachelor of Science certificate among the possessions which have followed me through three changes of country. I cancelled the Notary appointment, copied the certificate, and resubmitted the application.

Eight weeks later, an email arrived from my solicitor to say that my application had been approved. I was very pleased to get approval in far less than eight months, but mystified why it had taken 11 days for the letter to travel from Liverpool to Oxford!

The delay meant that, according to the letter, I had only one day left in which to organise the Citizenship Ceremony. So, I phoned the county registrar, who said that they had a ceremony going on in my area in two weeks' time, but that I would need to answer questions from the information pack included with the letter.

The solicitor had received no such information pack, but did ask for another £100 plus VAT, I assumed to cover the cost of opening the letter. Eventually, when I did obtain the pack, I noticed something rather odd. To quote directly from the letter:

" During the ceremony you will hove to soy the Ooth or Affirmotion of ollegionce to Her Mojesty the Queen … If you sweor the ooth this meons this is before Olmighty God, if you offirm the ooth it is not."

Ooth of ollegionce? Her Mojesty the Queen?

At first, I took this to be some archaic, ceremonial version of English, maybe dating back to the Middle Ages. But, in fact, the explanation is far less colourful. Every a had been changed to an o by mistake. If I were an immigrant with a shakier grasp of English, I would turn up at the ceremony and read the words exactly as they appeared in the letter.

I felt as if I had wandered into Monty Python's Hungarian Phrasebook sketch, where John Cleese maliciously supplies the hapless foreigner with mistranslations guaranteed to get him slapped or arrested.

At the ceremony in a council meeting chamber, there were six hopeful proto-citizens: three from the US, one from Turkey, Fiji and Spain. The mayor's speech, welcoming us to the locality, was a masterpiece of understated comedy.

Haltingly he extolled the attractions of Wiltshire, including a valiant but doomed attempt to make Swindon sound glamorous. "And not forgetting the Oasis Leisure Centre," he said, eying us meaningfully, "from which the band gets its name."

He informed us that Marlborough has the widest High Street in England. '"The reason is that, in the 1600s, all the houses in the middle burned down." He paused. "So now you can park there."

That well-known tourist attraction, Honda's car plant, also came in for a mention, made poignant by the fact that Rover used to make cars here. "Alas, but times move on," he said sadly. In that one phrase was the loss of a whole empire.

The registrar, a quiet, moustached person, led us in his Wiltshire accent through the Oath of Allegiance (or Ooth of Ollegionce). It was one of those strange moments when, just by saying a few words, one is profoundly altered, in the eyes of the law and society.

We each received a handshake and a Certificate of Naturalisation. We stood in silence, heads bowed, while the national anthem played on a scratchy CD.

The officials welcomed us into the British family. They seemed genuinely pleased that we wanted to be one of them.

The new citizens beamed at each other. We waited our turn for a photo with the mayor, who smiled gamely for each camera.Then we went out into the cold and wet.

But it was, in every other respect, a very fine day.

Citizenship expenses

Application fee £218

Solicitor £797

Notary £70

Total £1,085

Note: Notary fee not paid because university degree certificate could be produced

Application fees

Five- year residence £268

Married couple joint application £336

Married to British citizen £268

[Janner]

Beggers belief!!!!

Just confirms what I have been thinking for a long time. If you try in good old blighty to do the correct thing there are no rewards only a sting of a penalty.

Take immigration if you try to do it the legal way it costs and entails much hardship but if you stash your self away in a lorry and get caught caught when in the UK you are told when in Police custody by immigration to make your own way to London!!!

Janner

[Crossy]

Hmm, I wonder if it would be as easy for a Brit to get US citizenship, somehow I doubt it.

[Trebilcock]

The woman should have been thrown out of the country for not knowing that Michael Palin played the publisher of the Hungarian phrasebook, not John Cleese. Unforgiveable.

[spencerdharmagrafix]

The woman should have been thrown out of the country for not knowing that Michael Palin played the publisher of the Hungarian phrasebook, not John Cleese. Unforgiveable. 

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[spencerdharmagrafix]

haha..good one..i needed a laugh with all the headaches of trying to get married to my thai girlfriend here in germany..i am english, but live germany and thai wife...so plenty of headaches..cheers for your humour.

The woman should have been thrown out of the country for not knowing that Michael Palin played the publisher of the Hungarian phrasebook, not John Cleese. Unforgiveable. 

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