With Rishi Sunak packing for California as I type, I am reminded that he
used to hold a green card - certainly as chancellor.

Can anyone more familiar with the scheme than I confirm if there is an
element of pledging some kind of allegiance or affiliation to the US as a condition of holding a green card ?

And am I alone in feeling slightly uneasy that a very senior member of
the UK government should be holding one, given their position within a "foreign" (as far as the US is concerned) government.

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On 5/25/2024 8:50 AM, Jethro_uk wrote:

With Rishi Sunak packing for California as I type, I am reminded that he
used to hold a green card - certainly as chancellor.

Can anyone more familiar with the scheme than I confirm if there is an element of pledging some kind of allegiance or affiliation to the US as a condition of holding a green card ?

And am I alone in feeling slightly uneasy that a very senior member of
the UK government should be holding one, given their position within a "foreign" (as far as the US is concerned) government.

It does seem odd. A "green card"(*) is technically a "lawful permanent resident" card. It means you are a non-citizen but have the legal right
to live in the US. For someone who is a permanent resident of another
country, even one as closely tied to us as the UK, is weird. His
position as a member of a foreign government is irrelevant, but his
permanent residence in the UK (whether at 10 Downing Street or somewhere
else) seems quite relevant (and disqualifying) to me.

(*) The current version has a green background but large chunks of it
are blue, pink, or orange.

--
I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

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According to Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com>:

Can anyone more familiar with the scheme than I confirm if there is an >element of pledging some kind of allegiance or affiliation to the US as a >condition of holding a green card ?

I am fairly sure there is not. The oath of allegiance is for
naturalization as a citizen, not a green card.

The UK analog of a green card is Indefinite Leave to Remain. I don't
think that requires pledging fealty to the King, either.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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In misc.legal.moderated, on Sat, 25 May 2024 08:50:15 -0700 (PDT),
Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:

With Rishi Sunak packing for California as I type, I am reminded that he
used to hold a green card - certainly as chancellor.

Can anyone more familiar with the scheme than I confirm if there is an >element of pledging some kind of allegiance or affiliation to the US as a >condition of holding a green card ?

And am I alone in feeling slightly uneasy that a very senior member of
the UK government should be holding one, given their position within a >"foreign" (as far as the US is concerned) government.

I can't answer your questions (although now that I reed John's last
post, it sounds like a green card is just a visa with no expiration
date. People who get a visa for any country aren't pledging allegiance
except maybe implicitly (explicitly on the appication?) agreeing to obey
the local laws. does that count?)
But you raise a good point. I've noticed that sometimes people with
dual citizenship will renounce one of them when they run for election or somehow join the government of the other.

And what I wonder then is, If they felt allegiance to the other country
5 minutes ago, before they renounced it, why should one think they no
longer feel the same allegiance? Allegiance is primarily an emotional
thing, not a legal thing, and emotions don't change because you renounce something in order to get a job. The fact that people with only one citizenship are able to betray their country seems to prove that
allegiance is emotional.

--
I think you can tell, but just to be sure:
I am not a lawyer.

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In misc.legal.moderated, on Sat, 25 May 2024 11:44:51 -0700 (PDT), "John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

According to Barry Gold <barrydgold@ca.rr.com>:

It does seem odd. A "green card"(*) is technically a "lawful permanent >>resident" card. It means you are a non-citizen but have the legal right
to live in the US. For someone who is a permanent resident of another >>country, even one as closely tied to us as the UK, is weird. His
position as a member of a foreign government is irrelevant, but his >>permanent residence in the UK (whether at 10 Downing Street or somewhere >>else) seems quite relevant (and disqualifying) to me.

Sunak turned in his green card in October 2021. By then he'd been a
British MP for six years, and there were a lot of pointed questions
about why he still had it, since as you correctly note, green cards
are for people who live in the U.S.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-tax-wife-us-resident-green-card-b2053783.html

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/10/from-non-dom-to-green-card-questions-still-facing-rishi-sunak

His wife turned hers in when he was elected to Parliament, but there
was a separate question about her UK "non dom" status which allowed
her to live in the UK without paying taxes on the vast income from her
Indian family fortune.

She also had an American green card, or you mean she had the legal right
to live in India? Just curious.

--
I think you can tell, but just to be sure:
I am not a lawyer.

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On Sat, 25 May 2024 14:23:29 -0700, micky wrote:

Allegiance is primarily an emotional thing, not a legal thing,

I suspect one William Joyce (deceased) may have had issues with that
statement

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According to micky <misc07@fmguy.com>:

And what I wonder then is, If they felt allegiance to the other country
5 minutes ago, before they renounced it, why should one think they no
longer feel the same allegiance?\

Each case is different. I have a friend who is Canadian, his family is Canadian, he grew up in Canada, but he happens to have been born in a
hospital across the border in the US so he is a dual citizen.

Some dual citizens are like that, some move to another country and
plan to stay there forever, some move to another country and don't
know whether they might eventually return (after they retire perhaps.)

This has nothing to do with a green card, which means you are allowed
to live and work in the US, without any promise to become a citizen or
to stay forever. Some green card holders become citizens, some live
the rest of their life in the US without becoming a citizen, some
leave. I knew someone who moved to the US in the 1950s to marry an
American, lived here with him until she died in about 2015, never
became a US citizen. Her choice.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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According to micky <misc07@fmguy.com>:

[Rishi Sunak's] wife turned hers in when he was elected to Parliament, but there
was a separate question about her UK "non dom" status which allowed
her to live in the UK without paying taxes on the vast income from her >>Indian family fortune.

She also had an American green card, or you mean she had the legal right
to live in India? Just curious.

She was born in India and is an Indian citizen. They met when they
were grad students at Stanford and lived and worked in the US for a
while before going to the UK. There's no question that their green
cards were legit. The question is why he kept his after leaving the
US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akshata_Murty

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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According to John Levine <johnl@taugh.com>:

According to micky <misc07@fmguy.com>:

And what I wonder then is, If they felt allegiance to the other country
5 minutes ago, before they renounced it, why should one think they no >>longer feel the same allegiance?\

Each case is different. I have a friend who is Canadian, his family is >Canadian, he grew up in Canada, but he happens to have been born in a >hospital across the border in the US so he is a dual citizen.

Two famous cases: former UK PM Boris Johnson was born in New York
while his father was on a work assignment there. He forgot about it
until the IRS sent him a capital gains tax bill after he sold a large
house in London. (The primary residence tax exemption only applies to
property in the U.S.) He could have avoided the tax by transferring
his share to his British wife before selling, or by renouncing his US citizenship which he eventually did, after paying the tax bill.

Texas senator Ted Cruz was born in Calgary Alberta to an American
mother and Cuban father. so he was a dual citizen, maybe even a triple
citizen. They moved to Texas when he was 4. He renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014 when it became a political issue. So when they say
go back where you came from, now you know where they mean.

If anyone's about to ask whether Cruz is eligible to run for
president, yes he is. That question was settied a long time ago when
George Romney, Mitt's father, was a candidate in the 1960s. He was
born in 1907 in a Mormon settlement in Mexico to American parents.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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"John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> wrote in news:v307cc$2sc6$1@gal.iecc.com:

If anyone's about to ask whether Cruz is eligible to run for
president, yes he is. That question was settied a long time ago when
George Romney, Mitt's father, was a candidate in the 1960s. He was
born in 1907 in a Mormon settlement in Mexico to American parents.

And Barry Goldwater was born in the US territory of Arizona three years (as
I recall) before it became a state.

--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

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According to Stuart O. Bronstein <spamtrap@lexregia.com>:

"John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> wrote in news:v307cc$2sc6$1@gal.iecc.com:

If anyone's about to ask whether Cruz is eligible to run for
president, yes he is. That question was settied a long time ago when
George Romney, Mitt's father, was a candidate in the 1960s. He was
born in 1907 in a Mormon settlement in Mexico to American parents.

And Barry Goldwater was born in the US territory of Arizona three years (as
I recall) before it became a state.

He was, but since it was an incorporated territory, anyone born there
was a citizen and it was never a question. His parents were residents
of the territory too.

The distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories
dates from the 1901 Insular Cases, where the court decided that some territories were on the path to statehood and were incorporated while
others weren't and were unincorporated. And it was a total coincidence
that the incorporated territories had a lot of anglophone white people
and the unincorporated territories did not.

The only incorporated territory now is Palmyra Island, which was part
of the Hawaii territory but didn't become part of the state of Hawaii.
Since the population is zero, it seems like its path to statehood will
be a long one.

In the 1950s Congress made citizens of Puerto Rico, USVI and Guam US
citizens, but American Samoans are still US nationals, not citizens.
They can live and work in the US but they cannot vote and they are not
eligible to be President.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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On 5/27/2024 10:16 AM, Stuart O. Bronstein wrote:

"John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> wrote in news:v307cc$2sc6$1@gal.iecc.com:

If anyone's about to ask whether Cruz is eligible to run for
president, yes he is. That question was settied a long time ago when
George Romney, Mitt's father, was a candidate in the 1960s. He was
born in 1907 in a Mormon settlement in Mexico to American parents.

And Barry Goldwater was born in the US territory of Arizona three years (as
I recall) before it became a state.

Being born in a US territory confers either full citizenship (with all
the rights and duties attendant on that) or US nationality. Currently
all US territories confer citizenship except American Samoa - people
born there of non-citizen parents are US nationals but not citizens.
Here is what Wikipedia says about non-citizen US Nations.

United States citizenship grants more privileges and rights than
non-citizen United States nationality. For example, while non-citizen
U.S. nationals can reside and work in the United States without
restrictions, both they and foreign nationals and citizens are not
allowed to vote in federal or state elections, although there is no constitutional prohibition against their doing so. By statute law, most non-citizen U.S. nationals pass their U.S. nationality to children born
outside the United States, similarly to U.S. citizens.


Non-citizen U.S. nationals can apply for naturalization if they want to
become U.S. citizens. In order to be naturalized, non-citizen U.S.
nationals must meet similar requirements to foreign nationals, meaning non-citizen nationals must pay a US$640 fee (as of May 29, 2023), pass a
good moral character assessment, be fingerprinted and pass an English
and civics examination. However, unlike foreign nationals, non-citizen
U.S. nationals do not need to hold permanent residency of the U.S. when
they apply for citizenship, and they can count their legal residence and physical presence in unincorporated U.S. territories the same as
presence in the U.S. proper toward the naturalization requirements.


--
I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

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