Wednesday, 19 November 2003

Green card: After only six months of paperwork, including the part where I had myself fingerprinted and requested a background check from the FBI (which was an adventure in itself), I'm now a permanent resident of Australia. This means I can stay here as long as I like, regardless of my employment status, and that I don't have to keep re-applying for work visas. Also, any children that I have in Australia will automatically be Australian citizens. (I believe that this is always the case in America—if you have a child on American soil, the child is a U.S. citizen regardless of the parents' immigration status—but apparently that's not the case here. On the other hand my hypothetical child will have an Australian mother, so the little theoretical tyke would be an Aussie citizen regardless.)

As an Australian permanent resident, I can do anything that an Australian citizen can do except vote, stand for election, serve in the armed forces, be called for jury duty, get an Australian passport, or request help from an Australian embassy when in trouble overseas. Theoretically I could now apply for Australian citizenship and become a dual citizen, but that just feels like… I don't know, like cheating on your spouse or something. (I can understand people who are dual citizens by virtue of their birth or ancestry, but somehow the act of applying for citizenship in another country just seems… disloyal. I don't know why.)

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 3:00 pm. comments.