JAJ wrote:
|| On Fri, 28 Jul 2006 05:28:57 +0100, "P Pron"
|| wrote:
||| pfeiffersoro@yahoo.fr wrote:
||||| The Times
||||| July 28, 2006
|||||
||||| Loophole leaves England fan stateless
||||| By Michael Horsnell
|||||
||||| WILLIAM CATTRALL dreams of following his father and grandfather
||||| into the Royal Navy - once he has swum for Britain in the 2012
||||| Olympics. But he will fulfil neither ambition if the Home Office
||||| has its way, according to his parents.
|||||
||||| William, 10, who was born in Britain of a British father, is
||||| officially stateless because of a legal anomaly and unable to
||||| acquire a British passport.
|||||
||||| His aspirations are being thwarted because his father and Dutch
||||| mother were unmarried when he was born in June 1996. Under the
||||| 1981 British Nationality Act, his father's nationality is
||||| irrelevant.
|||||
||||| Under Section 9 of the Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act
||||| 2002, which came into force on July 1, children born to unmarried
||||| parents can now take their nationality from their father. But not
||||| retrospectively. Nick Cattrall, his father, who lives with William
||||| and the boy's mother, Joyce Watrin, but remains unmarried, said:
||||| "He swims for Leander Swimming Club in Plymouth. His dream is to
||||| be in the Olympics. He's fanatical about the England football
||||| team. He supports Plymouth Argyle. Then he's told 'Sorry, you're
||||| not British'."
|||||
||||| A Home Office spokesman said the law could not be applied
||||| retrospectively because many of those concerned had since applied
||||| for citizenship in other countries, which could be compromised if
||||| they suddenly became British citizens.
|||||
||||| http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2289154,00.html
|||
||| What a sloppy and partial bit of journalism
||| - no mention of the fact that a non-British child born in UK is
||| *legally entitled* to be registered as a British citizen after
||| living in UK for 10 years
||| - no mention of the fact that the Home Office also have a policy of
||| registering as British citizens illegitimate children who would
||| have been British if they had been legitimate - whether they have
||| other UK ties or not - and can Dutch women *really* not transmit
||| their citizenship to their children - or does "stateless" mean "not
||| having the citizenship you want" in Times-English?
|||
||| Is Michael Horsnell a reporter or a short-hand writer, taking
||| dictation from the boy's father, who doesn't want to pay the
||| registration fee???
|||
||| paul
|||
||
||
|| In fact as the child was born before 2 October 2000 to a Dutch mother
|| (EEA national) then he is automatically a British citizen at birth
|| with no need for s1(3) or s3(1) registration.
||
|| The Nationality Instructions make this clear.
||
|| But why doesn't the Home Office ask the questions before making a
|| statement as meaningless as the one quoted?
Or, why don't reporters ask the right questions - if he asked a closed
question, he'd get the specific answer to it....
I can't access the staff instructions at the moment - was mere presence in
the UK sufficient? Didn't it have to be for "a settled purpose"? What if the
mother wasn't ordinarily resident in UK, but only went across for the birth?
paul
|