Comment by tsss

1 day ago

The USA don't owe you citizenship. It's on you to prove that your presence there would be of benefit to the other citizens.

Given the opportunity, at the time, I would have happily taken steps to prove my presence would be of benefit. Instead, I had to spend my time asking family to give me their pension statements.

Later, I was recognized for that potential benefit. Last December, I became a citizen.

Green Cards aren't citizenship.

  • They're permanent residency, so other than voting rights effectively the same thing.

    • Lots of other differences.

      1. Citizens have a right to enter at ports of entry, can refuse to hand over social media accounts, etc. Greencard holders are still at the discretion of border officials.

      2. Citizens can wander the world and live abroad for however long they fancy and always be allowed to return to their country of citizenship when things go awry. Greencard holders can't do that.

      3. Citizens get consular protection, greencard holders don't.

    • No, you're wrong. You can lose their Green Card.

      If you leave the country for more than 6 months, you need to seek prior approval, and you definitely can lose it. I was on Green Card and when I crossed the border, I was questioned by the customs officer as to why I didn't get my citizenship yet because it was 15 years I was on GC and the point of the GC wasn't to be literally permanent. I quickly got my citizenship after that just in case the same thing happened again.

      If you get arrested for a major crime, you can lose your GC but you can only lose your citizenship if you lied or committed fraud at the time of your application, or if you committed treason against the government.

      2 replies →

Wish granted: You are no longer a citizen because you never "proved you were beneficial". Please remit $100,000 to the Citizenship Payment Service immediately to avoid being downgraded to serfdom. /s

Framing it that way is backwards and anti-democratic. Democratic citizenship is something the government "owes" you because it is imposing control on your life. It is not some kind of magnanimous gift of club membership, you already deserved to have a say in what's being done to you.

That's why most Americans (and their children) have never once been required to "prove" that they are "beneficial", and it's why people the government is controlling in jails are still citizens rather than objects.