Vanity: Is the UK, the US's closest Ally? Or is that the face they put on?

Well, what you have got to remember is that field social workers tend to be Guardian-reading lefties, who will also equate spanking with child abuse (My mum was a residential social worker, and she more or less told me the same). They can be a pain in the arse to British citizens as well, one couple was compelled to flee to Ireland to escape their clutches because they judged the mother to have learning difficulties that rendered her an unfit mother (Irish social workers disagreed). Handy having a sovereign country nearby that speaks the same language but has full movement, working and residency rights for citizens of both countries, it means the citizen of either country can bugger off to the other when their own government starts acting up. If Scotland becomes independent, hopefully that will give us yet another alternative.

Anyhow, its also worth remembering that every country has its xenophobic a-holes. When we lived in the states, it was a close neighbourhood, but one family refused to have anything to do with us, even to the point where during the annual neighbourhood picnic, they said to the other neighbours that if we came along, they wouldn’t be, at which point the other neighbours said “well, don’t come then” (Think they overestimated just how much their presence was valued, lol). Don’t know why they didn’t like us (we’d never even met or spoken to them), must have been Irish-Americans of the type who still cling to the potato famine or something.

You state that your wife is a British citizen. I believe the correct term is, "subject". There is a difference.
Where was your daughter born and under what passport did she travel? I concur that getting your state representatives involved with a complete paper trail. Good luck and keep us informed as to how things go.

An older friend of mine who is a British emigre to the US described her recent trip home: “Everywhere I went, I was asked, how did you get a green card? ‘Green card?’ I said, ‘I am a citizen!’ That prompted comments over how I was so lucky to do that and questions about how to do the same. Britain is not even a nice place to visit anymore, and so many good people worried about the future and desperate to get out.”

The only people who are now considered British ‘subjects’ in technical terms are Irish citizens born before 1949(when Ireland became a republic), which has very little significance, other than the fact that an Irishman or Woman born before then has the right to style themselves ‘Sir’ or ‘Dame’ if they receive a UK Knighthood (e.g. Sir Terry Wogan).

Everyone else has been a citizen since 1983 when the British Nationality Act of 1981 came into force. Before then, pretty much anyone who had the Queen as the Head of State was considered a British ‘subject’ as well as a citizen of their respective country.

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