I never wanted to be American – but I’ve begun to feel the urge | Emma Brockes

Despite living here for a decade, I always viewed the country with disdain, but the looming chance of citizenship thrills me

It was a shock, recently, to realise I can apply to become a US citizen next year – the statutory five years after getting my green card – and, to my much greater surprise, I discovered I actually want to. I’ve never wanted or needed an American passport. Besides which, I’ve always been vaguely neurotic about the downsides to dual citizenship: primarily, the question of what happens when you get kidnapped in a third country and neither of the countries to which you hold citizenship regards you as squarely their responsibility. (I realise this takes a rather rosy view of the Foreign Office or the State Department leaping to one’s rescue in any circumstances. But still.)

Plus, of course, it is a very odd time to want to become an American. It’s just a question of bureaucracy, I told myself; a green card is inadequate protection in these anti-immigrant times, and the idea of my children having inalienable residency rights where I don’t is chilling. Handy things come with citizenship, too, of course: voting, the opportunity to get arrested without being deported, smoother passage through JFK. And it would be madness not to do it, when the cost is filling in a few forms.

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