A record number of Americans applied for British citizenship in the first three months of this year, and for the right to live and work in Britain indefinitely, according to official data.
In the year to March, 6,618 Americans applied for British citizenship, the highest annual figure since records began in 2004, according to statistics released by Britain’s Home Office on Thursday.
More than 1,900 of those applications were made between January and March — the highest number for any quarter on record.
Immigration lawyers said they had received an increased number of inquiries from people in the United States about possibly relocating to
Britain in the wake of President Trump’s re-election in November.
Muhunthan Paramesvaran, a senior immigration lawyer at Wilsons Solicitors in London, said that inquiries from Americans looking to settle in Britain had risen “in the immediate aftermath of the election and the various pronouncements that were made.”
“There’s definitely been an uptick in inquiries from U.S. nationals,” he said. “People who were already here may have been thinking, ‘I want the option of dual citizenship in the event that I don’t want to go back to the U.S.’”
The rise in British citizenship applications from Americans took place against a backdrop of similar increases from across the world, but the global rate — 9.5 percent year-on-year — was far outpaced by the 30 percent jump from the United States.
Zeena Luchowa, a partner at Laura Devine Immigration, a law firm that specializes in American migration to Britain, said she expected further increases in the coming months because of the “political landscape” in America.
“We’ve seen increases in inquiries and applications not just for U.S. nationals, but for U.S. residents of other nationalities who are currently in the U.S. but looking at plans to settle in the U.K.,” she added. “The queries we’re seeing are not necessarily about British citizenship — it’s more about seeking to relocate.”
