London-born man claims UK authorities told him to take British citizenship test to get a passport
Dom Wolf is waiting for a response after writing to Prime Minister Theresa May about his experience
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Your support makes all the difference.A London-born man claims he was told he cannot have a British passport without taking a citizenship test because he has been unable to prove his German mother was in the UK legally when he was born.
Dom Wolf, 32, who was born to German parents and has a British birth certificate and a German passport, decided after the Brexit vote to apply for a UK passport. But he said he was told by the Passport Office he would have to obtain three-decade-old records of his mother's employment at the University of London in order to prove he should have it.
Mr Wolf wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May and said he was "offended and let down" by the UK, the Guardian reported.
He said: "I’m advised to apply for residency in the UK – is this a bad joke? Residency in a country I was born in!
"In accordance with the beloved Passport Office I need to pay £1,121 and undergo a ‘Welcome to your new life in the UK’ test. I feel I am stuck in the middle of … hopeless bureaucracy.
"I feel offended and let down by the country of my birth and might just move to a nice offshore location and start paying into their tax system instead.
"Why should I pay money to become a formal ‘resident’ or be forced to go back to a country I have never lived in?"
Mr Wolf's German is "fairly intolerable", he said, adding it was "a product of our education system".
The Home Office said passport applications are considered on an individual basis and required "suitable evidence".
Mr Wolf has not been asked to take a Life in the UK citizenship test, but was advised to contact immigration authorities to "discuss citizenship options" if he could not find the evidence he needed, it added.
Last month a campaign group warned up to one million EU citizens were at risk of deportation after Brexit unless the Government came up with a more simple way of recognising their status in the country.
There had been a “significant rise” in EU citizens seeking permanent residency in the UK since the EU referendum, of which an “alarming” 30 per cent are unable to provide the “unrealistic” evidence required by the Home Office to prove their right to reside, according to 3 Million, a group lobbying for the rights of non-British citizens living in the UK.
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