Americans applied for UK citizenship in record numbers last year following Donald Trump’s re-election as president.
Fresh Home Office data shows more than 6,100 US citizens applied to call Britain home in 2024. This is more than double the amount who submitted applications in 2004, which is as far back as public records show.
The final three months of last year also saw the highest number of any quarter in the last 20 years, with 1,708 applications submitted between October and December. This coincides with Trump’s election win at the start of November.
Fewer than 5,000 applications for UK citizenship were submitted by Americans in 2023.
The increase in applications mirrors the upswing recorded in the first six months of 2020, when more than 5,800 Americans gave up their citizenship. This nearly tripled the total from the entirety of 2019, with the applications mostly made up of Americans who had already been living in Britain for some time, CNN reports.
The surge in American applications for UK citizenship comes as splits continue to grow between the Trump administration and America’s traditional European allies.
Since Trump’s inauguration earlier this year, there has been a dramatic shift in American foreign policy, particularly in regards to the war between Ukraine and Russia.
Trump has been keen to work with Vladimir Putin to try and get a peace deal as soon as possible, whilst being openly critical of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
And this week, his vice-president JD Vance suggested the likes of Britain and France were “random countries who haven’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”
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