Green Card Options

Before Nero fiddled while Rome burnt, Roman citizens in the know must have started packing in advance to vote with their feet. If you are thinking America, the 25 June 2012 copy of TIME has a keeper of an article about signposts to a new life  in the land of the free, and home of the brave.

The first step to being a citizen of the Great U.S. of A is getting hold of a green card, the document signifying the U.S. government has granted you permanent resident status, permitting you to live and work in the country.

The Sure Deal
Easiest way to being an American citizen is to born in USA. Like mainland Chinese flying into Hong Kong to make deliveries. Just make sure your doctor and/or airline allow you to fly when mom is about to pop.

Relative Already In Country
To apply for the green card on the basis of family, you need to be a spouse, parent, parent, child or sibling of a citizen. The U.S. has a quota of 25,000 green cards per country per year. China (pop. 1.3 billion) is entitled to the same number as Singapore (pop. 5.1 million - depending on whose number you trust, MOM, IRA, MOF, etc). It makes statistically sense for a PRC guy to pick up a red passport first, then hop into the original country of intent.

Highly Skilled Through Train
Priority is given to those with crucial job skills, medical professionals, advance degree holders or executives with MNCs. There's no waiting list for these favoured types. Or you could be super rich like Australia's youngest billionaire, Nathan Tinkler, 36. Strangely, the young man with a colourful vocabulary chose to move to Singapore. Is this also a stopover manoeuvre?

The Yaacob Way
Mentioned briefly in the weekly magazine,marriage with a U.S. citizen is also an option. It is not known if his Puerto Rican wife gave up her American passport to be a Singapore citizen, but expatriates here have shared that USA does not require her citizens to surrender their passports. Once an American, always an American.

It really boils down to whether you value your bak chor mee over freedom of assembly and expression, stuff which some people claims will not fill an empty stomach. Like the woman once said, “People can board the train, it is whether they choose to.”