A country I've never visited Just recognised me. The country I actually built my life in hasn't.

Last month, I became a Croatian citizen.

I have never been to Croatia. I have never paid a single kuna - or pound - into the Croatian tax system. I have never eaten a meal there, walked its streets, or met a person from there in any meaningful way. And yet, standing in a citizenship ceremony, an official made a point of mentioning me by name. "This was a patient one," she said. "We thought she might give up."

They weren't wrong to doubt me. Getting my documents verified required tracking paperwork across three countries -  Zimbabwe, where I was born; South Africa, where I grew up; and the UK, where I now live. I had been told it could take years. It did.

And yet here I am: a Croatian citizen. EU passport. Visa-free access to 182  including the US, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the UK. Just like that.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for the UK - the country where I actually live, work, pay taxes and have built something that looks very much like a life - to decide whether I belong here permanently. And now, they want to make that wait even longer.

How We Got Here

My partner Wes and I sold everything we had and moved to the UK six years ago. When I say everything, I mean it. We liquidated our lives in South Africa and arrived with luggage and a plan. Wes enrolled in a Masters degree - that was our only legal route in. It felt precarious, because it was.

Then COVID hit as we were about to leave. Work opportunities vanished. Uni was done online and I started freelancing out of necessity, not ambition but survival. What began as a side hustle became the foundation of a career I'm genuinely proud of. 

Six years later, the UK government has announced plans to change the Indefinite Leave to Remain qualifying period from five years to ten, with implementation set for autumn 2026. For some routes, it could be fifteen or even twenty years. They are  calling it "earned settlement." The implication being, presumably, that what we have done so far doesn't quite count.

I don't know whether to laugh or pack a bag.

The Logic of Documents

Here is what I keep turning over: Croatia recognised me because of my ancestry. A paperwork trail that connects me, through generations, to a country I've never seen. That's it. That's the whole basis. And in return, I now hold one of the most powerful travel documents in the world.

The Henley Passport Index has been tracking global passport power for nearly two decades, and the picture it paints is getting starker every year. The divide between the world's most and least mobile populations is not narrowing, it's widening. The UK, for what it's worth, has recorded steep year-on-year losses in passport power, falling from first place in 2015 to sixth place in 2026. Brexit did what Brexit was going to do perhaps?

But even a diminished British passport is a golden ticket compared to what most of the world is holding. African applicants face some of the highest Schengen visa rejection rates anywhere - Nigeria sits at nearly 46%, Ghana at over 45%, with rejection rates that have more than doubled in the past decade. Non-refundable application fees, expanded surveillance and longer processing. Repeated humiliation dressed up as procedure all because of political issues with the country and not the actual everyday people living there.

I was born in Zimbabwe and grew up in South Africa. I know exactly what it looks like to apply for a visa as an African. The form-filling. The bank statements. The letter explaining why you intend to come back. The sense that you are, by default, suspected.

And now I have a passport that skips all of that. Because of my great grandfather (thank you Tom & Josip.... who had the foresight to be Croatian)

What "Birthright" Actually Means

I believe in open borders. Not as a radical position but  as a historical observation. People have always moved. Croatian ancestors came to build railway lines in Zimbabwe. That's literally part of my family's geography. Animals migrate. Seasons change. The idea that the place of your birth should determine the limits of your life is a relatively recent invention and not a particularly well reasoned one.

I understand the counter argument. You want to know your neighbour. You want cohesion. Fine. But look at who actually moves freely in this world. The Epstein files came and went and nothing happened to the people named in them - people with money, connections, private planes, and passports from the right countries. They move wherever they like, whenever they like and the system bends around them. The threat, apparently, is the person who risked their life to cross the Channel on a small boat. That person is the one we need to process, surveil and more mindblowingly potentially wait thirty years before granting a permanent home.

I know loads of people on benefits who were born here (I have even offered two an opportunity to work) than I do immigrants who are claiming them. The immigrants I know are driving the delivery vans. They're working the early shift at the local Budgens. They're keeping things moving. This is not a controversial observation - it is what you see if you pay any attention at all.

The Contribution Question

I question whether birthright is really the most sensible basis for residency rights. The argument - that economic contribution, not place of birth, is the more logical criterion and I see it is gaining traction in academic circles. I think we are onto something, though I'd extend it further.

Open, competitive movement of people doesn't just benefit economies. It creates stronger, more resilient individuals. When you cannot fall back on the accident of where you were born, you have to develop real skills, real adaptability, real value. Wes and I had to. We had no choice. And I'm not sure we would be who we are without that pressure.

But here's what I find strange about the UK's "earned settlement" framing: I have earned it. Six years. Taxes paid. Business built. Community embedded. By what measure does that not count?

The honest answer is that "earned" is a moving target, and it tends to move in one direction.

Where This Leaves Me

I hold two passports - one from a country that shaped me, one from a country I've never visited. And I am still, technically, a guest in the place I actually call home.

This is not a complaint. It's an observation, and I think it's worth sitting with.

The document in your pocket was not earned by you. You were born into it, or you married into it, or - like me - you found a paper trail that led back to the right village at the right time. The idea that this document reflects something about your character, your contribution, your right to be somewhere -  that's the fiction we've all agreed to maintain.

I'm not sure what the alternative looks like. I'm not sure open borders are politically achievable in my lifetime, or even structurally simple. But I am sure that the current system - where a Zimbabwean-born, South African-raised woman who built a business from scratch during a pandemic is still waiting, while a piece of paper from a country she's never visited unlocks the world -  is not a system built on logic.

It's built on luck. And which side of that luck you land on has nothing to do with who you are.