This article maintains that exploring migrant motivations is an essential but difficult task. It is essential because, without it, we are unable to make effective policies for migrants. Popular anti-immigrant discourses which are based on fiction rather than facts will also continue to prevail if national policies are formulated without the migrant perspective. However, it is difficult to study migrants because we still lack methodologies to understand them in their context. The existing knowledge is largely nation-state-centric and is based on non-migrant experiences, therefore lacking the insights to explain migrants who are transnational subjects. Migrants’ lives and views are affected by a range of home, host, and individual level factors. This article intends to address this gap with a methodological framework that specifically explores migrants’ citizenship decisions in the host country. The framework examines the utilitarian and patriotic features of migrants’ citizenship views and the factors that affect them both at home and in host countries. It is based on a case study of Sri Lankan immigrants in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, thus representing the citizenship experience of a group of Global South migrants in the Global North. The article rejects the traditional presentation of utilitarian and patriotic forms of citizenship as two polarized, mutually exclusive approaches. Instead, the findings reveal that immigrants’ sense of gratitude and belonging is heavily dependent on their level of satisfaction with the utilitarian gains they receive from the host state. The article emphasises the need to explore migrants in their context and stresses the importance of introducing more innovative methods to study them.