Trump win produces only tiny bump in numbers of Americans applying for Canadian #citizenship

Not surprising:

The number of Americans applying for Canadian citizenship jumped slightly after Donald Trump’s election, but numbers are still only half what they were five years ago.

New statistics from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada obtained by the National Post show an average of 400 U.S. citizens put in their applications in each the first four months of this year, compared to an average of 264 per month in 2016 — including a spike in applications in November, the month Trump was elected.

But overall — despite reports of the immigration website crashing on election night, and earnest tourism campaigns sprouting in Cape Breton, N.S. — the trend line has gone down in the past couple of years.

In the decade since 2007, applications peaked in 2011, with an average of 564 Americans per month applying to become Canadians.

A batch of data to the end of 2016 was obtained through the access-to-information system and newer numbers were provided by Immigration spokesman Rémi Larivière. The numbers do not include Americans who may have moved to Canada recently to become permanent residents, or who already live here — just those who are applying for citizenship to seal the deal.

The website for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada crashed Nov. 8 while Americans were voting in their presidential election.

In the lead-up to the election, the idea of moving to Canada became a popular tongue-in-cheek reaction to the prospect of either electoral outcome — with Americans deeply divided between supporting Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, and many apparently voting against one or the other rather than for them. It appeared some were taking it more seriously when the immigration website crashed.

All of the traffic was not necessarily election-related, however. The first day of a new system requiring visa-free travellers to apply for Electronic Travel Authorizations was Nov. 10, and had visitors heading to the site to fill out forms and pay $7 fees.

Source: Trump win produces only tiny bump in numbers of Americans applying for Canadian citizenship | National Post