Coyne: If birth tourism is such a big scam, why do so few immigrants take advantage?

Tellingly, Coyne does not cite the example of Australia, which does require one of the parents to be either a Permanent Resident or citizen along with some residency requirements. Agree as the author of the study cited that the numbers are relatively small but they do have an impact on some hospitals in urban areas and overall undermine the meaningfulness of Canadian citizenship.

Classic case, to use former immigration minister Kenney’s phrase, “Canadians of convenience:”

…It’s often argued StatsCan’s numbers are an undercount. Hospital discharge data maintained by the Canadian Institute for Health Information appear to show the number of births to non-residents at three to four times that number: peaking at more than 5,200 in 2024, or (gasp) 1.4 per cent of all births. But still: 3 million temporary residents, and only a measly 5,200 babies? A ticket to citizenship, if not for themselves then at least for their kids, that 99.8 per cent of them pass up? 

If that suggests the problem of “birth tourism” is more rhetorical than real, there is still the principle: doesn’t it “devalue” Canadian citizenship to hand it out to the children of non-citizens? Let’s follow that line of thought. So we deny them citizenship. What happens then?

The critics are right to suggest that a good many of those 3 million “temporary” residents, perhaps as many as half, are likely to remain in Canada, more or less permanently. And yet their children born here would be denied citizenship? A permanent underclass with no legal connection to the country they’ve lived in their whole lives? Is that likely to encourage a sense of belonging, or the contrary?

There are countries that have adopted this rule, but they’re not particularly happy examples. Would anyone claim that Britain or France has a superior record when it comes to integrating immigrants? Or Germany, which, before the law was changed in 2000, denied citizenship to people who had been living there for generations? If we’re talking about “peer countries,” why talk about Old World countries, and not about most of the New World, immigrant-based countries like us, where jus soli is the norm?

I’d say this is a solution in search of a problem, but it’s more like an accelerant in search of a flame. Birthright citizenship works fine. Leave it alone.

Source: If birth tourism is such a big scam, why do so few immigrants take advantage?