Just 1000 third-generation foreigners apply for Swiss passport under easier citizenship rules

2019/03/14 Leave a comment

Interesting explanations of the restrictions responsible for the relatively low take-up:
Only a small percentage of the estimated 25,000 third-generation foreigners who can now take advantage of rule changes that make it easier for them to obtain Swiss citizenship have done so to date, but the current requirements may be partly to blame, a report published on Tuesday suggests.

Third-generation foreigners are those who were born in Switzerland and may have spent their lives here but who do not have Swiss citizenship because their parents and grandparents did not.

In 2017, the Swiss public voted in a referendum to allow this group to access to facilitated (or simplified) naturalization– a far simpler citizenship process usually reserved for the foreign spouses and children of Swiss citizens.

In February last year, the news rules came into effect.

However, a new report (here in French) published by the Federal Commission on Migration (FCM) shows just 1,065 third generation foreigners have applied for citizenship under the new rules so far, while 309 have already obtained the Swiss passport.

Eighty percent of applicants came from four countries – Italy, Turkey, Kosovo and Spain, according to the report.

Meanwhile, two thirds of the applications came from just six cantons, five of which are considered to have restrictive citizenship processes (Aargau, St Gallen, Solothurn, Thurgau and Basel).

The report had allowed applicants to sidestep restrictive cantonal policies, its authors said.

Parents school requirement as a legal obstacle

However, the FCM also recognised that the current rules for facilitated naturalisation for third-generation foreigners made it difficult for some applicants – specifically the requirement that they prove their parents had completed five years of compulsory schooling in Switzerland.

The FCM noted that this requirement did not match up to the immigration reality of many of Switzerland’s third-generation foreigners. The commission said that many of these people’s grandparents had come to Switzerland as seasonal workers and had only brought their children to the country when they had secured a residence permit.

As a result, many parents of potential candidates for facilitated immigration had not attended five years of school in Switzerland. However, many had completed professional training here.

The FCM recommended that the rules be changed to reflect this situation, with that professional education being recognised in place of the five years of compulsory schooling.

The commission also called on communes and cantons to do more to encourage third-generation foreigners to take out Swiss citizenship.

A flop?

Geneva newspaper Tribune de Genève labelled the results of the first year of the rule changes a “flop” but the woman behind the initiative, Ada Marra, whose grandparents emigrated to Switzerland in the 1960s, told Swiss news agency SDA she wasn’t disappointed at all.

She said the figures indicated that their was “a real need” in cantons with more restrictive citizenship policies.

The military service issue

Under the rules, only third-generation foreigners under the age of 25 can apply for facilitated citizenship. This was a proviso added in by parliament over fears people could shirk their military service obligations by only applying for citizenship after that age – though those currently aged 26-35 will be able to apply if they do so in the first five years of the new system.

Source: Just 1000 third-generation foreigners apply for Swiss passport under easier citizenship rules

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Lebanon’s misogynistic citizenship law

2019/03/09 Leave a comment

Ongoing struggle:

Aziza Chami wipes away tears as she describes the toll Lebanon’s misogynistic citizenship laws have taken on her daughter.

“My daughter graduated three years ago but still can’t find a job,” Chami told Al Jazeera. “I tried to get her work at the hospital where I have been working for 20 years as a cleaning lady, but they refused, claiming she is not Lebanese.”

Chami is a Lebanese citizen. But her daughter was denied that birthright because her father – Chami’s late husband – was Egyptian.

Under a law dating back to 1925, Lebanese women married to foreigners cannot confer nationality on their children and spouses, only the children of Lebanese men are eligible for citizenship.

Lebanon does extend the right to citizenship to children born in Lebanon who cannot claim citizenship elsewhere through birth or affiliation, and children whose parents are either unknown or whose parents have unknown nationality.

But children whose mothers are Lebanese and fathers are foreign are denied citizenship.

The antiquated law has been criticised for placing some children at risk of statelessness. It can also have severe implications on their quality of life.

Children denied Lebanese citizenship under the law cannot work in certain fields or access public healthcare. They also need a residence permit to stay in the country, renewable every three years.

Chami says the institutional discrimination has become too much for her daughter to bear.

“This is the third time my daughter has been hospitalised for stress, but we don’t have enough money to pay for it,” said Chami. “I no longer know what to do.”

Children like Chami’s daughter need a work visa to be legally employed in Lebanon; a hurdle which can make them less attractive to prospective employers.

“My son tried to work in Lebanon but the companies he met with did not want to bother with all the paperwork,” Nadira Nahas, a Lebanese woman married to a US citizen, told Al Jazeera.

Nahas said her son wanted to be a pilot, but when the airline he approached learned he was a US citizen, they said they could not hire him.

“Now, he lives in Dubai,” she said.

Some mothers try to proactively steer their children away from certain jobs to avoid disappointment.

“We are losing our children because of this law,” Hanadi Nasser, a Lebanese married to a Syrian, told Al Jazeera.

“I have already told my children not to consider certain jobs because I know they will not be able to work in these fields, she said. My eldest son has already told me he will leave the country.”

Though there are no firm official estimates, a United Nations study published in 2009 offers some clues about the potential scale of those affected. The UN analysis found that between 1995 and 2008, there were some 18,000 marriages between Lebanese women and non-Lebanese men.

But the problem is not unique to Lebanon. According to an annual report published last year by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 25 countries do not grant women equality with men in conferring nationality to their children.

Demographic balance

Efforts to overhaul Lebanon’s citizenship rules have so far proved fruitless. Politicians have argued that amending the law could destabilise the country by upsetting its demographic and sectarian balance.

Some believe it would jeopardise Lebanon’s religious balance and allow the integration of Palestinian and Syrian refugees.

In 2010, former Interior Minister Ziad Baroud made some headway in easing the bureaucratic burden for children born to Lebanese mothers and foreign fathers by spearheading efforts to abolish residency visa renewal fees.

But his attempts to introduce a new draft law to overturn existing rules failed to gain traction.

“It has never been submitted to the council of ministers,” he told Al Jazeera. “There was no way to talk about this subject at that time apparently.”

Some hope the new Lebanese government will be more open to reform. Four women have been appointed to Lebanon’s cabinet in January, including the first woman to serve as interior minister in the Arab world.

Six members of parliament are also female.

Activists who have long campaigned to abolish the discriminatory citizenship law are hopeful change is on the horizon.

Mustafa Shaar founded the NGO My Nationality, My Dignity in 2011 to draw attention to the issue.

In addition to organising sit-ins, marches and workshops, Shaar’s NGO receives dozens of people a day in its offices in Beirut and the northern city of Tripoli.

He told Al Jazeera about a 17-year-old man who was prepared to set himself on fire to protest against the citizenship rules.

“He told me ‘I swear to God I will do it, because I am as good as dead right now anyway. I want to die to help the others who are like me’,” said Shaar, who added that his case is far from isolated.

‘Lebanon’s hypocrisy’

Lebanon is often depicted as a relatively progressive country in the region. But activists like Lina Abou Habib believe the misogynistic citizenship law makes a mockery of that image.

“This is the Lebanese hypocrisy,” Abou Habib told Al Jazeera. “We pretend we are modern people while our laws are null and void.”

Abou Habib has been campaigning for nearly two decades to change the law. Her current efforts are focused on a new bill drafted last summer.

“It is a very good one,” said Abou Habib. “We are currently starting to take the necessary steps to the ministers of women and the one of the interior, to push them to consider this draft law. We will soon have a workshop with MPs to talk about it. It will be challenging, but at some point, it will work.”

But bigoted attitudes remain a threat to reform.

Last spring, Gebran Bassil, minister of foreign affairs, sparked an outcry when he said he would propose a new draft bill stating that Lebanese women may pass on their citizenship, but that it would not apply to women who marry men from “neighbouring” countries, which many interpreted to mean Syrians and Palestinians.

Reform efforts are also winding their way through Lebanon’s courts.

In 2009, Judge John Qazzi, president of the first instance court at the time, ruled that the children of Samira Soueidan, a Lebanese married to an Egyptian man, should obtain the Lebanese nationality.

The state appealed Qazzi’s decision. A final ruling is still pending.

“I am an intruder in this system,” Qazzi told Al Jazeera. “I am optimistic about the fact that this law will be amended because more and more voices are being raised on this issue”.

Abou Habib also believes the nation’s progressive instincts will prevail.

“Lebanon has made great progress in terms of political and social debates, on different topics. Violence against women, nationality, LGBTQ rights, personal civil status,” she said.

Meanwhile, mothers such as Nadira Nahas continue to wait for the state to abolish the near century-old law and finally grant citizenship to the children of Lebanese women.

“Laws are like medicines. They have an expiry date,” she said. “We should update our laws.”

Source: Lebanon’s misogynistic citizenship law

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Citizenship Numbers 2018

2019/03/08 Leave a comment

The final 2018 citizenship numbers are out showing the impact of the Liberal government changes in C-6 on residency (from four out of six years to three out of five years) and the reduced language and knowledge requirements (from requiring testing of 14 to 64 year olds to testing for 18 to 54 year olds). Theses changes came into force 11 October 2017 and thus applied to the full 2018 year).

The number of both applications (259,047) and new citizens (176,303) is accordingly up significantly from previous years.

As I have noted earlier, the residency changes essentially have a one-time effect while the language and knowledge requirement changes have both a one-time effect (55-64 year olds who had been holding off applying until reaching 65) and an ongoing effect. Historically, 55 to 64 year olds are about six percent of applications (pre C-24 changes).

As always, IRCC’s management of citizenship is characterized by its roller coaster ride of deep drops and steep increases, in sharp contrast with IRCC’s steady management of immigration, with only minor fluctuations and a steady increase.

Of note as well, previous steep increases correlated with upcoming elections as suddenly resources are found to deal with backlogs (2006 and 2015 elections).

In contrast the increase prior to the 2019 election reflects policy changes (viewed of course in part through a political positioning lens).

The 2019 full-year citizenship application statistics will isolate the effects of the steep citizenship fee increases in 2014 and 2015 from the effects of the policy changes.

Lastly, IRCC has officially discontinued the quarterly management reports given other reporting requirements and the provision of more monthly reports. Unfortunately, for citizenship, the monthly reports only include the number of new citizens and not the number of applications, which are a key leading indicator.

Filed under C-24, C-6, Citizenship, Citizenship Act, Language

Census Bureau Seeks Citizenship Data From DHS Ahead of 2020 Census

2019/03/08 Leave a comment

While I am a great fan of more widespread use of administrative data to improve Census data (e.g., incorporation of immigration and tax data in the Canadian census), hard to see this as innocent data use given the personal identifiers provided rather than anonymous data, not to mention the overall context of the Trump administration’s immigration and citizenship policies:

As the U.S. Supreme Court weighs whether the Trump administration can ask people if they are citizens on the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau is quietly seeking comprehensive information about the legal status of millions of immigrants.

Under a proposed plan, the Department of Homeland Security would provide the Census Bureau with a broad swath of personal data about noncitizens, including their immigration status, The Associated Press has learned. A pending agreement between the agencies has been in the works since at least January, the same month a federal judge in New York blocked the administration from adding the citizenship question to the 10-year survey.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in California also declared that adding the citizenship question to the Census was unconstitutional, saying that the move “threatens the very foundation of our democratic system.”

The data that Homeland Security would share with Census officials would include noncitizens’ full names and addresses, birth dates and places, as well as Social Security numbers and highly sensitive alien registration numbers, according to a document signed by the Census Bureau and obtained by AP.

Such a data dump would be apparently unprecedented and give the Census Bureau a view of immigrants’ citizenship status that is even more precise than what can be gathered in door-to-door canvassing, according to bureau research.

Six former Census and DHS officials said they were not aware that individuals’ citizenship status had ever before been shared with the Census. “Generally, the information kept in a system of records is presumed to be private and can’t be released unless it fits with a certain set of defined exceptions,” said Leon Rodriguez, who led the DHS agency responsible for citizenship under the Obama administration.

The move raises questions as to what the Trump administration seeks to do with the data and concerns among privacy and civil rights activists that it could be misused.

Census spokesman Michael Cook said the agreement was awaiting signatures at DHS, but that Census expected it would be finalized “as soon as possible.”

“The U.S. Census Bureau routinely enters into agreements to receive administrative records from many agencies, including our pending agreement with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, to assist us in our mission to provide quality statistics to the American public,” Cook said in a statement. “By law, the Census Bureau does not return any records to the Department of Homeland Security or any of its components, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Jessica Collins, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, said no agreement has been finalized. She said the purpose of such agreements is help improve the reliability of population estimates for the next Census.

“The information is protected and safeguarded under applicable laws and will not be used for adjudicative or law enforcement purposes,” Collins said.

Civil rights groups accuse the White House of pursuing a citizenship question because it would discourage noncitizens from participating in the Census and lead to less federal money and representation in Congress for states with large immigrant populations. Census researchers say including the question could yield significant underreporting for immigrants and communities of color.

Under the pending three-year information-sharing agreement, the Census Bureau would use the DHS data to better determine who is a citizen and eligible to vote by “linking citizenship information from administrative records to Census microdata.”

“All uses of the data are solely for statistical purposes, which by definition means that uses will not directly affect benefits or enforcement actions for any individual,” according to the 13-page document signed by Census.

Amy O’Hara, who until 2017 directed Census Bureau efforts to expand data-sharing with other agencies, said she was surprised that a plan was in the works for sharing alien numbers with the bureau.

“I wish that we were not on this path,” she said. “If the citizenship question hadn’t been added to the Census, this agreement never would have been sought.”

In previous administrations, government lawyers advised Census researchers to use a minimal amount of identifying data to get their jobs done, said O’Hara, now co-director of Georgetown University’s census research center. During her tenure, the bureau never obtained anything as sensitive as alien numbers, which O’Hara called “more radioactive than fingerprints.” The numbers are assigned to immigrants seeking citizenship or involved in law enforcement action.

Some privacy groups worry the pending agreement is an end-run around the courts.

“What’s going on here is they are trying to circumvent the need for a citizenship question by using data collected by another agency for a different purpose,” Jeramie Scott, an attorney at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It’s a violation of people’s privacy.”

The agreement would bar the bureau from sharing the data with outside agencies. But confidentiality provisions have been circumvented in the past.

During World War II Congress suspended those protections, and the bureau shared data about Japanese-Americans that was used to help send 120,000 people to internment camps. Most were U.S. citizens. From 2002-2003, the Census Bureau provided DHS with population statistics on Arab-Americans that activists complained was a breach of public trust, even if the sharing was legal.

The quiet manner in which the agencies pursued sharing records could stoke concerns that the Trump administration may be seeking to create a registry of noncitizens, said Kenneth Prewitt, who was Census director from 1998-2001 and is now a Columbia University professor.

Census scholars say that could not happen without new legislation, which is not likely under the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.

In mid-April, the Supreme Court will hear arguments as to whether the 2020 Census can include a citizenship question, with a decision expected weeks later.

Next week, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department oversees the census, is set to testify before the Senate on his role in the controversy.

About 44 million immigrants live in the United States — nearly 11 million of them illegally. The 10-year headcount is based on the total resident population, both citizens and noncitizens.

The Census figures hugely in how political power and money are distributed in the U.S., and underreporting by noncitizens would have an outsized impact in states with larger immigrant populations. Political clout and federal dollars are both at stake because 10-year survey results are used to distribute electoral college votes and congressional district seats, and allocate more than $880 billion a year for services including roads, schools and Medicare.

The push to get a clearer picture of the number of noncitizens in the U.S. comes from an administration that has implemented hard-line policies to restrict immigration in numerous agencies.

Against advice of career officials at the Census Bureau, Ross decided last year to add the citizenship question to the 10-year headcount, saying that the Justice Department requested the question to improve enforcement of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Some prominent GOP lawmakers endorsed the citizenship question, saying it would lead to more accurate data, and a joint fundraising committee for Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee used it as a fundraising tool. Immigrants’ rights groups and multiple Democratic-led states, cities and counties filed suit, arguing that the question sought to discourage the Census participation of minorities.

A citizenship question has not appeared on the once-in-a-decade headcount since 1950, though it has been on the American Community Survey, for which the Census Bureau annually polls 3.5 million households.

Documents and testimony in a New York trial showed that Ross began pressing for a citizenship question soon after he became secretary in 2017, and that he consulted Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, and then-Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a vocal advocate of tough immigration laws who also has advised the president. Emails showed that Ross himself had invited the Justice Department request to add the citizenship question.

A March 2018 memo to Ross from the Census Bureau’s chief scientist says the DHS data on noncitizens could be used to help create a “comprehensive statistical reference list of current U.S. citizens.” The memo discusses how to create ‘baseline citizenship statistics’ by drawing on administrative records from DHS, the Social Security Administration, State Department and the Internal Revenue Service, in addition to including the citizenship question in the census.

In January, New York federal judge Jesse Furman ruled that Ross was “arbitrary and capricious” in proposing the question.

The new data comes from Citizenship and Immigration Services, a DHS agency that has taken on a larger role in enforcing immigration restrictions under Trump.

After Francis Cissna took over as director in October 2017, the agency initiated a “denaturalization task force” aimed at investigating whether immigrants obtaining their citizenship fraudulently. The agency also has slashed the refugee program to historic lows and proposed reinterpreting immigration law to screen whether legal immigrants are likely to draw on the public welfare system.

Cissna also rewrote the agency’s mission statement: “Securing America’s promise as a nation of immigrants” became “Securing the homeland and honoring our values.”

Source: Census Bureau Seeks Citizenship Data From DHS Ahead of 2020 Census

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China arrests its chief of submarine research because he ‘obtained Canadian nationality’

2019/03/07 Leave a comment

A relatively smaller portion of Chinese immigrants take up Canadian citizenship given Chinese policies regarding dual citizenship (largest group within “Eastern Asia”:

Adding another strange wrinkle to Canada-China relations, a Chinese official who oversaw research on his country’s burgeoning naval-submarine fleet has been placed under arrest in China and accused of illegally obtaining Canadian citizenship.

Bu Jianjie, who reportedly spent time as a visiting scholar at two Ontario universities in the mid-1990s, has also been charged with various corruption-related crimes and expelled from the Communist party.

The Canadian citizenship accusation stems from China’s ban on holding dual nationalities. Despite being a scientist with access to naval-defence technology and apparent citizenship from a Western country, however, authorities have not charged him with spying.

China detained a Canadian businessman and an ex-diplomat after Meng Wanzhou’s seizure in what were seen as a tit-for-tat moves, but Canadian officials said there’s also no evidence Bu’s troubles are tied to the uproar over the Vancouver arrest of top Huawei executive Meng.

“Global Affairs Canada is aware of these reports (about Bu),” said Guillaume Bérubé, a Global Affairs Canada spokesman. “We are not aware of any connection between this case and other recent cases of Canadians detained in China.”

Bérubé did not respond to questions about whether Bu is, in fact, a Canadian citizen or whether he was offered the help of the Canadian embassy in Beijing.

Bu was head of the 718th Research Institute at the China Shipbuilding Industries Corp., a state-owned firm heavily involved in supplying the country’s growing navy, including its first domestically built aircraft carriers.

The South China Morning Post suggested Bu worked on fuel systems for the “air-independent propulsion” technology used to make non-nuclear subs harder to detect underwater.

The National Post could not confirm that claim, and the institute’s public web site talks mainly about making civilian products. But research papers available online indicate that the 718th develops equipment for ensuring livable air quality in submarines. Articles from institute scientists, for instance, discussed systems for eliminating carbon dioxide and creating oxygen in subs.

A glowing 2006 profile of Bu in the Hebei Workers’ Daily newspaper indicates his institute did research for “national defence construction,” some of which was also used in China’s first manned spacecraft.

The same article says he went to London’s Western University and Queen’s in Kingston as a visiting scholar in 1996. Neither university was able to turn up information on his visit by deadline.

News of Bu’s arrest emerged in Asia in late December. According to a noticefrom the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, he “obtained Canadian nationality in violation of regulations” and did not report personal information as required.

Bu is also accused of failing to report income, using his job to illegally obtain money and taking bribes, the notice said.

“As a leading party cadre, Bu Jianjie lost his ideals and beliefs, succumbed to greed, seriously violated the party’s discipline.”

Under Chinese law, someone who obtains foreign citizenship automatically loses their Chinese nationality, said Donald Clarke, a professor and China legal expert at the George Washington University law school. Even so, the rule is sometimes ignored, such as when China prosecuted Canadian Huseyin Celil in a widely criticized “terrorism” case as if he were still a Chinese citizen, said Clarke.

It appears that Bu is accused of trying to hide his Canadian citizenship from Chinese authorities, the law professor said.

The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence has documented China’s growing arsenal of submarines, predicting it will have 11 nuclear-powered and 63 diesel subs by next year, up from eight and 51 in 2005.

Source: China arrests its chief of submarine research because he ‘obtained Canadian nationality’

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President Trump’s Threats to Remove Birthright Citizenship Could Impact Surrogacies

2019/03/06 Leave a comment

As always, surrogacy creates some interesting citizenship policy challenges (see theglobeandmail.com/…/article-how-canada-became-an-international-surrogacy-destination). This perspective from a legal service provider, yet another element of the supporting birth tourism industry:

With Donald Trump’s recent threat to remove birthright citizenship rights, many international families may wonder how this could affect the nationality of a child born to immigrants. Below, family law Attorney Evie Jeang, founder of Ideal Legal Group, Inc., explains that without birthright citizenship, children born to immigrants and non-citizens will not be recognized as citizens of any country, and that by eliminating these laws, citizenship grants for children of international families will become unnecessarily complex, and the surrogacy market could take a hit.

Under the current laws, when a baby is born in the US to a gestational mother who is an American citizen, the baby is automatically extended American citizenship. The 14th Amendment of the United States provides that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

In other words, children of international intended parents obtain US citizenship upon birth by a gestational parent in the US Among many legal, medical and ethical factors, birthright citizenship offers an appeal to international families without US citizenship looking to conceive through surrogacy. Thus, the popular commercial surrogacy market could take a hit without birthright citizenship attracting wealthy foreigners.

International family and divorce law firm, Ideal Legal Group Inc., frequently encounters the issue of birthright citizenship for foreign couples looking to conceive, particularly among their clientele base from mainland China.

Ideal Legal Group’s Chinese clientele face legal and cultural opposition to surrogacy in their country, and accordingly, many Chinese nationals come to the United States, where it is legal and ethical to employ a gestational surrogate to carry their baby. Through birthright citizenship, the child is eligible to receive US citizenship benefits, including education, social welfare and treatment in American medical facilities. A child with US citizenship is also eligible for dual residency in countries that recognize this concept.

Ideal Legal Group helps intended parents secure their birthright by ensuring parentage over their child in which they choose to be delivered by an American surrogate. Through their work with Surrogacy Concierge, Ideal Legal Group locates surrogates of specificity for international clientele, ranging in a variety of education and socioeconomic status.

Once a surrogate is selected, the legal process begins. The legal team drafts agreements on behalf of the intended parents to ensure that once the baby is born, the parental rights are transferred from the surrogate parent(s) to the intended parents. In the State of California, this is executed through the Family Code in which a parentage action confirms the birthrights of the intended parents.

The legal team drafts agreements between the intended parents and a gestational surrogate (and their spouse if applicable), memorializing through a legal agreement the medical stages of surrogacy. The intended parents are represented by one attorney and the gestational surrogate is represented by another attorney.

California surrogacy laws provide that a surrogacy contract must contain the date that the contract was entered into; the persons from which the gametes originated; the identity of the intended parent(s); and the process for any necessary pre-birth or parentage orders. Ideal Legal Group incorporates provisions that protect the intended parents’ birthrights.

Further, the legal team focuses on identifying the risks and responsibilities that each party is assuming, including but not limited to, surrogate compensation, what happens in the event of an unfortunate miscarriage, and protocol if the surrogate has multiple children rather than the one child which was contracted. The surrogacy contract is a map for the process.

Ideal Legal Group also handles the courtroom work. Pre-birth parentage orders are needed to finalize the intended parents’ legal parental rights. No actual court hearing is needed; however, pre-birth parentage orders are filed in advance of when the baby is born, and the Judge signs off on the transfer of parental rights from the surrogate to the intended parents.

Source: President Trump’s Threats to Remove Birthright Citizenship Could Impact Surrogacies

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Germany, New Zealand approaches to citizenship revocation for strip IS fighters – Statelessness

2019/03/05 Leave a comment

Both countries provide an exception for those who would be left stateless and appear to be applying that consistently unlike recent cases in the UK (Begum) and Australia (Prakash).

Starting with Germany:

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners have agreed a plan to strip some Germans who fight for the Islamic State militant group of their citizenship, a German newspaper reported on Sunday.

More than 1,000 Germans have left their country for war zones in the Middle East since 2013 and the government has been debating how to deal with them as U.S.-backed forces are poised to take the last patch of territory from Islamic State in Syria.

About a third have returned to Germany, another third are believed to have died, and the rest are believed to be still in Iraq and Syria, including some detained by Iraqi forces and U.S.-backed fighters in Syria. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, citing unnamed government sources, said three criteria must be met to allow the government to denaturalise Germans who take up arms for the Islamist group.

Such individuals must have a second citizenship, be adults and they would be stripped of their citizenship should they fight for Islamic State after the new rules go into effect.

The compromise ends a dispute over the issue between conservative Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and SPD Justice Minister Katarina Barley.

Spokesmen for both ministers were not available to comment on the report.

U.S. President Donald Trump last month urged Britain, France and Germany to take back more than 800 captured Islamic State fighters and put them on trial.

Germany said it would take back fighters only if the suspects have consular access.

Last month Britain revoked the citizenship of a teenager who had left London when she was aged 15 to join Islamic State in Syria.

The case of Shamima Begum highlighted the security, legal and ethical dilemmas facing European governments dealing with citizens who had sworn allegiance to a group determined to destroy the West.

Source: Germany to strip IS fighters of citizenship under certain criteria – report

New Zealand:

A New Zealand man detained in Syria after joining the Islamic State militant group will not be stripped of citizenship but could face criminal charges if he returns, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday.

New Zealand is the latest of a number of countries, from Australia and Britain to the United States, forced to grapple with legal and security challenges in dealing with former members of a hardline group that had sworn to destroy the West.

Mark Taylor, who traveled to Syria in 2014, told Australian broadcaster ABC from a prison in the Kurdish-run north that he expected to face time in prison if he returned to New Zealand.

Taylor’s joining the group was illegal and could have legal ramifications, Ardern said, but added that her government would provide him with a travel document to return, if possible.

“We have long had plans in place in the event that a New Zealand citizen supporting ISIS in Syria were to return,” Ardern told reporters, using an alternative name for the group.

“Mr Taylor only holds New Zealand citizenship and the government has an obligation not to make people stateless.”

Ardern said officials had identified that a small number of New Zealanders had joined IS, but declined to give an exact number.

New Zealand law allows revocation of citizenship only in limited situations, Ardern said, adding that the government could not render stateless anyone who did not have dual citizenship.Officials had told Taylor he would need to travel to a country where New Zealand has a diplomatic presence, such as Turkey, to receive an emergency travel document to return, said Ardern, adding that would be difficult as he is in detention.

In an interview aired on Monday, Taylor told the ABC that he had worked as a guard for the group for five years and had been detained in its prisons a number of times, such as after he accidentally leaked location details in a tweet in 2015.

He also appeared in an IS promotional video that year, calling for attacks on ANZAC Day celebrations in Australia and New Zealand.

Taylor told ABC he had witnessed executions while with the group and was sorry.

“I don’t know if I can go back to New Zealand, but at the end of the day it’s really something I have to live with for the rest of my life,” he said.

In February, Britain said it was revoking the citizenship of 19-year-old Shamima Begum, who had left London with two school friends to join up when she was 15, but now sought to return with her newborn son.

Source: New Zealand Islamic State recruit will not be stripped of citizenship

 

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Punishment or Banishment?

2019/03/04 2 Comments

A rather curious article that lumps some of the Canadian worries regarding returning ISIS fighters (including wives)  with citizenship revocation.

The Liberal government reversed the Conservative government’s change to the Citizenship Act that allowed for revocation in cases of terror or treason

The statelessness provisions in most other countries require having a second nationality in order for citizenship to be revoked which makes the process more difficult to implement (as UK is finding out with respect to Begum not having Bangladeshi citizenship  and Australia with Prakash not having Fijian citizenship).

In the Canadian case, the issue is whether or not Canada should provide normal consular services (e.g., as we do to Canadians on death row in the USA) or make efforts to facilitate their return to Canada.

The former may be difficult given where they are being held and the latter, as many have noted, raises the possibility that there may not be enough evidence to prosecute successfully in Canada.

And while all have justified sympathy for their children, no sympathy for the mothers who made a conscious decision to support ISIS and its horrors and thus have to live with the consequences.

While the mothers have the right to return to Canada, no need for special government efforts to facilitate their return:

So-called jihadi brides are in the news, accused of supporting terrorism by having travelled to ISIS territory to marry ISIS fighters in support of the caliphate. Three Western states are implicated: the UK, the US, and Canada.

UK citizen Shemima Begum left the UK four years ago, when she was 15 years old, and surfaced last month at a Syrian refugee camp, heavily pregnant. US citizen Hoda Muthana, then a college student, left the US four years ago, using her tuition money to buy a ticket to Turkey, from which she was smuggled into ISIS territory. She is now detained in refugee camp in northeastern Syria. Kimberly Gwen Polman, born in Hamilton, Ontario, is a dual Canadian–US national who converted to Islam. She became persuaded by a Syrian fighter online that her incipient nursing skills would be of great value to the caliphate. She left the US in 2015 to join the caliphate, only to attempt to escape nearly a year later. But then she was jailed (and raped) and forced to sign a document acknowledging that if she were to attempt escape again, her punishment would be death. All three women have publicly announced their desire to return home this week.

The UK government reacted swiftly, announcing its intention to remove the citizenship of Begum, thereby denying her the right to return home. Recent official statements suggest UK authorities believe she is entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship, so revoking her British citizenship will not result in statelessness. US President Donald Trump announced over the weekend that all states should be ready to repatriate (i.e., bring home) and punish their “own” foreign fighters, but then tweeted that he had directed Mike Pompeo “not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!” Canadian officials have been relatively quiet on their intentions. A spokesperson for Public Safety Canada statedonly that “The government is aware of some Canadian citizens currently detained in Syria. There is no legal obligation to facilitate their return.”

These cases are not identical. Begum was a child when she left the UK and is now a mother to a newborn baby boy. Muthana’s choices were exacerbated by her use of social media to celebrate and encourage violence. Polman is known to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. What they share is the right to return home to face trial and punishment in their countries of citizenship.

All states have justice systems in place so that suspected wrongdoers can be tried and punished. Democratic justice systems are those that respect due process rights: the rights to a fair trial, including adequate legal representation, which permits the relevant evidence to be adjudicated by trained judges and, where relevant, juries of their peers.

It is conventional to say that citizens must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and this convention holds even where there appears to be incontrovertible evidence of guilt. Its purpose is to allow the possibility that what looks like a slam-dunk case is murkier upon examination, to ensure that in collecting evidence all of the rights of the accused were respected, and furthermore to allow for the presentation of extenuating circumstances that can complicate what seems like a simple guilty verdict.

There is more to criminal justice in democracies, moreover, than how the accused are treated during the trial phase. The punishments must also meet democratic criteria. It is a principle of punishment in democratic states that any citizen, no matter how criminal, must be treated as someone who can re-enter the community of equals from which she was temporarily excluded by punishment. This principle is why the death penalty must be rejected. It is also why denationalization must also be rejected.

Denationalization of terrorists, the process of revoking citizenship from those suspected of terrorist activities, is gaining in popularity in democratic states, who are rushing to prove they are tough on terror. Denationalizing terrorists is good politics.

Nevertheless, denationalization is unjust and undemocratic. It permits states to abandon citizens who are entitled to their protection in dangerous locations, in principle free to commit additional crimes. The Trudeau government recognized as much when it overturned the parts of the Strengthening Citizenship Act that permitted the revocation of citizenship. Weaselly words stating that Canada is not under the obligation to facilitate the return of suspected wrongdoers reveal an unwillingness to stand by the commitment implied by Mr. Trudeau’s now famous statement, “A Canadian is a Canadian.” Canadians, even criminal Canadians, are entitled to have their rights protected by Canada.

By revoking citizenship, states punish citizens suspected of criminal activities by banishing them, in advance of conviction. They treat them as unworthy of having their rights protected, as beyond the pale, rather than as individuals who in time can learn the error of their ways. These women must be returned to their states of citizenship so that we, their fellow-citizens, can judge their actions and, if appropriate, witness their just punishments.

Source: Punish homegrown terrorists. Don’t revoke their citizenship

Filed under Citizenship, Radicalization, Revocation Tagged with , ,

Sajid Javid: difficult to strip Shamima Begum of UK citizenship

2019/02/28 Leave a comment

An important nuance to the UK’s citizenship revocation policy – must already have another citizenship, not just (theoretically) be able to obtain one:

Sajid Javid has indicated it could prove hugely difficult to strip Shamima Begum of her UK citizenship, telling MPs such action would not normally be taken against someone without another nationality and who was born in Britain.

Answering questions before the home affairs committee, Javid refused to discuss specifically the case of the 19-year-old, who travelled from east London to Syria to join Islamic State in 2015, but wants to return with her newborn baby.

But speaking more generally about the policy of stripping citizenship from UK nationals who are deemed a danger to the country, the home secretary said this action had never been taken if it would have left someone stateless.

“If an individual only has one citizenship, then generally the power cannot be used because by definition if you took away their British citizenship they would be stateless,” Javid said in answer to a question from the former Labour MP John Woodcock.

“I certainly haven’t done that and I am not aware that one of my predecessors has done that in a case where they know an individual only has one citizenship, as that would be breaking international law as we understand it.”

Last week, it emerged that the Home Office had written to Begum’s family to inform them an order was being made under the 1981 British Nationality Act, which allows the home secretary to remove someone’s citizenship if they are “satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good”.

A 2014 amendment to the Nationality Act allows UK citizenship to be removed if there are “reasonable grounds for believing” the person would be able to become a citizen of another country.

Asked about this by Woodcock, Javid stressed this could happen only if the person involved was a naturalised UK citizen originally from another country.

Javid said: “I have not deployed the power on the basis that someone could have citizenship to a second country. I’ve always applied it on the strict advice of legal advisers in the Home Office and more broadly in the government that when the power is deployed, with respect to that individual, they already have more than one citizenship.”

This measure had never seemingly been used, he added: “I have not used that power, and to the best of my knowledge none of my predecessors have used the power that was given in 2014.”

Begum’s family has stressed she does not have Bangladeshi citizenship, while Bangladesh has also said she does not, and will not be allowed into the country.

Assuming she does not have Bangladeshi nationality, it appears hard to see how Javid could enforce the order set out in the letter, which has prompted criticism that he was seeking to exploit populist feeling without proper attention to the law.

Javid was asked by the Labour MP Kate Green whether it was “morally right to export the problem” to Bangladesh, rather than deal with Begum through UK courts.

The home secretary argued that his priority had to be to protect the UK. Asked again if he thought this was morally suspect, he added: “I’m afraid I just don’t see it like that.”

He also confirmed that Begum’s baby would be a UK national, saying that children of British-born mothers had that right. However, he added, it would be “incredibly difficult” to assist the infant, as Begum was in a refugee camp in northern Syria.

Begum left the UK along with two schoolfriends. Her case was thrust back into the spotlight last week when she declared her wish to return for the sake of her child in an interview with the Times.

Source: Sajid Javid: difficult to strip Shamima Begum of UK citizenship

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with ,

British Columbians Troubled by Birth Tourism, Call for Change

2019/02/27 Leave a comment

Although a less than reliable online survey, overall concerns among all British Columbia residents, whatever their origins, sounds about right:

Many residents of British Columbia are concerned about the practice of “birth tourism”, a new Research Co. poll has found.

In the online survey of a representative provincial sample, 82% of British Columbians believe “birth tourism” can be unfairly used to gain access to Canada’s education, health care and social programs.

“Birth tourism” is the practice of traveling to a specific country for the purpose of giving birth there and securing citizenship for the child in a country that has birthright citizenship.

Canada allows expectant mothers who are foreign nationals to gain automatic citizenship for their children born in Canada.

There have been reports of unregulated “for profit” businesses that have facilitated the practice of “birth tourism”  in Canada. Across British Columbia, 49% of residents say they have followed this issue “very closely” or “moderately closely” over the past year.

More than three-in-five British Columbians say “birth tourism” can degrade the value of Canadian citizenship (66%) and can displace Canadians from hospitals (63%).

An e-petitionendorsed by Joe Peschisolido, the Member of Parliament for the Steveston—Richmond East constituency, is calling on the federal government to commit public resources to determine the full extent of “birth tourism” across Canada. A considerable majority of British Columbians (85%) agree with this proposal.

Seven-in-ten British Columbians (73%) believe Canada should “definitely” or “probably” consider establishing new guidelines for birthright citizenship, while 18% would keep the existing standards.

“There is no substantial variation on these questions when the ethnicity of respondents is considered,” says Mario Canseco, President of Research Co. “We find that 71% of British Columbians of East Asian descent and 75% of those of European descent would like to see some modifications to the current rules for birthright citizenship.”

Source: view the release on our website

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with , ,

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