Toronto Sun Editorial: Birth tourism in Canada needs to be addressed

2018/10/02 Leave a comment

Doing some further work, based upon more accurate (and higher) numbers than those collected by StatCan and the vital statistics agencies, that will form the basis of an upcoming article in the next month or so.

As the previous government learned during its efforts to qualify birthright citizenship (What the previous government learned about birth tourism), not as simple to address as it may appear:

Canadians on social media recently clued in to a curious blog from Nigeria that encourages the practice of birth tourism.

“Top Tips for Having Your Baby in Canada from Nigeria” is the name of an actual blog post on the popular Nigerian travel site, Naija Nomads, that encourages people to give birth while on a trip to Canada to secure Canadian citizenship for their child.

The author discusses her own experiences giving birth in Canada and why she did it. “Canada offers more benefits for its citizens (immigration policies are better, free health care + college education is cheaper)” and that “Canada is cheaper to have your baby.”

The author offers detailed advice ranging from visa applications to where in the country to plan the birth. “Ontario is where most people have their babies but who knows, Quebec or Nova Scotia might be better for you.”

The blog posted a series of tweets further discussing the issue, but appears to have deleted them after Sun columnist Anthony Furey drew attention to them.

But this incident brings renewed focus on an issue that has become increasingly concerning in Canada.

A Postmedia report from June revealed that the number of babies born at Richmond Hospital in British Columbia now account for about 20% of all deliveries.

“We are reaching a tipping point,” said Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido, who represents the riding of Steveston – Richmond East. “Nurses have told me that this is displacing folks from giving birth in Richmond.”

Peschisolido created an e-petition to back his efforts to get his government’s cabinet to clamp down on the issue.

“In response to birth tourism, Australia and New Zealand changed their laws, granting citizenship to babies only when at least one parent is a citizen or a legal resident,” Postmedia reported.

Canada ought to consider something similar. It’s difficult to blame people like the Nigerian blogger for taking advantage of something that is allowed by law.

The Conservatives recently voted in favour of a policy resolution put forth at their annual convention to end birth tourism.

It was a tight vote and a controversial one. But the integrity of our immigration system matters.

If the issue is also straining our resources, as reports suggest, then that too must be addressed.

Source: EDITORIAL: Birth tourism in Canada needs to be addressed

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Stripping Helmut Oberlander, 94, of Canadian citizenship ‘reasonable,’ court rules

2018/09/29 Leave a comment

Finally. Hopefully this will mark the end of an over 20 year process:

A government decision to strip Canadian citizenship from an elderly man, who argued he was forced as a teenager to join a Nazi death squad, was reasonable, a Federal Court judge ruled on Thursday.

In a ruling that again paves the way to deport Helmut Oberlander, Judge Michael Phelan found the government’s decision more than a year ago to have been justified and transparent.

“It is uncontested that Oberlander obtained his Canadian citizenship by false representation or by knowingly concealing material circumstances by failing to disclose involvement in the SS at the time of his immigration screening,” Phelan wrote. “There is no doubt that to have done so would have resulted in the rejection of his citizenship application.”

The government maintains the Ukraine-born Oberlander, 94, of Waterloo, Ont., lied about his three-year membership in Einsatzkommando 10a, known as Ek 10a. The Second World War Nazi death squad, which operated behind the German army’s front line in eastern Europe, was responsible for killing close to 100,000 people, most Jewish.

In his defence, Oberlander argued he was conscripted as a 17-year-old and faced execution for desertion. He said he served as an interpreter from 1941 to 1943, performed only mundane duties, and never took part in any killings. On that last point, Phelan agreed with him.

“No evidence was led that indicated (Oberlander) directly participated in the atrocities committed by Ek 10a,” Phelan said. “But he was aware that these atrocities were being committed.”

Neither Oberlander’s lawyer nor daughter, who has said her father was in increasingly poor health, were immediately available to comment on the decision, which Jewish groups praised along with the government’s efforts.

In Ottawa, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said the court decision reaffirms the government’s view that Canada “should never be a safe haven for war criminals and people who’ve been accused of crimes, who’ve committed crimes against humanity.”

Oberlander and his wife — she died in 2013 — came to Canada in 1954. He became a Canadian citizen six years later. However, he failed to disclose his wartime experience when he came to Canada, and has been fighting government efforts to deport him since his membership in Ek 10a came to light in 1995.

Among other things, the father of two argued that Ottawa failed to consider whether he had joined Ek 10a under duress.

“If the applicant knew nothing and did only mundane activities, it was unclear why he claimed to have been under duress,” Phelan said.

In June 2017, the government revoked the retired businessman’s citizenship for the fourth time, prompting him again to turn to the courts in an effort to stave off deportation.

In dismissing the challenge, Phelan leaned on a previous court finding of “many inconsistencies and improbabilities” in Oberlander’s evidence and a “pattern of minimizing his wartime role, which gave rise to serious doubts regarding reliability.”

Ultimately, Phelan said, Ottawa’s citizenship action was absent bad faith, and legally and factually defensible. That the case has taken this long, Phelan said, was largely because of Oberlander’s successes to date in fighting efforts to remove him.

In a statement, Jewish groups applauded Phelan’s ruling as thwarting Oberlander’s attempt to evade justice.

“For survivors, this issue remains an open wound,” Sidney Zoltak, past president of the Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, said on Thursday. “It is painful to think that Oberlander and others who perpetrated heinous crimes against our families have, for so long, concealed their past and taken advantage of welcoming countries like Canada.”

Source: Stripping Helmut Oberlander, 94, of Canadian citizenship ‘reasonable,’ court rules

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Three ways to rethink the concept of citizenship @6DegreesTO

2018/09/29 Leave a comment

Some reflections from 6Degrees on citizenship concepts. Not surprisingly, these broad concepts are hard to translate into concrete citizenship policies:

This week, a range of start-up founders, digital experts, thinkers and doers from around the world are gathering at the annual 6 Degrees forum in Toronto, a three-day event that delves into the challenges and opportunities around inclusion.

Digital pioneer Sue Gardner helped kick off the event by delivering the LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture Monday evening, setting the tone for this year’s themes of connection and isolation, on and offline.

While those in Toronto look at how technology is both empowering and dividing society today, we asked three 6 Degrees guests to shine a light on how citizenship, as a community membership tool, also helps to both empower and divide. Has the general concept of citizenship brought people together as much as it now keeps us apart? Could it be more inclusive? If so, how?

Here are three ways to envision a revised version of the concept:

A call for a new way to define ourselves

As john a. powell asks, how can we move beyond the idea of citizenship to a more inclusive kind of belonging?

Citizenship is a complex concept that spans thousands of years and cultures across the globe. The concept of citizenship is often used in conjunction with the relationship between a formal body, such as the nation-state, and the people.

Although it is often associated with geography, that is both over- and under-inclusive. Consider Indigenous peoples dispossessed from their land and not included or recognized as citizens in a nation-state. Consider migrants or people forced to move who often live outside of a place they claim as their nation-state. Consider temporary workers in Germany, many of whom were born there but still are not considered citizens. Consider religious minorities in India who may have called a place home for hundreds if not thousands of years and who are technically citizens but functionally are not. Consider people with disabilities in Russia who often are hardly seen as people and certainly not citizens in a meaningful way.

“People need a place of belonging and also need to be able to move.”

Citizenship is an aspiration that is always being defined and challenged. I prefer the terms “membership” and “belonging” to citizenship. As I’ve previously written about, there is little doubt that a nation-state owes something to its members. The rightful good it owes them is membership and belonging. Out of membership all other rights flow or are withheld. Without membership and belonging, it is not just citizenship that is being denied but also full personhood.

While we recognize the nation-state owes something to its members, that is just a start. It is increasingly clear the nation-state owes something to those who are not full citizens and/or who live outside of a nation-state’s defined geographic borders. We are in a period where, in order to thrive, people need to be protected from threats that transcend any one border. In order for people to thrive they need things beyond the nation-state.

It is not just enough to engage the role of the citizen, we must engage the role of the nation-state. We recognize globalization, climate change and capital are not limited to the nation-state — why would we try to limit people? People need a place of belonging and also need to be able to move. We need engagement with each other and with the land. We also need to be free. We are embodied spirits that have moved long before there was ideas of the nation-state and citizenship. We need to have citizenship and nation-states that are in service to people, not just credit, capital and stuff.

We live in a world today where we no longer have connections and family in just our village, we increasingly have friends and family all over the world. While a nation-state cannot have the same support for all people on the planet, we can no longer accept citizenship or membership as just a narrow and set category. In a world that is inter-dependent and inter-connected, the well-being of citizens of one nation-state is influenced by what happens in other countries as well.

What does citizenship mean in the twenty-first or twenty-second century? Let’s start by asking people. If we are to have a future, we must participate in its creation, and it must belong to us all and we must all belong.

john a. powell is the director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and a professor of law, ethnic studies, and African American studies at UC Berkeley.

Citizenship of the future must have agency at its core

A ‘citizen’ should one day be defined as someone who is actively involved in governance of the commons, writes Renata Avila.

The current use of “citizenship” is outdated and fails to meet the standards of the twenty-first century in any of its three dimensions — social, legal or political.

Legally speaking, we are currently applying an outdated concept of citizenship, which is rigid, exclusive and granted by municipal or state authorities to those who fulfil a list of requirements. The logic here is that citizenship can be (and is) denied to those who fail to meet what are often arbitrary criteria.

This means citizenship is a socially created category, imposed by those in power, designed to exclude some and include others. As a result, even if a group of people share a space, there is a division between those who are granted the status of citizen and those who fail to meet the requirements. Those with rights and those with duties, those who are entitled and those who are policed.

“Citizenship could be not limited to the place we inhabit but to those places where we interact.”

Politically, even if some progress has been made on citizen participation, such as the exercises in participatory budgeting of the last decade, active platforms to participate, beyond votes on budget or the allocation of a small amount of resources, are rare.

We should be able to think beyond this. In the future, citizenship could be more fluid and ubiquitous, not limited to the place we inhabit but to those places where we interact. Citizenship could be broad, with equal recognition of the diverse social identities of those who can claim it, rather than assessing those identities against a checklist of bureaucratic requirements.

Citizenship should be about being politically active; it should have an active discourse on rights and be a means of direct influence in the formulation, governance and operation of the urban commons. The citizenship of the future should be one that enables each of its members and collectives to shape the space and dynamics they want to live in. The citizenship of the future should have fundamental rights at its core, not only for its members but also for its visitors and those the community decides to shelter.

A citizenship of the future must be rooted in the local but connected with the global. It must be able to visualize the social obligations that exist beyond the borders of nation-states and enable citizens to bear their quota of shared responsibility in global matters, not least the global struggle against inequality. And any worthwhile conception of citizenship has individual agency at its core. The ideal has to be one of smart, empowered citizens shaping the future they want, rather than high-tech smart cities “nudging” the behaviour of their inhabitants without their oversight or consent.

Renata Ávila is the director of Ciudadano Inteligente, a Guatemalan international human rights lawyer and a digital rights advocate.

Membership for all, with or without papers

As Jai Sahak argues, Canadian municipalities still have a ways to go to offer sanctuary — and help others understand what that means.

Over the next three years, approximately one million new immigrants will be admitted to Canada from various streams; namely, economic migrants, family reunifications and refugees. As Canada’s reliance on migration hits an all-time high, municipal governments need to prepare for new realities and deal with the complexities of citizenship and belonging. Immigration poses unique challenges for municipalities — as the number of new residents increases, Canadian cities find themselves on the frontlines around issues of inclusion, accommodation and representation.

The most effective way local governments can engage in the federal immigration conversation is through the declaration of a sanctuary status, or similar ‘access without fear’ policies affecting municipalities’ most vulnerable residents, namely, those with precarious immigration status. Too often, these are women in abusive relationships with broken sponsorship agreements, or children and teens not attending school while working in unsafe work environments.

A sanctuary designation educates the wider community on these issues and allows non-status residents to fully engage with their city and live more meaningful lives. It provides a glimpse of what citizenship can mean on a sub-national level and creates safer, more cohesive neighbourhoods while also educating the public on the plight of the undocumented.

There is not an all-encompassing definition of a sanctuary city, but broadly speaking, a sanctuary designation means:

  1. Residents can access municipal-run programs and services, regardless of immigration status.
  2. Immigration status cannot hinder a resident from enrolling and engaging with municipal-run programs and services, and cannot be a requirement.
  3. Municipal staff are not required to cooperate with local police or share information on an undocumented resident, unless it is relevant during the course of an investigation.

There are currently six sanctuary-declared municipalities in Canada (Toronto, Hamilton, Vancouver, Montreal, London and Ajax ). While some adhere to these elements in part (Vancouver and London), others have embraced them completely (Toronto), but not without challenges. The policies and approaches may differ depending on the location, but the spirit of the movement remains the same: sanctuary for these Canadian municipalities means access to the city and its services without fear. The movement is not new to Canada. The City of Toronto officially declared itself a sanctuary in 2013 but it had been exploring the idea since the 1980s.

“To be part of a wider, accepted public discourse, Canada’s sanctuary movement still needs to undergo a transformation.”

For some, however, the term “sanctuary” is associated with aiding and abetting a fugitive, thereby undermining local and federal laws. For that reason, to be part of a wider, accepted public discourse on citizenship and immigration, Canada’s sanctuary movement still needs to undergo a transformation.

For instance, it is important to remember that non-status residents pay all municipal and provincial taxes such as HST and property taxes. Some even pay income tax through the use of other people’s social security numbers. In Ontario, under the Education Act (section 49.1), children under the age of 18 have the right to full access to schools in the province, regardless of immigration status. However, far too many school administrators are unaware of this fact. Non-status residents have access to housing, healthcare and social assistance. However, many agencies are unaware of their own policies and procedures as they pertain to undocumented clients.

Unlike the sanctuary movement in the United States, which has historically challenged state sovereignty by undermining federal immigration operations and emphasizing a lack of cooperation with authorities, sanctuary movements in Canada should provide a counter-narrative to systemic exclusion by stressing the gaps in the immigration system and highlighting the stories of families and children. The sanctuary movement in Canada should not be an act of civil disobedience but rather take the form of civil initiatives to challenge and improve existing systems.

Current criticisms and backlash of sanctuary policies in the US have exposed the limits of city power. With threats of funding cuts and an increase in immigration raids in sanctuary cities, the White House has made it clear that it sees sanctuary cities as an affront to its sovereignty.

To avoid similar hurdles, Canadian municipalities must clearly define their purpose in declaring sanctuary status. Their stated objectives should set out to: ensure residents have access to all municipally administered programs and services, regardless of status; work collaboratively with local police to ensure community cohesion and trust are a priority over detention and deportation; provide resources to frontline agencies to ensure every resident pursues a path to legal citizenship; and create public education campaigns to inform residents about sanctuary practices.

None of these objectives undermine the sovereignty of the state, but still hold true to the spirit of sanctuary. As we move forward with redefining the relationship between government and residents, let’s ensure sanctuary policies in Canada are seen as civil initiatives rather than acts of civil disobedience.

Jai Sahak is the diversity and community engagement coordinator for the Town of Ajax.

Source: Three ways to rethink the concept of citizenship

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Civil genocide: Why threats to citizenship must not be ignored

2018/09/25 1 Comment

While the term genocide should not be invoked here, the fundamental point regarding citizenship rights being under threat in a number of countries is correct:

It’s hard to imagine that something as integral to our identity as our nationality could be taken from us at the stroke of a legislator’s pen or the bang of a judge’s gavelFive years ago today, families across the Dominican Republic woke up to the news that they had lost their citizenship overnight. On 23 September 2013, the country’s Constitutional Court passed a ruling that stripped nationality from tens of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent. Long-standing stigma and discrimination against this population had devolved into their complete exclusion from the political community. It has been described as a “civil genocide”.

It’s hard to imagine that something as integral to our identity as our nationality could be taken from us at the stroke of a legislator’s pen or the bang of a judge’s gavel. Yet history is littered with examples. Russian exiles under the Soviet laws of the 1920s, Jews under the Reich citizenship laws enacted by Nazi Germany in the 1930-40s, Kurds in Syria under the “Arabisation” policy of the 1960s, Rohingya in Myanmar after the passing of an ethnicity-based citizenship law in the 1980s, and the list continues. Today, there are an estimated 15 million stateless people in the world – individuals and communities who are not recognized as citizens by any country.

Coming just as the international community was increasing its efforts to address statelessness, the Dominican Constitutional Court decision drew significant attention. Rosa, a lawyer and activist for the rights of Dominicans of Haitian Descent, recalls how “this day gave us the evidence of something that for years we had already felt, but that many disbelieved – the political games of some, the hate and discrimination of others, was proven.”

Five years on however, the problems endure. As Rosa explains, “the majority of those affected by the ruling remain stateless – some are waiting for their documents to be “returned” to them, while others have been forced as “foreigners” into an undefined naturalisation process”. Sadly, this is not unexpected. If there’s one thing that history makes very clear, it is that once you are cast out, it is a tremendous struggle to make your way back in. And those who are made stateless are almost always condemned to pass that on to their children, perpetuating exclusion for generations to come.

For those of us working to protect the right to a nationality, the five-year anniversary of the Dominican ruling is significant – not only for what it says about how readily the situation in that country has become entrenched, but because it is worryingly emblematic of a new generation of global threats to citizenship. Our work today is no longer just about finding ways to “correct” mistakes made in the past and promote inclusion for existing stateless communities. More and more, it is about trying to prevent what could perhaps be described as “citizenship creep”: newly emerging situations around the world where a long-standing claim to nationality is called into question. People who were once sure of their status as citizens are increasingly treated as suspect, included in a narrative about outsiders, asked to provide ever-more thorough proof of belonging and finding themselves teetering on the edge of the political community, with a very real risk of being removed altogether.

A pensioner caught up in the “Windrush” situation in the UK who needs cancer treatment is asked to produce documents issued more than half a century ago before he will be assisted under the National Health Service… A Hispanic man in Texas, USA, who tries to renew his passport is turned away until he can produce further proof of her birth in the country because the authenticity of his birth certificate is suddenly being questioned… Families in Assam, India, who are desperately hunting for evidence to demonstrate that they were present in the country before 1971 in order to get their names onto the new National Register of Citizens – with 4 million people at risk of losing their citizenship by the year’s end…

We follow these and other situations of “citizenship creep” with a dire sense of foreboding. How can we arrest progress down the slippery slope of alienation and ultimately dehumanisation that can, at its worst, open the door to unimaginable horrors, as it has for the stateless Rohingya in Myanmar?

Looking back to 23 September 2013, Rosa says “this day, they buried us alive: it (was) … turned us into stateless persons in our country, the ultimate form of rejection.” As ever more cracks become visible in citizenship around the world, we must pay close attention. As with so many things in life, when it comes to nationality, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

Source: Civil genocide: Why threats to citizenship must not be ignored

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Opposition Is Growing in Denmark Against an ‘Anti-Muslim’ Plan to Make New Citizens Shake Hands

2018/09/22 Leave a comment

Not surprising that this is coming from the municipal level, as has happened in the US with respect to Trump administration policies:

Resistance is mounting against a proposal by Denmark’s ruling right-wing coalition to require a handshake as part of a citizenship naturalization ceremony, a provision critics say deliberately targets Muslims, some of whom prefer to place a hand on their chest instead for religious reasons.

The Guardian reports that if the measure passes in parliament, several Danish mayors have vowed to ignore it.

“It’s absurd that the immigration minister thinks this is an important thing to spend time on,” Kasper Ejsing Olesen, the mayor of the central town of Kerteminde, told the Guardian. “Shaking hands does not show if you are integrated or not.”

According to a new poll published on Thursday, 52% of those surveyed disagree with the mandatory handshake rule, but the measure has gained traction among hardliners.

Several incidents involving Muslim migrants refusing handshakes have cropped up this year in Europe, according to the Guardian. An Algerian woman was denied citizenship in France this year for refusing to shake hands with male officials, a decision backed by the country’s highest court. A similar incident in Switzerland also cost a Muslim couple their citizenship last month, while a woman in Sweden won compensation after a prospective male employer broke off a job interview after she refused to shake his hand.

“A handshake is how we greet each other in Denmark,” said Inger Støjberg, the country’s immigration minister said this month. “It’s the way we show respect for each other in this country.”

The measure making handshakes mandatory is part of larger citizenship bill put forth by parliament, under which applicants pledge to uphold Danish values and “act respectfully towards representatives of the authorities.”

“The package includes a ceremony at which you make a statement of loyalty and shake hands,” said Naser Khader, conservative party spokesman, this month. “Some people would give their right arm for citizenship. I’m sure they’d also give their hand.”

Among other increasing hardline immigration policies, Denmark in January tightened its border to stem the inflow of migrants, and in June became the latest European country to ban burqas and niqabs.

Source: Opposition Is Growing in Denmark Against an ‘Anti-Muslim’ Plan to Make New Citizens Shake Hands

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Children as young as 10 denied UK citizenship for failing ‘good character’ test

2018/09/22 1 Comment

These stories about UK Home Office excesses keep on coming:

Hundreds of vulnerable children as young as 10, who have spent most of their lives in the UK, are having their applications for British citizenship denied for failing to pass the government’s controversial “good character” test.

Figures published by the Home Office after a freedom of information request by the Guardian show that, on average, one child a week has had their application rejected over the last five years – with campaigners estimating that as many as 400 have been denied citizenship for failing to satisfy the good character requirement since it was introduced in 2006.

In some cases, children who were born in the UK have been turned down on the basis of convictions for crimes as trivial as petty theft, with even offences that are punished with a caution or a fine considered serious enough to warrant their rejection.

Critics say the figures are evidence of the Home Office failing to meet its statutory responsibilities to promote a child’s welfare and making the “best interests” of the child a primary consideration in these applications. They criticised guidelines for failing to differentiate between young people who have grown up in the UK and want to register as British citizens and adult migrants looking to naturalise.

“These are not adult migrants,” says Solange Valdez-Symonds, the director of the campaign group the Project for Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC), adding that young people should not be put in “a position where the secretary of state thinks or believes they can be removed to some obscure country where one of the parents or both parents were born. It’s not acceptable, it’s outrageous and an insult to them and the society of which they are members.”

Valdez-Symonds, who has supported more than a dozen such cases, describes her clients as particularly vulnerable children. “All the clients have been destitute or very poor. At least half are looked after children or have had some sort of social service intervention. All of them are black,” she said. “The whole thing has a big impact on BME [black and minority ethnic] children.”

Liz Barratt, the joint head of immigration at the London law firm Bindmans, said her clients affected by the good character requirement were young people who had had “quite disruptive childhoods”, many of whom had been in the care of local authorities. She added that the “good character requirement knocks them out frequently from the possibility of citizenship”.

Recent figures obtained through a freedom of information request show 35 applications were rejected in 2017, while 59 and 38 child applications were rejected in 2016 and 2017 respectively. There was a peak in the number of rejections in 2013, when 78 child applicants had their request to register as British citizens denied.

Valdez-Symonds added: “The figures of those registering and those being refused simply leaves out the number of children who are not seeking to apply to register because they are being advised or being made aware that a simple caution or fine will mean they’ll be treated as not of good character.”

The good character requirement was introduced in 2006 and applies to applicants over the age of 10 who want to naturalise or register as a British citizen. Under current guidelines, an applicant may be rejected if they have received a fine within the last three years. If the fine is over three years old, applicants could still be rejected if they have received multiple fines that show “a pattern of offending”.

In 2012, the guidance was updated and young applicants were subject to the same guidance as adults. A 2017 review of the good character requirementby David Bolt, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, called on the Home Office to review the guidance and ensure it “makes explicit the scope for caseworkers to exercise discretion”. The government accepted the recommendations and noted: “Updated guidance will be published by the end of December [2017].” The Home Office is yet to publish this guidance.

In the meantime, children such as DB, a 16-year-old boy with special needs who was born and grew up in London, continue to struggle to gain citizenship. His guardian, SD, says he had been discouraged from applying once he was sent to the youth offending team (YOT) for 10 months in 2016. “I’ve been told it’s going to be difficult, it’s not going to be straightforward because of his criminal activity,” SD said, adding that social workers have told DB “he’ll struggle to get citizenship”.

Ronan Toal, an immigration and asylum barrister at Garden Court Chambers, said the application of the good character requirement was not consistent with juvenile justice. “It seems wrong, I think, if you have a principle that applies to juvenile justice, which is that you facilitate the child’s reintegration into the community after the child is committed an offence, whereas in nationality law, you exclude the child if the child has committed an offence,” he said.

Barratt echoes Toal’s point, adding there was “a dissonance” between the youth offending system, which focuses on rehabilitation, and the guidance around the good character requirement. “It’s in a child’s best interest to have a sense of belonging to the country where they’ve lived since they were very little and for which its their home,” she added.

A Home Office spokesperson said:“All citizenship applications are assessed on their individual merits.” The spokesperson noted that the good character requirement applied to all persons aged 10 and over, as that is the age of criminal responsibility, and added that revised guidance for the good character requirement would be published soon.

Source: Children as young as 10 denied UK citizenship for failing ‘good character’ test

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Revealed: how Canada border agency tried to conceal Chinese immigration mega-fraud files from tax collectors

2018/09/20 Leave a comment

More good reporting from Ian Young of SCMP:

Last year, Canadian tax collectors and border officers were hailing their cooperation on the biggest immigration fraud case in Canadian history – that of unlicensed consultant Xun “Sunny” Wang, who helped Chinese millionaires fabricate evidence needed to maintain residency and obtain citizenship in Canada.

“The CRA [Canada Revenue Agency] works closely with other law enforcement agencies and departments, including the CBSA [Canada Border Services Agency], to help maintain the integrity of the tax system,” said Elvis Dutra, Assistant Director of Criminal Investigations for the CRA, in a press release about the sentencing of Wang’s staff for their role in the scam. “Tax evasion costs all of us,” Dutra added.

But in contrast to that depiction, a 2013 court ruling reveals how the CBSA resisted the CRA, and tried to conceal the vast haul of evidence about Wang and his wealthy clients, hundreds of whom have since been blacklisted from the country for fraudulent behaviour.

The failed effort to impede the tax collectors is described in a judgment by Associate Chief Justice Austin Cullen; listed as the applicant in pursuit of the files in the Supreme Court of British Columbia is the CRA, while the CBSA is listed as a respondent alongside Wang himself and his firm, New Can Consultants.

Cullen’s April 8, 2013, ruling describes the respondents attempting to withhold from the CRA 90 boxes of files and 18 computers that were seized from Wang by the CBSA in 2012 raids. The CRA’s demand for the material was an invasion of privacy, the respondents said, and the tax agents should be required to demonstrate probable grounds for suspicion of an offence – but not based on the contents of the actual documents being sought.

The respondents also offered an alternative argument – that handing over the files would amount to a breach of a sealing order imposed on “records pertaining to [the] search warrant”.

Cullen was dismissive.

“I conclude that the CRA is not obliged to demonstrate the existence of reasonable and probable grounds to be permitted to examine the materials seized by the CBSA pursuant to a valid warrant. Nor do I find that the provision of information from CBSA to CRA implicates a reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of the respondents in the circumstances.”

Cullen also said the sealing order on the search warrant did not cover the actual material seized in the searches, which were conducted on Wang’s home and offices on April 17, 2012. “It is apparent from reading the sealing order that what it refers to is ‘the records’ comprising the basis for obtaining the search warrant and the search warrant itself, not the fruits of the search,” he said, as he ordered the CBSA and Wang to relinquish the files to the CRA within 14 days.

‘Protecting taxpayer information’

In response to questions lodged separately with the CRA and CBSA, the agencies issued a joint statement to the SCMP, saying that “the opposition of an action does not reflect on the level of cooperation between the two agencies.”

“Federal partners must exercise due diligence when exchanging information with each other, and ensure they do so in accordance with the legislation and policies in place,” the response said. “At times, requests for information exchanges will not be covered by these policies and as such, could be subject to specific rules or require that requests be made to the courts to support transparency and to protect taxpayer information.”

It added: “In cases in which another Government Department or entity are seeking access to evidence seized through a warrant execution it must apply for a court order to obtain copies.”

In a response to a follow-up question, the CRA refused to describe what actions it was taking against Wang’s clients, saying “the CRA does not comment on other compliance actions related to this case that it may or may not be undertaking”.

However, a large number of possible tax offences are outlined in court cases and immigration hearings resulting from the demise of Wang’s scam (Wang was sentenced to seven years’ jail in 2015 but was freed late last year after serving a third of his time).

“In fact, 146 [of Wang’s] clients received a total of almost C$188,000 in Working Income Tax Benefits meant for working taxpayers with low incomes,” wrote immigration tribunal panellist Susy Kim in a November 2017 ruling, that imposed an exclusion order against Wang’s client Rui Zhang, husband Zhe Li and their minor son.

Other cases involving Wang’s clients feature immigration tribunalists loudly flagging a core problem – the clients’ failure to properly declare worldwide income.

One such client was Ying Wang, who was deemed “vague and evasive” about her millionaire husband Pi Long Sun’s business activities and earnings in China.

Sun’s “nominal income tax returns in Canada” did not represent his global income” and “he was evasive about his actual income,” wrote tribunalist Craig Costantino in a 2017 ruling that the couple be excluded from Canada for five years. “On a balance of probabilities, Mr Sun was not reporting his worldwide income to the Canada Revenue Agency,” Costantino added.

Another Wang client – whose exclusion order was overturned last year, and who the SCMP has therefore decided not to name – lived in a C$10million Vancouver mansion, on which he was paying a C$2 million mortgage on his son’s behalf. But he too was deemed to have filed “only nominal” tax returns in Canada.

“[These] I find do not represent his global income. I find that he was evasive about his actual income,” wrote the tribunalist. “I find that it is clear that his business activities in China generate significant income as nothing he or his family have done in Canada can account for the value of their properties in Canada, let alone the C$6 million worth of assets that the appellant stated he currently holds in China.”

Current and former CRA auditors have previously complained to the SCMP about a historical lack of cooperation from immigration officials. CBSA was carved off from the immigration department and other agencies in 2003.

In 2016, one former veteran auditor, who acted as a go-between for the SCMP and a current auditor, said “there was/is no cooperation between CRA and Citizenship and Immigration Canada [the former name of Immigration and Refugees Canada] that we are aware of.

“If there is, then a memorandum of understanding would have to exist. There may in fact be one – but no one I talked to knows of it,” the ex-auditor said. “And even if there is then you have to go through an intergovernmental affairs officer to get anything – red tape and time. There is no bulk data that we ever knew of, no database easily accessible by an auditor.”

Both the current and former auditor requested anonymity to discuss CRA matters without authorisation.

This month, the SCMP reported that 860 of Wang’s clients had already either lost immigration status – resulting in expulsion and five-year bans from entering the country – or been reported for inadmissibility. The CBC has separately reported that more than 200 others face the potential loss of their Canadian citizenship.

Source: Revealed: how Canada border agency tried to conceal Chinese immigration mega-fraud files from tax collectors

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Memo Contradicts Ross’s Rationale for Adding Citizenship Question to Census

2018/09/20 Leave a comment

The truth will out but whether it will be consequential is another matter:

The Trump White House produces no shortage of eye-catching, headline-grabbing acts of malfeasance. Brazenly blatant acts of corruption, titillating tell-alls from the president’s porn-star paramours, and proto-authoritarian Twitter tantrums are constantly competing for limited headline space.

And yet, this administration is arguably most dangerous when it’s at its most boring. In the dull, gray innards of the federal bureaucracies, Donald Trump’s minions are making profoundly consequential (and, in many cases, deeply corrupt) decisions that will never make the “A block” of a single cable news show.

And no set of decisions has broader potential implications for our democracy than those the Commerce Department has made regarding the 2020 census.

The U.S. government’s decennial attempt to count every human being within its borders might seem like one of Uncle Sam’s most anodyne activities. But when those overseeing the count belong to a political movement that explicitly regards demographic change as its enemy — and disenfranchising Democratic constituencies as fair game — the Census can begin to resemble an ominous enterprise. Census data shapes the contours of political districts, and determines each state’s clout in the Electoral College. It dictates what proportion of federal funding for schools, roads, and libraries each state is entitled to. Thus, if a Republican administration found a facially neutral way of systematically undercounting residents in Democratic-leaning areas, it could inflate red America’s (already disproportionate) influence over our political system.

And the Trump administration appeared to be doing just that last March, when it decided to add a question about citizenship status to the 2020 census. By that point, the White House had already (unsuccessfully) attempted to put a leading proponent of GOP gerrymandering (who had no experience managing a large bureaucracy) in charge of overseeing the Census, while refusing to hire noncitizen Census-takers for the purpose of reaching immigrant communities. Meanwhile, Census Bureau researchers had already warned that test surveys were prompting “unprecedented” levels of concern from immigrants, who feared that providing the government with information about themselves would result in their deportation. Census data cannot be legally used for immigration enforcement. But, for understandable reasons, undocumented immigrants weren’t eager to bet their capacity to live in the United States on the Trump administration’s commitment to the letter of the law.

Thus, the Commerce Department’s decision to ask Census respondents about their citizenship status, for the first time since 1950, looked like a deliberate attempt to exacerbate this problem. And if the citizenship question did, in fact, depress undocumented immigrants’ participation in the Census — and thereby, lead the federal government to systematically undercount them — there would be obvious benefits to the GOP: Most undocumented immigrants live in Democratic-leaning metropolitan areas, so the fewer of them the government counts, the greater the share of federal money and political influence that rural, Republican-leaning areas will receive.

And the GOP had another, equally controversial incentive for surveying the American public about their citizenship. The judiciary has long insisted that U.S. House districts must be drawn on the basis of total population — not total voters — so that children, prisoners, undocumented immigrants, and others who lack access to the ballot are provided with indirect representation. But some conservative groups have mulled drawing state and local districts on the basis of eligible voters (ostensibly, so as to minimize the influence that godless city slickers wield over state capitols). In 2016, the Supreme Court indicated that it might approve of such a practice. But without Census data on citizens and noncitizens, red states would have no means of giving voters-only districting a try.

Still, the Trump administration insisted that its decision to alter the Census was rooted in only the purest of motives — specifically, a heartfelt desire to protect the voting rights of African-Americans. In congressional testimony, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross explained that his bureau only began considering the citizenship question after the Department of Justice indicated that it needed such information to fully enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Of course, the idea that Jeff Sessions was desperate for new tools he could use in lawsuits against southern states with racially discriminatory political practices never passed the smell test. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of American politics knew that Ross was “trolling the libs.”Still, it wasn’t clear whether the administration’s bad faith could be proven. And this was an important distinction — because if advocates for immigrant communities could establish, through documentary evidence, that the Trump administration had a discriminatory intent when it added the citizenship question to the Census, they just might be able to get a court to strike it down.

And on Monday, New York attorney general Barbara Underwood revealed what appears to be a smoking gun. As part of her lawsuit challenging the Census question, Underwood publicly filed a newly unredacted internal Commerce Department memo, which reveals that the Justice Department (DOJ) did not initiate the request for the citizenship question — but rather, resisted Commerce’s initial attempts to extract such a request from it.

Now, the DOJ did issue a formal request for a question about citizenship status in December of 2017 — but only after the Commerce Department had spent months lobbying for such a request. As NPR reports:

[M]emos and emails released previously as part of the lawsuits over the question already have contradicted Ross’ testimony. They make clear that Ross was eager to add the question shortly after he was confirmed as commerce secretary in February 2017 … Earl Comstock — a key Commerce Department official on census-related issues — first approached Justice Department officials in May 2017. Comstock eventually discussed the issue with James McHenry, a Justice Department official working on immigration issues who now oversees the immigration courts as the head of the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

“Justice staff did not want to raise the question given the difficulties Justice was encountering in the press at the time (the whole Comey matter),” Comstock wrote to Ross in a newly unredacted portion of the memo, which is dated Sept. 8, 2017.

With the DOJ looking to avoid controversy amid the fallout from Trump’s firing of James Comey, the Commerce Department began searching for other agencies that might force it to ask U.S. residents about their citizenship. The memo reveals that Comstock sought a request from the Department of Homeland Security, only to have DHS refer him back to the DOJ. Comstock then directed an attorney at the Commerce Department “to look into the legal issues and how Commerce could add the question to the Census itself,” according to a previously redacted portion of the memo.

All of which is to say: On Monday, the state of New York ostensibly revealed that the Commerce Secretary lied to Congress about his rationale for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census — a development that lends credence to the claim that the Trump administration is deliberately trying to engineer an inaccurate count of the U.S. population in hopes of consolidating their party’s grip on power through anti-democratic means.

And this wasn’t enough to qualify as headline news.

Source: Memo Contradicts Ross’s Rationale for Adding Citizenship Question to Census

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Legault s’emmêle à nouveau – On immigration and particularly citizenship

2018/09/18 Leave a comment

While the first part points out his lack of knowledge, it is the latter part where he is effectively promoting a separate Quebec version of citizenship with longer residency requirements (3 years to become a Permanent Residents, then the 3 year citizenship residency requirement) along with yet again, a Quebec Values Charter that is more revealing.

He also needs to consider the demographic and financial implications of reduced immigration that Chantal Hébert recently pointed out (By campaigning to cut immigration, Quebec’s opposition parties are playing politics with their province’s future):

François Legault reconnaît ne pas connaître sur le bout des doigts les étapes à franchir par un immigrant pour obtenir sa citoyenneté canadienne.

« Ce bout-là, je n’aurais pas gagné Génies en herbe », a-t-il laissé tomber lors d’une conférence de presse dimanche.

Le chef de la Coalition avenir Québec faisait allusion aux « bonnes questions » posées la veille par un reporter sur le système d’immigrationcanadien. À l’une d’elles, il avait répondu qu’un résident permanent n’a qu’à passer « quelques mois » au pays avant de devenir citoyen canadien. Or, c’est au moins trois ans.

« J’ai lu pas mal toute la nuit là-dessus », a mentionné le chef caquiste, tout en disant maîtriser les ressorts de l’immigration ― ou à tout le moins « l’essentiel, oui ».

Pourtant, le favori des sondages a encore confondu, dimanche, les conditions d’obtention de la résidence permanente et celles de la citoyenneté. En effet, M. Legault a dit qu’un résident permanent doit faire l’objet d’une enquête de sécurité et d’un examen médical avant de demander la citoyenneté, oubliant de dire qu’il doit aussi réussir l’examen de citoyenneté, qui porte notamment sur la géographie, l’histoire sociale, culturelle et politique du Canada, et démontrer qu’il a une « connaissance suffisante » de la langue française ou anglaise. « On va prendre votre question en délibéré », a lâché M. Legault, au terme d’un échange de quelques minutes sur le sujet.

Le chef de la CAQ a dit ne pas croire que les réponses erronées ou incomplètes qu’il a données sur le sujet aux médias nuisent à sa crédibilité. « Les Québécois, ce qu’ils veulent savoir, c’est : “Est-ce qu’on veut 40 000 ou 50 000 immigrants par année ?” La CAQ, c’est 40 000. Les libéraux, c’est 50 000. Les Québécois, ce qu’ils veulent savoir, c’est : “Est-ce que les immigrants, à l’avenir, vont devoir réussir un test de valeurs et un test de français ?” Ils savent qu’avec la CAQ, la réponse, c’est oui. Avec le Parti libéral, c’est non. C’est ça que les Québécois veulent savoir. C’est ça la crédibilité d’un chef de parti. Puis, quand je suis concret et pragmatique, je pense que les Québécois comprennent très bien ce que je dis », a-t-il affirmé à la presse.

Dans cet esprit, M. Legault a réitéré dimanche sa promesse de soumettre les nouveaux arrivants à un test de connaissance de français et des valeurs québécoises, dont la réussite serait une condition à l’obtention d’un certificat de sélection du Québec (CSQ).

D’ailleurs, selon lui, l’examen de citoyenneté préparé par le gouvernement fédéral ― qui constitue un « bon test », à ses yeux ― « vient comme montrer que ce n’est pas si effrayant que ça ce [que la CAQ] demande ». « Pourquoi ce test, au fédéral, serait acceptable et le nôtre pas acceptable ? » a-t-il demandé.

Citoyen canadien en 6 ans ?
Selon l’engagement de la CAQ, il faudrait environ six ans à un immigrant pour obtenir un passeport canadien au Québec ― trois ans pour obtenir un CSQ et la résidence permanente, plus trois ans pour la citoyenneté canadienne ―, comparativement à trois ans dans le reste du Canada. « Le français sera toujours vulnérable au Québec, en Amérique du Nord. Donc, oui, il y aura des exigences plus grandes au Québec que dans le reste du Canada », a soutenu François Legault.

Source: Legault s’emmêle à nouveau

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Birthplace doesn’t necessarily guarantee citizenship, feds argue at Supreme Court

2018/09/12 1 Comment

Have been engaging on Twitter on this case and striking that this press report seemed to miss the focus of the government’s brief: whether the children of spies not working out of a diplomatic mission should be entitled or not to birthright citizenship.

As the factum notes:

98. The Registrar’s interpretation is also consistent with the interpretive principle of avoiding absurdity. The result of the majority’s interpretation is that the children of foreign intelligence agents posted to an embassy and benefiting from diplomatic privileges and immunities (e.g. by posing as “economic development officers”) are caught by s. 3(2)(a), while the children of undercover intelligence agents engaged in surreptitious espionage are not. Justice Bell recognized this absurdity on judicial review,147 but the majority dismissed it on appeal as a policy choice – despite the presumption against absurdity being a well-established principle of statutory interpretation.148

99. Indeed, the policy preference that the majority cited is itself somewhat illogical and results in anomalous outcomes. Here, Vavilova and Bezrukov’s purpose for being in Canada was the same as the other categories of persons in s. 3(2)(a) of the Act, namely, to serve their home government, in their case through their undercover work as long term Illegals for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. Like the other persons listed in s. 3(2)(a), their presence and employment in Canada was intended to advance their state’s interests.

100. As the majority indicates, its preferred interpretive policy choice for s. 3(2)(a) of the Act tries to avoid visiting “the sins of the parents” upon Vavilov, whose parents were undercover Russian spies, but has no difficulty in visiting those same “sins” on the children of accredited diplomats or foreign spies merely because they operate out of an embassy. In any event, this is not a case about the “sins” of Vavilov’s parents, but rather their employment as Russian spies and their duty and service to Russia at the time of his birth in Canada. When considered in this way, the provision provides for the same outcome for both of these categories of persons in Canada in the service of a foreign government. In both cases, the children’s citizenship status is a result of their parents’ chosen employment. By contrast, the majority’s interpretation results in a more favourable outcome for the children of those whose employment is surreptitious and undertaken by fraudulent means.

The CP artilce:

International law does not require Canada to give citizenship to babies born on its soil, the federal government is telling the Supreme Court — an argument that could inadvertently bolster a recent Conservative party resolution aimed at stemming so-called birth tourism.

Canada is one of fewer than three dozen countries that follow the practice of citizenship based on birthplace and some — including Australia and Britain — have modified or ended automatic birthright in recent years, the government says in a case that will determine whether the Toronto-born sons of Russian spies are Canadian citizens.

“Indeed, no European countries, for example, grant an unqualified automatic citizenship by birth and they have no obligation to do so,” the federal submission says.

“Only 34 countries grant the automatic acquisition of citizenship through birthplace regardless of parents’ nationality or status. This practice is not consistent and uniform enough to ground a rule of customary international law.”

Federal lawyers are playing down the concept of automatic citizenship in laying out the reasons the government believes Alexander and Timothy Vavilov — the offspring of Russian intelligence agents — should not be recognized as Canadian citizens, even though they were born in Ontario.

The federal Liberals adopted a decidedly different tone recently after the Conservatives passed a policy resolution calling on the government to enact legislation to end birthright citizenship “unless one of the parents of the child born in Canada is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.”

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says one of the goals is to end the practice of women coming to Canada simply to give birth to a child that will automatically attain Canadian citizenship.

Refugee and human rights advocates have objected, saying there is no evidence of a birth tourism problem to solve and that the Conservative policy would open the door to stateless children being born in Canada.

Birthright isn’t set in stone

Following passage of the resolution, Mathieu Genest, a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, said it’s a “shame to see the Conservatives going back down the path established by the Harper government, which seeks to strip away the citizenship of people who have only ever known Canada as a home.”

Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary, Gerald Butts, called the Conservative policy “a deeply wrong and disturbing idea.”

However, the federal submission to the Supreme Court strongly suggests the legal notion of automatic birthright is not carved in stone.

It notes even those states that have chosen to grant citizenship to children born on their soil are not prohibited from applying exceptions. “A review of citizenship entitlements in various countries reveals a multitude of variations and restrictions on automatic citizenship by birth.”

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in December in the case of the Vavilov brothers.

“In short, nothing in international law requires Canada to bestow citizenship on the basis of birth, much less to give citizenship to children born to parents in the service of a foreign government,” the written federal submission says.

Two years ago, the government took a rosier view of the concept in a formal response to a petition against birthright citizenship sponsored by Conservative MP Alice Wong.

John McCallum, immigration minister at the time, pointed out that the United States and Mexico, as well as a number of other countries in the Americas, such as Brazil and Argentina, provide citizenship based on birthplace.

“While there may be instances of expectant mothers who are foreign nationals who travel to Canada to give birth, requiring that a parent be a citizen or permanent resident in order for their child to acquire citizenship through birth in Canada would represent a significant change to how Canadian citizenship is acquired,” McCallum added.

Source: Birthplace doesn’t necessarily guarantee citizenship, feds argue at Supreme Court

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with ,

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