Yet another petition on birth tourism

2018/10/09 Leave a comment

Further to the October 2016 petition submitted by Conservative MP Alice Wong (Richmond Centre) advocating adoption of qualified birthright citizenship (one parent needs either to be a citizen or permanent resident, the Australian approach), two years later Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido (Steveston-Richmond East) presents a softer petition 6 October advocating for a study on the extent of the practice and that the government state it does not support the practice with an equally soft commitment to do something “concrete.”
Likely a political response to the tensions in Richmond, where over 20 percent of live births are to non-resident mothers and positioning given the Conservative party resolution calling to limit birthright citizenship to offspring of Canadian citizens or permanent residents.
Working on an article with more accurate and. spoiler alert, higher numbers which should be out later this month or early November:
Source: Richmond MP presents birth tourism petition to parliament

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US seeks to reduce waivers for immigration fees

2018/10/06 Leave a comment

Consistent with other restrictive measures (Canada does not offer a waiver to lower income immigrants despite the 5 fold increase in citizenship fees in 2014-15):

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is proposing changing the eligibility for fee waivers for lower-income immigrants on the path to legal permanent residency and U.S. citizenship.Immigration advocates say the move is like building an “invisible wall.”

USCIS announced the change Friday in the Federal Register. Receiving means-tested public benefits from the states would no longer result in automatic USCIS fee waivers, the proposal states. Instead, fee waivers would only be tied to two criteria: the federal poverty threshold or particular financial hardships.

The change is necessary, USCIS said, because “eligibility for these benefits can vary from state to state, depending on the state’s income level guidelines,” meaning that “individuals who would not otherwise qualify under the poverty-guideline threshold and financial hardship criteria have been granted fee waivers.”

In 2017, USCIS approved 285,009 fee waiver applications, totaling $173 million.

The new proposal restricts waivers only to applicants who are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty threshold or financial hardship.

“It’s a significant narrowing of those who would be eligible for the fee waiver. Our estimates indicate that this would reduce the total population of those eligible for a fee waiver by two-thirds,” said Jill Marie Bussey, advocacy director for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. “It’s an extremely troubling proposal for our network.”

CLINIC’s 330 affiliates provide pro bono immigration services to thousands of low-income immigrants across the United States. Bussey said 95 percent of CLINIC’s affiliates assist with fee waiver applications.

In California, where 20 percent of the population is foreign born, the federal poverty threshold to claim state benefits is 200 percent.

For 2018, a four-person family in California is eligible for means-tested state benefits with a household income at or below $50,200. Thus, an immigrant household at that income level and receiving state means-tested benefits are currently eligible for a USCIS fee waiver.

But with the proposed change, that same four-person Californian household would only be eligible for the USCIS fee waiver if household income was at or below $37,650.

USCIS is like the U.S. Postal Service in that most of its funding comes from fees paid for its services, rather than from U.S. taxpayers.

USCIS fees for immigrants to use its services can run into the thousands. The application for a “green card”, formally known as the “application to register permanent residence,” costs $1,140. The application for naturalization to become a U.S. citizen costs $640.

The waiver proposal is an attempt to reverse a change to immigration policy under President Barack Obama. In 2011, USCIS standardized a process of using means-tested benefits as a way to prove eligibility for its fee waivers.

“When this agency waives fees, it’s hurtful to the quality of the agency and it pushes fees off from one population to another. If you can’t get fees from group A, then you have to run up the fees for groups B, C, and D. So there is a reason to be careful with waivers,” said David North, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank advocating for low immigration.

“The change works against and secures some fee money from the near poor while leaving the poor untouched. So this is not a program that rolls back benefits for the really poor people, it rolls back benefits for some of the working poor and the income level above that,” North said.

CLINIC’s Bussey said the proposal is like an “invisible wall,” “a back-door way of limiting family immigration and reunification.” She fears it will suppress naturalization rates

“And that hurts us all. Studies really show that low-income immigrants are able to improve their financial status through naturalization. They have access to better jobs, educational opportunities and resources,” she said. “So limiting access to naturalization through limiting this fee waiver creates a poverty loop.”

North said the fees make sense because U.S. legal status brings “admission to the labor market, for instance, where you can make as much money as you want or can.”

The proposed change is open for comment until Nov. 27. Public comments have to be taken into consideration when finalizing a federal government rule change but may not necessarily be incorporated into its outcome.

Source: US seeks to reduce waivers for immigration fees

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Sajid Javid is right – the British citizenship test is a bad pub quiz. So what is he going to do about it?

2018/10/05 Leave a comment

Good comments on the UK citizenship test and the “values” question that apply more broadly than the UK:

Speaking at his party’s conference this week, the home secretary Sajid Javid criticised his own government’s British citizenship test, describing it as like “a pub quiz” that is not fit for its intended purpose.

Javid is not the first to realise this. In 2013, I published what is still the only comprehensive report into the citizenship test, in which I criticised it in those terms – and this was discussed in parliament. So it is pleasing to see my campaign for changing the test has the home secretary on board.

It’s about time. The test is a key part of the immigration system for permanent settlement. Over 2 million tests have been sat since it launched in 2005. Immigrants sit a multiple choice exam with 24 randomly selected questions and must get 18 or more correct to pass the exam. It costs £50 for each attempt – and one person was known to take it 64 times.

The test’s intended purpose is to help confirm that an immigrant has successfully integrated into British society. This might be thought best achieved by checking for any criminal record or tax arrears over an extended residency period (which are also part of the process), but the test is supposed to add something extra beyond this. And here it categorically fails.

If you pour over the roughly 3,000 facts covered by the test questions, including about 280 historical dates spread over 180 pages, it is difficult to see what practical use the citizenship test has. Its handbook does not say how to contact emergency services, register with a GP or report a crime. There is no mention of 999 or of how many MPs sit in the House of Commons. But you must know how many elected representatives sit in the Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and Stormont in Northern Ireland. The handbook requires memorising the height of the London Eye and the age of Big Ben. And while you must know about starting a free school, there is no mention of the national curriculum.

Unsurprisingly, the test is regularly seen as the test for British citizenship that few British citizens can pass, with many migrants seeing it as an opportunity by the Home Office to extract increasingly more expensive fees through a test of random trivia meant to make more fail.

Instead of ensuring new and old citizens were coming together, my research found the test was actually moving them apart – and doing more harm than goodat confirming integration.

In June this year, a House of Lords select committee on citizenship and civic participation agreed with me, endorsing seven of my recommendations, including the need for a new test and an advisory group engaging with the public to close the gap between public expectations and what any such test should cover. While Javid’s remarks acknowledge the citizenship test’s problems that the Lords select committee and I raised, it is unclear what he proposes to do about it. He says the test is not enough, but then promises to bring in “a British values test” as something new.

My concern arises from one difference that I have with the home secretary: I have sat the citizenship test and know it firsthand. If Javid examines the test, he will see that it already does ask immigrants about “the liberal, democratic values that bind our society together”. So if he wants the UK citizenship test to do this, the good news is it already includes it.

It would be a mistake to rush towards launching a new values test or revising the current one without engaging with the public. There are concerns about immigration and how well it is managed that have remained strong for several years. An edict based on guesswork won’t build confidence, especially for those most anxious about immigration levels. One problem shouldn’t lead to something worse.

Now is the time to foster healing for a country divided many different ways beyond the Remain and Leave split. An advisory group, preferably led by a naturalised British citizen who understands the process firsthand, could play an important role in bringing citizens together to discuss what British values we have, what they mean to people and how they can help rebuild a post-Brexit immigration system. Such work could be done over a few months, serving as a useful means for fostering confidence while dispelling immigration myths that might remove some of the toxicity from the debate and move the conversation on.

But it would take courage to make such a new start – and we can only hope such a plan is in mind.

Source: Sajid Javid is right – the British citizenship test is a bad pub quiz. So what is he going to do about it?

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FM Klimkin proposes to discuss dual citizenship in Ukraine

2018/10/05 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see how this debate progresses:

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin says there is a need for a debate on dual citizenship in Ukraine.

“We all understand that tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine have passports of neighboring countries. And this is not only ethnic Hungarians. I think we should hold a discussion about the state’s attitude to this large group of our compatriots,” he wrote in an article for European Pravda.

Klimkin believes it is possible to find a solution that will not harm people with dual citizenship, but, on the contrary, free them from the need to conceal it.

“The discussion is not about worsening their situation or branding them as traitors, but rather reasonably resolving the legal limbo, and not only that,” the minister said.

He stresses the problem of dual Ukrainian-Russian citizenship should be considered separately in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

“I personally consider it fundamentally unacceptable. As a matter of fact, the decision on single citizenship in Ukraine was once made, first of all, as a fuse against Russia’s possible influence on the newly declared independent Ukraine. Today, when Moscow is waging armed aggression against us, such motivation is leveled: if Ukraine wants to consider the possibility of limited application of dual citizenship, this should not concern Russia in principle,” Klimkin said.

Source: Klimkin proposes to discuss dual citizenship in Ukraine

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Trump Administration Asks SCOTUS To Block Top Officials From Explaining Census Citizenship Question

2018/10/05 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see how the SCOTUS rules:

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to step in and block two top officials from having to speak under oath in a lawsuit challenging the administration’s decision to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census.

In a petition filed Wednesday, the Justice Department asked the high court to prevent Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and John Gore, the acting head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, from having to sit for depositions in the case. A coalition of activist groups, cities and nearly 20 states, led by New York, say the Trump administration was predisposed to adding the citizenship question, and say it violated federal law by not following the proper procedure for doing so.

Getting information from Ross and Gore is crucial to the lawsuit because Ross, who oversees the Census, has said he added the question at the request of the Justice Department. DOJ said it needed the question, which has not been asked on the decennial survey since 1950, to get better citizenship data so it can better enforce the Voting Rights Act. But documents disclosed as part of the litigation show that Ross wanted to add the citizenship question even before the Justice Department requested it, and that it was Ross who initially approached DOJ officials about making the request.

Critics say adding the citizenship question will depress the response rate among immigrants who fear sharing their immigration status with the Trump administration. Data collected by the Census is strongly protected by federal privacy laws and must be kept confidential.

A lower court in New York has ordered depositions of Ross and Gore, saying they possess unique and relevant information that can’t be obtained from other sources. In its Wednesday filing, the government said the lower court’s ruling was incorrect, and that the case should be evaluated based on an “administrative record” of documents compiled by the government detailing why it made its decision.

“The court thought Secretary Ross’s testimony uniquely vital because he was personally involved in the decision to reinstate a citizenship question and the decision is of great importance to the public,” U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco wrote in the brief. “The Secretary’s personal involvement in a significant policy decision is not exceptional, and the importance of the Secretary’s decision in this case does not distinguish it from many other decisions of national importance that Cabinet Secretaries make.”

The information that the government has disclosed in the lawsuit so far has raised significant questions about the decision to add the citizenship query. The documents show Ross and top aides discussing the addition of the citizenship question, and a memo in which the bureau’s top scientist advised against adding it.

Justice Department lawyers have been fighting to block the plaintiffs in the case from gathering information beyond the documents that government officials voluntarily compiled about the decision. However, they have been largely unsuccessful. On Sunday, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, the trial judge overseeing the case, said the government’s most recent request was “particularly frivolous — if not outrageous.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit is also considering whether to block Ross from having to sit for a deposition, but said last week that Gore could be deposed. A trial in the case is scheduled to begin at the start of November.

“The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to block discovery in our suit ― and courts have repeatedly rejected their attempts. You have to wonder what they’re trying to hide,” said Amy Spitalnick, a spokeswoman for New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D). “We’ll get to the bottom of how the decision to demand citizenship status was made, as we continue our case to ensure a full and fair Census.”

Source: Trump Administration Asks SCOTUS To Block Top Officials From Explaining Census Citizenship Question

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Sajid Javid backs plans for stricter citizenship rules after Brexit

2018/10/04 Leave a comment

Values tests play more heavily to the base and public rather than being effective as applicants can simply provide the desired response without believing in it.

Fact-based tests are more objective and do not encourage dishonesty:

The government has announced stricter immigration and citizenship rules to come into place after Brexit, with Sajid Javid later telling the Guardian’s editor-in-chief Katharine Viner that he was unworried by the suggestion such rules would have prevented his own father entering the UK.

The home secretary used his speech to the Conservative party conference to say people seeking British citizenship would face tougher English-language requirements, part of an immigration overhaul that will include the end of free movement from the EU.

In a broad speech set to intensify speculation about his leadership ambitions, Javid unveiled plans for a beefed-up “British values test” to replace the Life in the UK test for those looking to settle in the country.

Overnight, he and Theresa May had announced proposals for a single immigration system that treats people from EU countries the same as those from non-EU countries. Highly skilled workers who want to live and work in Britain would be given priority, while low-skilled immigration would be curbed.

Speaking later in an interview on the conference fringe with Viner, the home secretary said he was not concerned by the thought that under such a regime his father, who arrived from Pakistan in 1961 with £1 and no skills, would be barred from entry.

When his father came, Javid said, the entry system was very different as the governments of the time “wanted, needed, a route for low-skilled migration”.

Asked if it made him sad this would no longer be the case, he said: “No, it doesn’t make me feel sad. Actually, with today’s policy it makes me very optimistic about our future. Because what I have also set out is that we will remain the global-outlook nation that welcomes people from across the world, no matter where they’re from.”

In his speech, Javid announced plans aimed at improving integration and described the current Life in the UK test as a “pub quiz”.

“It’s about integration, not segregation,” he said. “And I’m determined to break down barriers to integration wherever I find them. Take, for example, the most basic barrier of all: language.”

Javid said 700,000 people living in the UK could not speak English.

“As home secretary, I will apply these principles to those who arrive in our country. So not only will there be a new values test but we will also strengthen the English-language requirements for all new citizens.”

Highly skilled migrants coming to the UK on a work visa will not face tougher language requirements than those already in place, the Guardian understands.

Javid said earlier he would consider scrapping the cap on the number of highly skilled migrants as part of the post-Brexit plan. The limit is currently 20,000.

Applicants will need to meet a minimum salary threshold – for highly skilled migrants this currently stands at £30,000 – but Javid has hinted that this will be reviewed.

In his speech in the main hall, the home secretary said: “Thanks to the [Brexit] referendum we now have a unique opportunity to reshape our immigration system for the future.

“A skills-based, single system that is opened up to talent from across the world. A system that doesn’t discriminate between any one region or country. A system based on merit. That judges people not by where they are from, but on what they can do.

“What people want – and they will get – is control of our own system. With a lower, and sustainable level of net migration. And, above all, that has to mean one thing: an end to freedom of movement.”

The government has said it intends to publish a white paper this autumn and a bill the following year, meaning it is highly unlikely MPs will get to vote on the legislation before the UK leaves the EU in March.

In the interview with Viner, Javid, who has previously spoken about how his mother did not learn to speak English until more than decade after she arrived in the UK, talked about his anger at the unfair targeting of people from the Windrush generation by immigration enforcement.

“The first thing that went through my mind is that it could have been my parents,” he said. “Imagine if this was my mum or my uncle, someone who had lived in Britain their whole life, contributed so much, being detained or, worse, removed from the country.”

But Javid vehemently rejected that the post-2010 Conservative government had been primarily responsible for the Windrush crisis with the so-called hostile environment policy, saying a lot of it had begun under Labour.

“If people portray this as a problem that happened under a Tory government, it’s incorrect. It’s either bad reporting or a deliberate attempt to twist the fact,” he said.

Javid, who again spoke about a range of subjects well beyond his official brief, was similarly blunt about Labour’s interventionist economic policies, saying: “The trouble is, Jeremy Corbyn really believes what he says. And he’s completely deluded.”

Elsewhere in his speech, he announced a package of new measures to tackle forced marriage, including proposals to refuse spousal entry to the UK where there is evidence a marriage is forced.

Source: Sajid Javid backs plans for stricter citizenship rules after Brexit

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To increase immigration, allow dual citizenship

2018/10/04 Leave a comment

Correlation, not causation. Many immigrants to Canada come from countries which do not formally permit dual citizenship but largely turn a blind eye:

Countries that allow dual citizenship experience higher migration flow. They attract more migrants to their countries, and see more citizens emigrating elsewhere.

To discover this, researchers from the University of California, Irvine examined the migration patterns in 184 countries where migrants left and 24 countries where they arrived between 1981 and 2006. The paper that resulted from their work was published in the journal Comparative Political Studies in 2016.

They found that migrants are more likely to move to countries that share a common official language, share colonial roots, are closer to their home country, have higher pay, lower unemployment, and a larger foreign population. Controlling all these factors, the ability to carry multiple citizenships correlates with higher migration flow for both origin and destination countries.

https://data.qz.com/2018/dual-citizenship-flow/index.html

When one or both countries forbid multiple citizenships, the results change considerably.

https://data.qz.com/2018/dual-citizenship-flow/graph.html

People are most likely to emigrate, when both the origin country and the destination country allow them to take more than one citizenship. They are least likely to leave their home country when both forbid it. Moving to a multiple-citizenship-forbidding country is more likely than away from one, according to the research.

For the country looking to attract talented workers, allowing dual citizenship is clearly a place to start.

Source: To increase immigration, allow dual citizenship

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship

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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