MPI: Repealing Birthright Citizenship Would Significantly Increase the Size of the U.S. Unauthorized Population

2025/05/20 Leave a comment

Of note. Canadian non-resident self-pay births for temporary residents and those on visitor visa suggest equivalent Canadian numbers of those who could be affected would be around 5,000:

Ending birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to unauthorized immigrants or certain other non-citizens would have a contrary result from its stated aim of reducing the unauthorized immigrant population. New estimates from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and Penn State’s Population Research Institute demonstrate how repeal would significantly swell the size of the unauthorized population—now and for generations to come. 

The new projections show that ending birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children with parents who are either unauthorized immigrants or temporary visa holders (or a combination of the two) would increase the unauthorized population by an additional 2.7 million by 2045 and by 5.4 million by 2075. 

Each year, an average of about 255,000 children born on U.S. soil would start life without U.S. citizenship based on their parents’ legal status, the research shows. 

President Donald Trump on his first day back in office signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born to certain non-citizens. The order, which has been stayed by the courts amid questions over its constitutionality, specifies that going forward, only children born to at least one U.S.-citizen or lawful permanent resident parent would automatically acquire U.S. citizenship. The Supreme Court on Thursday will hold an oral argument on the issue. 

Beyond significantly adding to an unauthorized immigrant population that MPI estimates stood at 13.7 million as of mid-2023, the end of birthright citizenship for many children would create a self-perpetuating, multi-generational underclass—with U.S.-born residents inheriting the social disadvantage borne by their parents and even, over time, their grandparents and great-grandparents. By 2075, there would be 1.7 million U.S. born who were the children of two parents who had themselves been born in the United States, yet would nonetheless lack legal status, the authors estimate. 

“This creation of a class of U.S.-born residents deprived of the rights that citizenship conveys to their neighbors, classmates and work colleagues could sow the seeds for significant disruption to economic mobility and social cohesion in the years and decades ahead,” Jennifer Van Hook, Michael Fix and Julia Gelatt write in the analysis published today. 

The researchers’ projections use assumptions that in-migration, out-migration and fertility rates will hold steady. Yet even if the U.S. government fully sealed the border against illegal entries and ramped up deportations significantly, changes to birthright citizenship would still result in an unauthorized population that is 1.3 million larger in 2045 than it would be if current birthright citizenship interpretations held. 

Read the analysis here: www.migrationpolicy.org/news/birthright-citizenship-repeal-projections. 

Source: Repealing Birthright Citizenship Would Significantly Increase the Size of the U.S. Unauthorized Population

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Is Canadian citizenship mostly a convenience? A new study counters the myth

2025/05/20 Leave a comment

Another informative and relevant analysis by StatsCan, providing evidence regarding “Canadians of convenience:”

Contrary to public impression, Canadian citizenship turns out to be more a sign of an immigrant’s commitment to the country than a convenience to leave for greener pastures.

In fact, according to a new Statistics Canada report, immigrants from developed countries and those who took longer to become citizens were the ones more likely to leave the country after getting their citizenship.

“Among naturalized immigrants, active presence typically exceeded 90 per cent in the 10th year after immigration,” said the report released on Friday. “It showed minimal variation across educational levels, official language profiles, age at immigration and immigration classes.”

The findings debunk the myth that immigrants are “Canadians of convenience,” who take advantage of citizenship for the privilege of a Canadian passport but have no intention to stay and keep ties with their adopted homeland.

“It demolishes largely the argument that people just get citizenship so they have mobility and they can leave the country to pursue opportunities,” said Andrew Griffith, an expert on Canadian citizenship.

“There aren’t as many citizens of convenience as people might think. That actually is a measure of a longer-term commitment to Canada.” 

Based on immigration and income tax filing data, the Statistics Canada study examined the relationship between citizenship acquisition and the “active presence” of immigrants in Canada. 

While the absence of an individual’s tax record can mean the person either left Canada or remained in the country without filing taxes, it is unlikely an immigrant living in Canada would stop filing taxes after acquiring citizenship because it gives them access to benefits and services here.

Among immigrants admitted from 2008 to 2012, and 25 to 54 years old at admission, 93 per cent of those who became citizens had an active presence in Canada 10 years later, compared to 67 per cent of their counterparts who did not acquire citizenship.

These rates were higher than that of the immigrant cohorts admitted between 2003 and 2007 — 91 per cent for citizens and 58 per cent for non-citizens. This suggests that recent immigrants are more likely to stay in the country.

Immigrants from developed countries had lower active presence in Canada after 10 years than their counterparts from the developing world. Among naturalized citizens, for instance, 97 per cent of those from the Philippines remained active in Canada a decade after immigration — about 10 percentage points higher than their American and French counterparts, and six percentage points above those from the U.K..

However, among immigrants who didn’t acquire Canadian citizenship, whether they stayed or left relates more to other factors. Those with a graduate degree, who spoke English or French or came as economic immigrants have a remarkably lower presence in Canada after 10 years.

Daniel Bernhard, CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, said the uptake of Canadian citizenship has been on decline, and the real challenge is for Canada to convince immigrants who have “global options” to stay and devote their talents to the country for the long term.

“Highly educated people are mobile and we select more highly educated people, and that’s going to be part of it,” he said. “Circumstances here are also changing. It’s becoming harder to succeed, to buy properties and get ahead. Most people come here to build a better life. If we can’t provide it, they will take their families and their talents elsewhere.”

The report also tracked immigrants with no tax records and found that about 28 per cent of them had Canadian citizenship. About half of inactive immigrants from Iran were citizens, followed by 39 per cent among inactive Pakistani immigrants and 36 per cent from Colombia. In contrast, only 14 per cent of inactive American immigrants were citizens.

To be granted Canadian citizenship, a permanent resident currently must have lived in the country for at least three years out of the last five, demonstrate language proficiency in English or French, pass a citizenship test and take an oath.

The new report suggests those rules are working, said Griffith.

“You can still argue is it meaningful enough and if we have to change the oath and all those things,” he said. “But I think in a grosso modo sense, people are coming and they’re basically staying despite the retention issues. It’s not a big difference between citizens and non-citizens. I think we’ve roughly got the balance right.”

Source: Is Canadian citizenship mostly a convenience? A new study counters the myth

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Party Platform Immigration and Citizenship Comparison: Quick Look

2025/04/23 2 Comments

Here is my quick comparative table on the specific immigration and citizenship commitments of the four major parties. Striking no specific mention of either immigration or citizenship in NDP platform:

Party Platform Comparisons Election 2025Download

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Bloc Québécois: Citizenship

2025/04/11 Leave a comment

Nice try, exclusive federal jurisdiction unlike immigration which is shared:

Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET pledged to introduce a bill that would require immigrants to demonstrate an adequate knowledge of French in order to obtain Canadian citizenship from Quebec. At the moment, knowledge of either official language will suffice. 

Blanchet’s proposed law would also require that the citizenship test be conducted in French only in Quebec, and increase the age above which an individual is exempt from the language requirement for citizenship from 55 to 65.

The Bloc may run into some resistance should it pursue this legal change when the next government is formed, if for no other reason than the fact that it implies that one can obtain Canadian citizenship “à partir du Québec”—from the province of Quebec. 

Quebec cannot grant Canadian citizenship, only the Government of Canada can. A federal government that agrees to devolve that authority to a province, by setting different rules depending on where the citizenship applications are processed, would be giving up a serious chunk of sovereignty. 

Source: Bloc Québécois: Citizenship

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French parliament restricts birthright citizenship in Mayotte

2025/04/10 Leave a comment

Of note:

France’s parliament on Tuesday definitively adopted a bill to restrict citizenship rights for children born in its Indian Ocean overseas territory of Mayotte.

The bill put forward by the right does not affect the “right of soil”, also known as “jus soli”, for the rest of France.

But critics on the left have slammed the bill as a concession to the anti-immigration far right and fear it paves the way for restrictions nationwide.

At present, a child born in France to foreign parents can be granted French nationality from the age of 13, provided he or she has spent a certain amount of time in France.

But further conditions have existed since 2018 for Mayotte, a French archipelago that attracts a large number of migrants from its poorer neighbour, the Comoros islands, who travel there irregularly seeking a better life.

Until now, children born there additionally needed to have a parent who had resided there legally for at least three months at the time of birth to apply for nationality.

With the new bill, both parents will need to have legally lived there for at least a year, with an exception in place for single parents.

The Senate approved a final text on Thursday, and members of the lower-house national Assembly backed it on Tuesday.

Source: French parliament restricts birthright citizenship in Mayotte

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Citizenship applications remain strong

2025/04/09 Leave a comment

IRCC just released the 2024 numbers of monthly citizenship applications, confirming that interest in Canadian citizenship remains high, despite an overall decline in citizenship take-up.

Comparing applications, new citizens and permanent residents, highlights that the large increases in applications and new citizens over the last three years, along with the significant increase in permanent residents.

Lastly, as the number of new citizens has exceeded the number of applications, the backlog has dropped below the target of 20 percent, with over 80 percent meeting service standars.

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Citizenship: A partial return to in-person ceremonies

2025/04/07 Leave a comment

During the pandemic, IRCC shifted by necessity to holding virtual citizenship ceremonies. Once the pandemic was largely over, a shift back to in-person ceremonies occurred gradually. But the majority new citizens still become citizens through virtual ceremonies.

Reflecting this trend, the department published a Canada Gazette notice allowing for self-affirmation of the citizenship oath (“citizenship on a click”). The petition to Parliament I launched opposing that change, along with considerable negative commentary and likely then Minister Miller’s questioning this proposed change, resulted in it not being implemented.

In response to that petition, the government indicated that approximately two-thirds of all new citizens participated in a virtual ceremony (” From January 1, 2023 to September 30, 2023, the Department has held on average 50 in-person ceremonies and 224 video ceremonies per month with an average of 79 and 135 invited participants per event, respectively.”)

Subsequently, IRCC provided me with citizenship ceremony data from 2020 (start of pandemic) to 2024. The following charts summarize the change over the years.

Figure 1: Number of citizenship ceremonies by type
Figure 2: Relative percentages of in-person and virtual ceremonies

Using the same percentage breakdown between in-person and virtual ceremonies from January to September 2023 (IRCC was unable to provide breakdowns for this dataset), the following chart contrasts the number of new citizens by ceremony type.

IRCC does provide the option for applicants to specify their citizenship ceremony preferences:

The petition recommended that “Most citizenship ceremonies should be in-person.” However, this data highlights that while over 40 percent of 2024 ceremonies are now in-person, it still remains the fact that the majority of new Canadians participate in virtual ceremonies, reflecting the larger average size of virtual ceremonies.

Given the importance of citizenship ceremonies in immigrant integration and citizenship meaningfulness, any future government should continue and accelerate the shift back to in-person ceremonies.

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Trump Immigration Order Could Cost Americans $3,000 Per Baby

2025/04/04 Leave a comment

When the Harper government made a push for ending birthright citizenship, initial analysis included a cost estimate of $300,000 that would be absorbed by the government, not additional fees for those applying (the documents that I received from ATIP did not indicate any cost recovery plans). Given provincial opposition and the smaller numbers known at that time, the government dropped any change to current birthright citizenship.

Much simpler to do in Canada as the previous analysis indicated but like anything in government, always some complications to address:

Ending birthright citizenship would be chaotic and costly for many Americans due to new fees, paperwork requirements and other issues. So far, the constitutionality of Donald Trump’s executive order, which would no longer guarantee a child born on U.S. soil is an American citizen, has dominated the discussion. While critics and supporters of birthright citizenship have highlighted the legal issues, few people have examined the practical effects. Implementing the policy would create significant financial burdens for U.S.-born and immigrant parents. If the Trump administration succeeds in ending birthright citizenship, it will turn each birth in America into a federal event.

The Immigration Order Would Bring The Federal Government Into The Delivery Room

A National Foundation for American Policy analysis finds the Trump administration would impose a $3,000 or higher “birth tax” for each baby born in the United States to carry out the executive order ending birthright citizenship. The cost includes Form N-600, the 14-page Application for Certificate of Citizenship, which has a $1,385 government filing fee, and the attorney fees related to the form that range from $1,500 to $10,000. Parents also would need to submit biometrics to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (or another agency), and the parents and baby would likely need to appear in person at a Social Security Administration office. Those actions could entail additional expenses. Costs could differ based on a parent’s details.

NFAP developed the updated estimates with Margaret Stock, an attorney at Cascadia Cross Border Law Group, who has helped many military families with the time-consuming process of documenting that a child born abroad is a U.S. citizen at birth. Stock authored a 2012 NFAP report that explained why changing the Citizenship Clause would be expensive and burdensome for individuals.

Unless the Trump administration intends their new birthright citizenship policy to operate on the “honor system,” which is unlikely, U.S.-born and foreign-born parents will spend considerable time and money if they want the federal government to certify their newborn is a U.S. citizen…

Practical Problems For Americans If The Government Implements The Immigration Order

Trump officials have not explained the new burdens the executive order would create for Americans or the process they intend to impose on new parents if judges ruled the administration’s new birthright citizenship policy constitutional.

Receiving a birth certificate after a child is born would no longer suffice to prove a baby is a U.S. citizen at birth. At a minimum, new parents would need to endure a process like when starting a new job: “Use Form I-9 to verify the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the United States,” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “All U.S. employers must properly complete Form I-9 for every individual they hire for employment in the United States. On the form, an employee must attest to their employment authorization. The employee must also present their employer with acceptable documents as evidence of identity and employment authorization.”

Margaret Stock believes the process for parents would be more complicated than the current I-9 process companies use to document employment eligibility. “It will have to be much more extensive than the I-9 process,” she said. “Birth certificates showing birth in the United States will no longer prove U.S. citizenship. Someone at the Social Security Administration will need to collect several documents before issuing a Social Security number.”

She said SSA would demand to see a birth certificate with a time stamp on it that shows the time, date and location of birth. The government would also ask for the birth and immigration records of the biological mother and potentially DNA tests to establish the biological father. Officials would also need to see the birth and immigration records of the biological father.

“Only an immigration law expert can do the legal analysis because people’s statuses are a moving target,” according to Stock. “Here’s an example: What if USCIS approves a green card at a Service Center for a pregnant mother a few minutes before (or after) she gives birth? That’s the difference between the baby being a U.S. citizen under the executive order or the baby being an undocumented immigrant.” The Social Security Administration would need an army of expert immigration law adjudicators.

Stock notes that Alaska and Hawaii have federal statutes that do not include the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction.” She believes the executive order may not apply to births in those states.

Today, states, not the federal government, issue birth certificates. SSA relies on state records to issue Social Security numbers to U.S.-born citizens, and the State Department uses those records to issue passports.

“If the fact of someone’s birth within the U.S. is no longer sufficient to prove the person’s claim to U.S. citizenship, all of these bureaucratic systems must be re-tooled,” wrote Stock in the NFAP analysis. “At a minimum, it will require each state to establish a system for verifying claims to U.S. citizenship. More logically, a change to the Citizenship Clause will lead to the creation of a central and authoritative Federal citizenship records system that will register all U.S. citizens—and ultimately, this would likely, in turn, lead to a National Identification card.”

The Trump administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship would add deadweight costs to the economy and financially harm people least likely to possess spare resources. It would also likely create a two-tier caste society with a child’s success in life determined by whether they were born a U.S. citizen at birth.

Margaret Stock said changing birthright citizenship should only appeal to individuals who have not considered the cost and implications of verifying the immigration and citizenship status of every parent of every child born in America.

Source: Trump Immigration Order Could Cost Americans $3,000 Per Baby

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More Canadians with Iranian backgrounds stopped from entering the U.S.

2025/04/03 Leave a comment

More evidence of bias and over-reach:

Canadian citizens born in Iran say they are routinely being stopped at the U.S. border and interrogated – and often not allowed to enter – as American authorities signal they are focusing their attention on preventing the entry of foreigners they characterize as a national-security threat.

Six Iranian Canadians have told The Globe and Mail that they have been prevented from entering the country on their Canadian passports since the election of Donald Trump. The Globe has also spoken to family members of Iranian Canadians who were stopped from entering the United States, as well as immigration lawyers contacted by Iranian-born Canadians who were turned away.

They said the treatment they receive at the border has become more aggressive, including being detained for hours for questioning, causing them to miss flights, as well as being fingerprinted.

Some said their luggage was rummaged through and their phones taken away, and that U.S. border agents asked them to provide their passcodes. One Canadian man with family in the U.S. who has travelled there without problems in the past said he was detained in a holding cell, handcuffed after hours of questioning, and turned back at a land border crossing on the way to visit his brother….

Source: More Canadians with Iranian backgrounds stopped from entering the U.S.

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Americans apply to revive Canadian citizenship to escape the U.S. under Trump

2025/04/01 Leave a comment

Still mainly anecdotal. Unfortunately, IRCC does not publish citizenship application data on open data

…Immigration consultants and lawyers say they have also had a surge in inquiries from “Lost Canadians” in the U.S. about moving to Canada.

Some “Lost Canadians” told The Globe they want to leave the country out of fear of being detained based on their race, while others said they don’t want to raise children in Mr. Trump’s America.

“In the past few weeks, we have received an increased number of inquiries from American citizens of various backgrounds asking about immigration to Canada, including Lost Canadians,” said Annie Beaudoin, an immigration consultant based in California who used to work for Ottawa’s federal Immigration Department.

Melissa Babel, founder of Babel Immigration law in Ontario, said on Thursday: “I’m getting a lot of calls from people who remember that their grandfather was Canadian – three yesterday.”…

Source: Americans apply to revive Canadian citizenship to escape the U.S. under Trump

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