Australia: Feedback on controversial citizenship changes to be kept secret

2017/06/13 1 Comment

Hard to understand the rationale apart from stifling discussion and debate. Indicates a certain insecurity:

The Turnbull government will keep secret the public’s feedback on its proposed changes to the Australian citizenship test, in a marked departure from normal processes, as the controversial bill goes before Parliament this week.

The immigration department confirmed it will not publish submissions to the consultation process designed to inform the final version of its revamped citizenship regime – particularly the introduction of an Australian values test.

New citizenship laws will be stronger

The government will introduce new citizenship laws this week and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says they’ll focus on English language competency and more thorough background checks.

Open for the six weeks until June 1, the consultation was supposed to help the government define “Australian values” and to word a new pledge of allegiance to Australia. “We are looking for views,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in April.

But the department will not air those views publicly, citing confidentiality, nor confirm the volume of feedback received. “Submissions were provided in confidence and were not for publication by the department,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

However, several organisations that made submissions told Fairfax Media they did not request the department keep their recommendations private.

The Refugee Council, Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils and the Liverpool Migrant Resource Centre have all published their submissions – critical of the government’s proposal – on their websites.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton on Sunday confirmed a bill to enact the major changes – including a four-year wait before permanent residents can attain citizenship, and tougher English language requirements for aspiring citizens – will be introduced to Parliament this week.

The new regime would allow him, as minister, to revoke the citizenship of migrants suspected of gaining citizenship fraudulently – by lying on the test, for example. It will also require minors to pass a “good character” test to gain citizenship, in a move designed to target young migrant criminals.

“It is a bill that suits the times we’re living in and the government is very serious about making sure that people who pledge their allegiance to our country abide by our laws and our values,” Mr Dutton said on Sunday.

The citizenship reform package, the second in three years, has attracted the ire of migrant groups and some in Labor’s Left faction, who have voiced concerns about unfairly strict English testing and disenfranchising permanent residents for four years.

Labor reserved its position on Sunday, with citizenship spokesman Tony Burke promising to “deal responsibly with any sensible proposal” from the government. Mr Dutton also indicated he was willing to negotiate with the Senate crossbench.

The decision against publishing the public’s feedback defies routine practice for government consultations, whereby public submissions are usually published online unless they contain sensitive or defamatory material.

Source: Feedback on controversial citizenship changes to be kept secret

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Liberals’ citizenship bill [C-6] to proceed with some Senate amendments

2017/06/12 1 Comment

Being debated and voted on in the House Monday June 12.

Expect that the Senate will/should declare victory given two out of three amendments accepted, including the most important one of restoring procedural protections for those accused of fraud or misrepresentation:

Far more people lose their citizenship because it was obtained fraudulently, and the Senate wants to amend the bill in order to give those people a chance at a court hearing before their status is stripped away.

Hussen said the government will accept that proposal, albeit with some modifications of its own, including giving the minister the authority to make decisions when an individual requests it.

Hussen’s hand was partially forced by a recent Federal Court decision that said people have a right to challenge the revocation of their citizenship, although predecessor John McCallum had earlier suggested he would support the amendment.

“This amendment recognizes the government’s commitment to enhancing the citizenship revocation process to strengthen procedural fairness, while ensuring that the integrity of our citizenship program is maintained,” Hussen said in a statement.

The government will also accept a Senate recommendation that would make it easier for children to obtain citizenship without a Canadian parent.

But they are rejecting efforts to raise the upper age for citizenship language and knowledge requirements from 54 to 59, saying it’s out of step with the goal of making citizenship easier to obtain. The current law requires those between the ages of 14 to 64 to pass those tests; the Liberals want it changed to 18 to 54.

Hussen thanked the Senate for its work making the bill “even stronger and for providing an example of productive collaboration on strengthening important legislation.”

The Senate has the choice of accepting the government’s decision, rejecting it, or proposing further amendments of its own, which could further delay the legislation.

Source: Liberals’ citizenship bill to proceed with some Senate amendments – The Globe and Mail

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Australia: Peter Dutton pressures Labor to support Coalition’s citizenship crackdown | The Guardian

2017/06/12 Leave a comment

I don’t understand that what is announced as a change – from one to four years permanent residency before requirement – is actually a change from the current policy outlined on the Australian government website (Australian citizenship).

It will be interesting to see how they develop and implement a “values” test. The “integration” test – holding a job, sending kids to school, is more objective but has its own implementation challenges.

One can expect, just as occurred in Canada with policies designed to make “citizenship harder to get and easier to lose,” a drop in citizenship applications and new citizens, breaking the immigrant-to-citizen model:

The Turnbull government will unveil details this week of its planned changes to make it harder to get Australian citizenship.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, will introduce legislation to parliament that extends permanent residency from one year to four before people can apply for citizenship, that toughens English language competencies, introduces a values test and requires people to demonstrate they have integrated into Australian society.

He has briefed Labor on the bill and has called on the opposition to support the bill through both houses.

“I think it’s an issue that requires bipartisan support,” Dutton said on Sunday. “I suspect we will get support of independent senators … there’s obviously negotiations to take place in that regard but this is an issue where we would want the Labor party to support the government.

“It is a bill that suits the times we’re living in and the government is very serious about making sure that people who pledge their allegiance to our country mean it, that they abide by our laws and our values.”

The overhaul of the citizenship process – which has been in gestation within the government for months – follows the Coalition’s move two months ago to overhaul skilled migration by replacing 457 visas with two new categories that cut off pathways to permanent residency.

In April, Malcolm Turnbull said it was time for a new citizenship test that demonstrated people’s allegiance to Australia and whether they were prepared to stand up for “Australian values”.

Asked to provide a summary of values he believed all Australians should sign up to, given that people were likely to have different views on that question, Turnbull nominated “mutual respect, democracy, freedom, rule of law … a fair go”.

Senior Labor figures expressed early scepticism about the proposal, including Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, who said the proposed citizenship changes looked cosmetic and politically motivated.

But Dutton said on Sunday the citizenship changes were necessary.

He said a key component of the legislation would force people to stay as permanent residents for a longer time period before applying for citizenship. That would give them more time to demonstrate they had integrated into Australian society, through things like holding down a job or making sure their children went to school, he said.

It also allowed the government to consider people’s behaviour over a longer period before allowing them to become citizens, rather than just a “point-in-time snapshot”, he said.

Source: Peter Dutton pressures Labor to support Coalition’s citizenship crackdown | Australia news | The Guardian

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Budget bill will increase service fees with less accountability, say critics

2017/06/08 1 Comment

More on the government’s plans to repeal the User Fees Act and replaced it with the streamlined Service Fees Act (no changes or amendments made by the House FINA committee). The critique by Roy Cullen, the author of the User Fees Act, is revealing:

As the Liberal Member of Parliament for the federal Ontario riding of Etobicoke North from 1996 to 2008, Roy Cullen had the relatively rare accomplishment of having a private member’s bill pass with strong support in both the House of Commons and the Senate.

In 2004, Bill C-212, An Act respecting user fees, received royal assent. The bill was intended to increase accountability, oversight, and transparency for the way in which the federal government sets fees for various services, from providing Canadians with passports to giving them access to national parks.

But the government’s current omnibus budget Bill C-44 proposes to replace the User Fees Act with a Service Fees Act that would come into force next April and which would, Mr. Cullen argues, reduce public-service obligations to justify raising prices to Parliament.

His bill required federal departments and agencies to clearly explain how user fees are determined, and identify their cost and revenue elements, as well as create standards comparable to those in other countries where comparisons are relevant and “against which the performance of the regulating authority can be measured.”

The Service Fees Act is silent on those two points. It also seeks to automatically raise fees every fiscal year by the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which concerns Mr. Cullen.

“Some of these user fees have never been justified in a way my bill required them to be justified,” he explained in an interview this week from Victoria, where he now resides. “They’ve never undergone benchmarking to determine whether they met the performance standards identified in the legislation.”

He recalled that when he was developing the User Fees Act, several departments and agencies sought exemptions on the basis their user fees were “unique” and could not be compared against those charged in other jurisdictions. “In some cases, there was some validity to their arguments, in others, it was just a cop out,” Mr. Cullen said.

However, a 2016 internal Treasury Board document, obtained by CBC News earlier this year under the Access to Information Act, stated that 84 per cent of user fees have not been revised since the User Fees Act was passed. A subsection of the act that would reduce a user fee if it failed to meet its performance standard has resulted in a “disincentive to amend fees,” said the memo to Treasury Board President Scott Brison (Kings-Hants, N.S.), which also noted the “significant time and effort…required to prepare proposals to amend or create fees” under the User Fees Act.

“While fees have not increased over time, costs have. This resulted in an increase in the rate of taxpayer subsidies for government services that benefit private interests.”

Roger Ermuth, assistant comptroller general in the Treasury Board Secretariat, who wrote the memo obtained by the CBC, told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance last month that based on information from the latest available departmental performance reports, the federal government collected [in 2014-15] $1.9-billion in user fees, but the associated costs to deliver services were around $3.4-billion.

But he indicated that the goal isn’t necessarily to increase fees by $1.5-billion to close the gap.

Former federal official Andrew Griffith, who served as director general of citizenship and multiculturalism in what is now Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada until his retirement in 2011, believes there has to be a consideration of the public interest in setting and hiking government fees beyond recovering the costs of providing services, as there was with the User Fees Act.

In a brief he presented to both the House and Senate finance committees, Mr. Griffith also recommended that any proposed fee increase in the proposed Service Fees Act that exceeds the annual CPI adjustment and which affects the general public, such as citizenship or passport application fees, should be referred to the relevant Parliamentary committee for review, “rather than the after-the-fact reporting required in the proposed Act.”

He said while the “User Fees Act consultation process and justification requirements may have been too onerous, the Service Fees Act goes too far by removing all meaningful transparency and consultations,” and Mr. Griffith argues that the proposed legislation could have a further impact on citizenship applications whose numbers have decreased from 198,000 in 2014 to 92,000 last year, in part, because of increasing fees, according to his analysis.

In 2014, the citizenship-application processing fee jumped from $100—a price that had remained unchanged for 20 years—to $300 and then $530 later that year after the federal Immigration Department obtained an exemption from the User Fees Act. The first increase was announced in February 2014 when the former Conservative government unveiled Bill C-24, The Strengthening of Canadian Citizenship Act, and was subject to Parliamentary review. The second hike was revealed in a Canada Gazette post just before the Christmas break in December 2014, “all but guaranteeing no one would notice at the time, and resulting in no debate,” Mr. Griffith wrote in his brief.

He added that had automatic consumer price indexing been allowed, the citizenship application fee would have only grown to $150 in 2016. Instead, an immigrant couple must pay $1,060 (plus an additional $100 right-of-citizenship fee each), and $200 for every child, to apply for citizenship.

“Over time, there will be a larger percentage of the population that will remain permanent residents unable to afford citizenship,” Mr. Griffith said in an interview.

“From a policy perspective, Canada has always had the model that we don’t just select immigrants, we try to select future citizens to fully integrate and participate in Canadian society.”

He would like to see the Service Fees Act distinguish between “public benefits,” such as for citizenship applications where the government could split the cost to provide the service with applicants, and “personal benefits,” such as for passport applications where the government could take a full cost-recovery approach in providing Canadians with the travel document.

Source: Budget bill will increase service fees with less accountability, say critics – The Hill Times – The Hill Times

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Citizenship consultants file defamation claim | Caribbean News Now

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

Dispute among the citizenship-by-investment promoters:

On May 28, 2017, global citizenship consultants Arton Capital initiated legal proceedings for alleged defamation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) against the Investment Migration Council (IMC) and its UAE representative office CI Businessman Services (which operates under the name Citizenship Invest).

Arton Capital has partnered with the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia, along with other countries around the world, in relation to their citizenship by investment programmes, as well as advising more than 5,000 investors on investment programmes that empower global citizenship.

In December 2016, IMC, Transparency International (Hungary) and Dr Boldizsár Nagy published a report entitled “In whose interests? Shadows over the Hungarian Residency Bond Program”, which is, in Arton Capital’s view, defamatory, contains false information and has caused serious reputational damage to the firm’s business.

Arton Capital contends that the spread of this false information forms part of a broader smear campaign that it believes is intended to damage its reputation within the industry.

Arton Capital said it has spent more than a decade building a reputation of trust with governments around the world, as well as building the investment migration community.

“Arton Capital takes its reputation extremely seriously and will take all necessary steps to correct falsehoods and protect its hard-won reputation for trust and diligence. The founders of the company are committed to driving forward the highest standards of best practice, regulation, and governance for the industry,” the firm said in a press release on Monday.

IMC is a Geneva-based self-proclaimed oversight association for investor migration and citizenship-by-investment prominently backed by Henley & Partners, another consultancy firm active in the Eastern Caribbean economic citizenship programmes.

Earlier this year, Henley & Partners came under fire for its perceived involvement in a controversial “60 Minutes” investigative programme aired by the US television network CBS on January 1, which focused on the citizenship by investment programmes (CIP) operated by three out of the five Caribbean islands that offer such programmes.

It was alleged that Henley, whose chairman Christian Kalin appeared prominently in the broadcast, was behind the production of the programme in the first place, although the firm later denounced the broadcast as “one-sided”.

However, according to one industry insider, Henley & Partners apparently forgot that they invited the 60 Minutes producers to one of their citizenship conferences in Dubai in order to initiate the report.

A number of resignations earlier this year from IMC’s advisory committee were, according to one resigning member, prompted by, amongst other things, the controversial 60 Minutes report in January that was a “PR disaster” and made the citizenship industry look ridiculous.

Furthermore, Kalin is one of the five-strong governing board of IMC and his critics now say that he is using the organisation to attack his commercial rivals. Members of the advisory committee apparently decided that they did not want to be a party to any potential lawsuits, with its involvement in attacking residency programmes such as Hungary’s going beyond its stated mission.

“The IMC is no more than a mouthpiece of Henley & Partners,” said an industry source.

IMC was established in October 2014 with the stated aim of bringing together stakeholders within the immigration and citizenship by investment industry and to give the industry a voice and, for reasons best known to itself, said it will soon be opening a representative office in Barbados.

Source: Citizenship consultants file defamation claim | Caribbean News Now

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BBC – Capital – Why citizenship is now a commodity

2017/06/06 Leave a comment

Gives a good sense of the target market for citizenship by investment programs and the mentality of the people seeking multiple citizenships:

For as little as $50,000 (in Latvia) or as much as $10 million (in France), foreigners can buy legal status to live, work and bank in a number of countries. Perhaps more importantly, by extension, they buy access to visa-free travel to countries around the world.

And, there’s an informal rating system for the most sought after passports. “Some people in the industry determine [the value] by the number of visa-free countries a person can travel to. So I think at the moment the data out there is that on the German passport you can travel to more countries than with any other citizenship in the world.” Emmett says.

In a globalised world where political isolationism is paradoxically on the rise, this freedom of movement is an attractive element of such schemes.

Andrew Henderson, an American entrepreneur and founder of the Nomad Capitalist, a blog, podcast and consulting company, has four passports and is working on his fifth. Multiple citizenships provide him with a multitude of entrepreneurial options, he says.

(Credit: Andrew Henderson)

Andrew Henderson, an American entrepreneur and founder of the Nomad Capitalist, has four passports and is working on his fifth (Credit: Andrew Henderson)

He says investing in programmes in the African archipelago of Comoros and the Caribbean Island of St. Lucia give him more opportunities and lower taxes.

“For me it’s about how I could have better options, better tax treatment, better treatment as a person and get the same visa free travel.” he says, adding that he expects investment citizenship to rise.

“I think the world is going more nomadic.  People don’t want to be in once place. They want to have one or two or three bases for lifestyle reasons and pay reasonable taxes, and that’s what becoming more accessible.

While not everyone with multiple citizenships will reside in multiple nations, Williams says the industry can be viewed as a barometer of turmoil in the world.  He says many of the investors he works with see these programmes as a safety net.

“Most of our clients do not go and live in the country they invest in,” he says. “They see it as more of an insurance policy. They know that they’ve got that second residency, so if they ever have to jump on a plane they’ve got that option.”

Your country for sale

(Credit: Getty Images)

The controversial EB-5 visa programme in the US allows people to invest in real estate projects in exchange for a fast-tracked green card application (Credit: Getty Images)

Such programmes aren’t without controversy.

Afterall, should citizenship be for sale? Detractors say no.

Earlier this year in the US, two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Grassley, introduced a bill to get rid of the EB-5 programme, arguing that it is too flawed to continue.

“It is wrong to have a special pathway to citizenship for the wealthy while millions wait in line for visas,” Feinstein said.

Detractors also argue these programmes unfairly favour the rich and are unattainable for everyone else. They also cite concerns about money laundering, criminal activity and backdoor access to countries that circumvent normal immigration systems.

Indeed, the intersection of large sums of money and international real estate deals is ripe for fraud.

Just this month an FBI Investigation uncovered a $50 millionvisa fraud operation involving Chinese investors in the EB-5 programme. And in April, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought charges against a man in Idaho who they say spent Chinese investor’s money on new homes, cars and a zip line for himself rather than the real estate projects it was meant for.

The St. Kitts and Nevis programme ran into trouble with the US Treasury Department when suspected Iranian operatives were caught using their St. Kitts passports to launder money for banks in Tehran in violation of US Sanctions.

Source: BBC – Capital – Why citizenship is now a commodity

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Brexit: EU nationals seeking British citizenship more than triples in past year, new figures show | The Independent

2017/06/03 Leave a comment

Not surprising given the insecurity caused by Brexit.

Given the cost of UK citizenship £1,236 (CAD 2,150), it is highly skilled and other wealthy professionals or individuals who are applying:

The number of European Union (EU) nationals seeking Britishcitizenship has more than tripled during the past year, in a huge surge since the Brexit vote.

In just the first quarter of 2017, 9,400 EU applicants sought UKcitizenship –  three times as many as in the same period as last year, according to The Times.

Applications from the founding EU states France, Germany and Italy more than quadrupled to 4,790 — the highest such figure in at least seven years.

The number of applications from French nationals quadrupled from 208 to 848 between the first quarter of 2016 to the same period this year.

Those from German nationals rose from 163 to 832. Applicants from Italy meanwhile, increased from 180 to 1,062, while Spanish applications rose from 124 to 463. Polish applications rose from 728 to 1,937.

Source: Brexit: EU nationals seeking British citizenship more than triples in past year, new figures show | The Independent

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A Bargain Price on American Citizenship – Diplomatic Courier

2017/06/03 Leave a comment

Another good analysis of the US EB-5 immigrant investor program:

Of all the innovations and new products that have breached the competitive global market, U.S. citizenship is now one of them. As part of a sales pitch presented at an investment conference in Beijing, Nicole Kushner Meyer (sister of Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a top White House adviser) offered American citizenship in return for a $500,000 investment.

The only scandal about this is that the offer is completely legal. How? Through the EB-5 visa program. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website, this 25-year-old EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program grants immigrants a path to a green card if they invest $1 million into a project that creates 10 or more U.S. full-time jobs. However, the minimum investment price drops to $500,000 if the development is “within a high-unemployment area or rural area in the United States.”

After two years, a foreign investor with an EB-5 visa can prove he or she put $500,000 into a developing or high unemployment area and created ten American jobs. Once that proof is confirmed, the investor is finally issued a Green Card, meaning permanent residency status that transforms into citizenship after five years. Fast and easy, if you have the money.

While Nicole Kushner Meyer’s dropping of her brother’s name and political ties have stirred up an ethical debate, the United States is not the only nation to advertise residency via an EB-5-esque immigration program. So you want to be a citizen of the Netherlands? That’ll $1.4 million, please. What about France? $10 million and a two-month wait. According to a studyby Allison Christians, citizenship by investment around the world range from $5.4 million in Russia to as low as $5,000 in Paraguay. On average, the price of citizenship is approximately $1 million internationally. However, the program has been accused of being susceptible to fraud and abuse with little oversight. Developers, such as the Kushner Company, can get investments offering very low rates of return because the investors are getting something they care about even more: U.S. citizenship.

While the EB-5 offers a simplified and expedited route to citizenship, the unfortunate truth is that for many entering the United States, $1 million is not exactly petty pocket cash that can be thrown into an ambiguous investment. It seems that the path to citizenship is different for those bringing economic capital and jobs into the country. Their stimulation of the domestic economy is so valued that the government rewards their investment in America’s continued growth with U.S. citizenship. A Department of Commerce review of EB-5 shows that in calendar years 2012 and 2013, more than 11,000 immigrant investors provided $5.8 billion in capital, roughly 35% of the total investment ($16.7 billion), for 562 EB-5 related projects, creating an estimate total of 174,039 jobs. In essence, the government is financing private real estate developers.

Although the EB-5 visa program received bipartisan support for its termination at the end of April, President Trump recently signed a bill to extend that program through the end of September. While attracting foreign investment and generating jobs in the U.S. is undoubtedly supported, advocates for the end of EB-5’s exploitation propose better options, like thoughtful tax and regulatory policies that open the U.S. for more pro-business opportunities rather than through the sale of something quite invaluable: the right—and privilege—to be an American citizen.

Source: A Bargain Price on American Citizenship – Diplomatic Courier

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Dutton ups pressure on Labor over ‘Australian value’ proposals in citizenship law changes – ABC News

2017/06/01 Leave a comment

More on Australian citizenship debates and more advanced language levels (IELTS 6, equivalent to CLB 7 – current Canadian requirement is CLB 4):

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has ramped up pressure on Labor to support the Government’s sweeping changes to citizenship laws which aim to prioritise “Australian values”.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the changes in April, declaring that migrants must prove their commitment to the nation with a tough new citizenship test and more stringent English language test.

There have been differing views on the proposal within the Labor caucus and Mr Dutton took up the issue in Question Time on Tuesday.

“What has become evident over course of the last five weeks is that on a fundamental issue you would have thought the Labor Party could unite, but they haven’t,” he said.

“And Mr Speaker what is evident is that, just as on their boats policy, we’ve seen on this policy the left and the right are completely divided.

“[Bill Shorten] needs to state his position, Mr Speaker. Is he in favour of the citizenship changes? Or is he not?”

Lateline understands the policy was informed in part by confidential National Security Commission documents, obtained by the program last year.

The documents urged stronger controls over access to citizenship, pointing to Lebanese migrant enclaves to illustrate potential community safety and national security risks associated with unsuccessful integration.

Under the Government’s proposed changes, migrants would have to pass an IELTs 6 test [equivalent to CLB 7], which is university-level English that includes writing an academic essay.

Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs Zed Seselja is the son of Croatian migrants, but he is a firm supporter of the changes.

“For that first generation, if they haven’t learnt English there can be a struggle communicating sometimes with their own kids or grandkids. That’s not ideal. I wouldn’t want to see that with my parents or grandparents,” he said.

He said workplaces have changed from previous generations, when English skills weren’t as necessary in some industries.

“Working today in a factory is more complex than working in a factory 40 years ago,” he said.

“There’s more computerisation, OH&S standards have changed so it is a different work environment and while it’s never been ideal I would put it to you that it’s certainly harder now if you don’t have a good level of English to get most of the jobs on offer.”

English standards and radicalisation

Senator Seselja said raising English standards could reduce isolation, and hence the risk of radicalisation.

“We know that where there are high levels of isolation there is a danger of radicalisation. We know that’s one of the dangers,” he said.

“To the extent that people feel part of a community, to extent they are able to get along with fellow citizens, interact with their fellow citizens, I guess radicalisation is less of a risk, whilst I do acknowledge there are far more complex aspects to radicalisation as well.”

But Labor MP Anne Aly, who is an Egyptian-born counter-terrorism expert, disagrees.

“To suggest that having academic-level English is some kind of magic panacea to radicalisation I think grossly misunderstands radicalisation,” she said.

“There is absolutely no empirical evidence to suggest there is any relationship between an individual’s English language competence and their propensity to become radicalised to any form of violence.”

Dr Aly also used to teach English and believes level 6 IELTs for citizenship sets a high bar.

“Do we really expect people to be able to do that? Do all jobs require you to write an essay?” She asked.

Source: Dutton ups pressure on Labor over ‘Australian value’ proposals in citizenship law changes – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

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India: BJP’s Arunachal ‘test case’ for citizenship to non-Muslims runs into rough weather | Hindustan Times

2017/05/31 Leave a comment

Some of the challenges of India’s diversity and pluralism:

The BJP’s “test case” for granting citizenship to non-Muslims who fled or are fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan has run into rough weather in Arunachal Pradesh.

Much before the issue of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh hit turbulence in Assam in 1979, Arunachal Pradesh grappled with Chakma and Hajong refugees displaced from erstwhile East Pakistan in the 1960s.

The Narendra Modi government’s decision to grant the Chakmas and Hajongs citizenship to honour a 2015 Supreme Court directive has stoked anger in the frontier state. Several NGOs have threatened to oppose the move.

Last Saturday, the All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union (AAPSU), the apex students’ body of the state, organised a consultative meeting of NGOs representing indigenous communities who fear being affected by Delhi’s decision.

“The Union home ministry took this decision despite assuring us otherwise. We vehemently oppose the move to grant citizenship to Chakma and Hajong refugees,” said AAPSU president Hawa Bagang. “We called an all-party meeting, where the presence of all 60 Arunachal MLAs and the state’s three MPs is mandatory.” The meeting is scheduled within a week, he said.

The students’ body, which launched the movement against the refugees in 1990, fears citizenship would reduce indigenous tribes such as Tai-Khampti, Singpho and Mishmi to a minority, besides robbing them of beneficiary schemes.

“Unlike the Tibetan refugees, who stay in designated camps, the Chakmas and Hajongs have spread out and established settlements by encroaching upon forest areas,” Bagang said.

The population of Chakmas and Hajongs was about 5,000 when Delhi had them moved to southern Arunachal Pradesh between 1964 and 1969. Their population is now about 100,000.

The AAPSU said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could be using the Chakma and Hajong refugees as a “test case for its Hindutva-centric plan to embrace non-Muslims from India’s neighbourhood, specifically Hindus from Bangladesh”.

Displaced by dam, religious persecution

Members of the Singpho tribe. Singphos and Tangsas are indigenous tribes of southern Arunachal Pradesh in whose area the Chakma and Hajong refugees were settled. (Pronib Das/HT Photo)

The Buddhist Chakma and Hindu Hajong refugees began trickling into India in the early 1960s via present-day Mizoram — then the Lushai Hills district of Assam — after the Kaptai dam project submerged their land in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).

Source: BJP’s Arunachal ‘test case’ for citizenship to non-Muslims runs into rough weather | india-news | Hindustan Times

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