Some good analysis of the effects on gender from some of the earlier policy and program changes to the citizenship program.
Not surprising but now data and evidence-based (disclosure: I have shared my citizenship data and talked with Neighbourhood Legal Services). IRCC does not publish a gender breakdown for citizenship unlike other programs:
According to data obtained under a freedom of information request, far more women than men have their citizenship applications rejected because they are unable to meet the knowledge or language requirements.
Between 2007 and March 2017, more than 56,000 people had their citizenship applications refused, the majority of them for failing the language and knowledge requirements, said Jennifer Stone of the Neighbourhood Legal Services, who requested the data after spotting a rising number of women coming to her office for help with their applications.
“Women and refugees are disproportionately affected by the language and knowledge requirements. Now we have data that could bear that out,” Stone said. “For them, it’s not a matter of won’t. It’s a matter of can’t.”
Stone said that in recent years the number citizenship cases received by her clinic has skyrocketed and the majority of clients having difficulty obtaining citizenship are refugee women or sponsored spouses.
A gender breakdown of the refusals showed that 24,286 or 60 per cent of the 41,071 who failed the citizenship knowledge test were women. Of the 14,779 who failed the language requirement, 66 per cent or 9,754 of them were female, according to the data.
Refugees appear to be disproportionally affected by the tightened citizenship requirements introduced by the former Conservative government: raising the passing mark for the citizenship exam, demanding proof of language proficiency and drastically increasing the non-refundable citizenship application fee to $530 from $100.
The number refugees who obtained their citizenship dropped by 25 per cent to 20,059 between 2010 and 2015 from 26,725 between 2005 and 2009.
By comparison, the citizenship conversion rate for those who came under family reunification declined by 19.6 per cent while the number of new citizens who immigrated under the economic class went up by 0.9 per cent.
Tenzin Tekan, a community legal worker with Parkdale legal clinic, said she was not surprised by the statistics.
“For someone with no formal education, it’s hard,” Tekan said. “We welcome the news about the changes (by the Liberals), but it’s not going to help everyone.”
Although there is a provision in the Citizenship Act that waives the knowledge requirement based on medical opinions that applicants will “never” pass the exam, it’s a long, tedious process.
To mark Canada Day, former hockey icon, writer and politician Ken Dryden remarks to new citizens of note:
I wasn’t sure but I thought I had heard that someone who has received an Order of Canada is able to preside at a citizenship ceremony. I emailed the citizenship office, and asked them, and told them about Jacques. About a month later, the office confirmed a date and a place.
The ceremony was held June 26 at the Senators’ home arena. Our daughter, continuing her work with refugees, was in Botswana with her family. Until the moment I was introduced by the Clerk of the Ceremony, Jacques and his family had no idea I would be there, in part, representing Sarah. And at that moment, my wife Lynda, who had been watching Jacques, snapped a picture of him with his mouth open.
It being Canada’s 150th birthday, 150 people received their citizenship that day. As the presiding official, I spoke briefly to them and to their families. This is what I said:
“I am very happy to be here. Happy to be here with some people I know—Jacques and Sarah, Daniela, Ivan, Naomi, Steve, and Pamela, the Bwira family, whom I met first in Uganda 14 years ago through our daughter. And happy to be here with all of you, to be part of, and to share with you, this special Canada-moment.
You are quite a sight.
You are from 49 countries. 49. Almost one quarter of all the nations on Earth! Here. Together. All of us Canadians.
I grew up in a very different Canada. In Etobicoke, a suburb of Toronto, and the kids I went to school with, their families had come to Canada usually many generations before, and almost all of them from Europe. Mine had come from Scotland, in 1834. Then as I got older, about 20 years ago, I went back to high school for a year to write a book about education. The school was just west of Etobicoke, in Mississauga, and by this time—1995—the classrooms were like this arena—filled with people from everywhere.
One of the big questions for me in writing the book was: how could a school like this work? All the different languages, the different cultures, in many cases students whose ancestors had fought one another, sometimes for centuries. Now all in one place, inside the same four walls. In the lunch room, you could see the divisions—the students sitting in clusters, the Chinese kids here, the Jamaican kids there, the Sri Lankan kids and others somewhere else—all of them separate and apart. But in classrooms, they had to sit next to each other—not quite comfortably at first, but then not thinking about it, then just doing it, then, often without realizing it, getting to know each other a little, then, over time, even learning from each other. It was remarkable to watch and see.
Other countries have people from lots of places too—like you, I’ve been to many of those countries—but they have more divisions. More tensions. Why is it different here? Maybe because our history is shorter, maybe because we have so much space and didn’t have to live on top of each other. Maybe because we’ve always had to live with division—our many different Indigenous peoples, later our French and English settlers—we had to learn to be tolerant, accepting, patient, to “live and let live.” But maybe too because as Canadians we have never seen Canada as something already fully formed, something that long-standing Canadians created, that new Canadians could only adapt to. Where some people feel fully Canadian, and others don’t. Instead, we’ve always been willing to put Canada on the table in front of all of us, for all of us to share, so that Canada can be, and is, our focus, not what our life was and used to be.
To me, this isn’t a multicultural society we are creating in Canada. It’s a “multiculture,” something that all of us are building, and building every day. That is different all the time. A place that changes us, but that we—all of us, old and new Canadians—change too. A place, and a future, we can all feel a part of.
And something else too—it’s our message to ourselves as Canadians and to each other, an understanding we share—that in Canada, we get along. That seems pretty simple, but it’s crucial in an increasingly global world. We get along here. We ask this of each other. We expect it. And need for it to be. This understanding and way of life is now part of your legacy, your new life, your obligation to the future.
I know that as you sit here you are grateful to Canada for opening its doors to you. For giving you this gift. I know too, you are proud to be Canadian. But you also need to know that we are grateful to you. I just got back from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan—countries of the old Silk Road—that connected China and Mongolia through Central Asia, to the Middle East, to the Mediterranean—and eventually to North and South America. It was not just a connection of silk and other goods, but when goods move, people move, learning moves, technologies move, philosophies and religions move, ideas and cultures move. We are grateful to you because when you came here from your original home countries, you brought with you your cultures, your ideas, your learnings. You are helping to make Canada a modern Silk Road country. You are helping to make Canada a more compelling, dynamic, creative, and interesting place. And this act of creation, this is what all of us—new and old Canadians—are doing together. So that whatever Canada has been in the past, we will be so much more in the future. And what that Canada will be, what we, all of us, will be in that future, I have no idea. And that is the best part.
So congratulations! Good luck to all of you. Good luck to all of us.”
After my talk, I asked these soon-to-be Canadians to take the Oath of Citizenship, reading out one line at a time for them to repeat, giving the entire oath in English, then in French. Most of the 150 said the oath in both languages. Then these new Canadians came up on stage to receive their certificates, one by one, families coming together.
One hundred and fifty of them: 17 from the Philippines, 11 (including the Bwiras) from Congo, 10 from Haiti and the U.S., eight from Colombia and the U.K., six from Morocco and Pakistan, five from Senegal and Sri Lanka, four from China and India. There were 125 adults and 25 children, 78 males, 72 females, 102 primarily English-speakers, 48 French. Two men came up a ramp in wheelchairs, one wore a wide, bright, red-and-white Canada tie. Another man wore a Sydney 2000 Olympics tie. His son, Simon Whitfield, had won a gold medal in the triathlon and was Canada’s flag-bearer in the closing ceremonies. Originally from Australia, the father wanted to share his Canada-moment with his son. The oldest recipient was 75, the two youngest were four. There were 23 families, of two or more; three families of five. The Bwiras, with six, were the largest family present. Almost everyone came up those stairs with a smile and a look of pride. Almost everyone was dressed up in their best, whatever their best was. Each arrived at that moment in that place with their own special story, just like the Bwiras.
The formal part of the ceremony was over. Now it was time to get informal. This was a day of solemnity, and celebration. I said to these 150 new Canadians:
“As you know, this is a hockey arena, the home of the Ottawa Senators. And in this new home of yours, Canada, there is a tradition, that when a team wins a championship, they all gather together on the ice for a team photo. Well, today, in receiving your Canadian citizenship, I think you’ve all won the championship. So let’s everybody come up here near the stage for your team picture—Team Citizenship Canada 2017.
They jammed into the open space between the stage and the seats, the kids at the front, others stood in the rows behind them. And because this was a championship photo, some of the kids lay on their sides on the concrete floor and others kneeled around them, their “We’re Number 1” fingers raised, waving small Canadian flags.
It was time to close the ceremony. I went back up on the stage, everyone was still standing, and said, “I began this morning by saying you are an amazing sight. Why don’t you all take a moment—all of you—and look around, take your time, look at each other, look at this amazing sight you have created. And never forget what you see.”
Our 150th birthday offers Canadians a chance to pause, to see where we were and where we are, and imagine what we might be. A new immigrant’s eyes are even more acute. Immigrants have lived somewhere else, they are here each for their own very good reasons, they see Canada with fresh, deep clarity. For them, receiving their citizenship represents a great new beginning. They are here, finally. They have found solid ground. They are able, now, step by step, to build a future that is absolutely possible, for themselves, for their children, for generations of their families ahead. For me, it was a chance to see Canada, Canada at 150, through their eyes.
Pretty scandalous on many accounts. Revocation on grounds of fraud or misrepresentation?
Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of Paypal, was granted New Zealandcitizenship despite spending only 12 days in the country, new documents have revealed.
The government ombudsmen has forced New Zealand authorities to release further details of Thiel’s highly unusual citizenship process because it was deemed in the public interest.
On Thursday, Nathan Guy – who oversaw Thiel’s citizenship application as minister of internal affairs in 2011 – said Theil had been “a great ambassador for New Zealand, a great salesperson”. “He is a fine individual, good character, he has invested a lot in New Zealand, he’s got great reach into the US and I am very comfortable with the decision that I made.”
The billionaire entrepreneur who is a close adviser to Donald Trump, was granted New Zealand citizenship in June 2011, after taking four brief trips to the country. He made it clear he had no immediate plans to settle in the country.
The usual route to citizenship requires applicants to be in New Zealand as a permanent resident for at least 1,350 days in the five years preceding an application.
The New Zealand government granted Thiel citizenship due to his “exceptional circumstances”, and because it was understood he would promote New Zealand on the global stage, and provide introductions and contacts for New Zealand start-ups in Silicon Valley.
Official information documents stated Thiel’s “exceptional circumstances” related to “his skills as an entrepreneur and his philanthropy”, which were deemed to be of potential benefit to New Zealanders and the country. The formal citizenship process took place in a private ceremony in Santa Monica in 2011.
In his application for citizenship Thiel stated that although he had no plans to reside in New Zealand, and did not work for a New Zealand business overseas, he intended to “represent the country on the international stage”. He also donated NZ$1m to the Christchurch earthquake relief fund, and bought prime land and luxury homes in New Zealand.
Despite this intention Thiel never appeared to mention his New Zealand citizenship in any public capacity – it was revealed by New Zealand media this year.
Labour’s immigration spokesman Iain Lees-Galloway told Radio NZ that Thiel was not promoting New Zealand internationally as he’d stated in his application, as no one knew about his citizenship or ties to New Zealand for six years.
“If Peter Thiel was an amazing ambassador and salesperson for New Zealand we would have found out he was a citizen of New Zealand because he would have told the world that he was a citizen of New Zealand,” Lees-Galloway said. “He kept it under wraps. He hasn’t gone around telling the world that he’s a citizen of New Zealand and that he’s proud of New Zealand.”
The number of Americans applying for Canadian citizenship jumped slightly after Donald Trump’s election, but numbers are still only half what they were five years ago.
New statistics from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada obtained by the National Post show an average of 400 U.S. citizens put in their applications in each the first four months of this year, compared to an average of 264 per month in 2016 — including a spike in applications in November, the month Trump was elected.
But overall — despite reports of the immigration website crashing on election night, and earnest tourism campaigns sprouting in Cape Breton, N.S. — the trend line has gone down in the past couple of years.
In the decade since 2007, applications peaked in 2011, with an average of 564 Americans per month applying to become Canadians.
A batch of data to the end of 2016 was obtained through the access-to-information system and newer numbers were provided by Immigration spokesman Rémi Larivière. The numbers do not include Americans who may have moved to Canada recently to become permanent residents, or who already live here — just those who are applying for citizenship to seal the deal.
The website for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada crashed Nov. 8 while Americans were voting in their presidential election.
In the lead-up to the election, the idea of moving to Canada became a popular tongue-in-cheek reaction to the prospect of either electoral outcome — with Americans deeply divided between supporting Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, and many apparently voting against one or the other rather than for them. It appeared some were taking it more seriously when the immigration website crashed.
All of the traffic was not necessarily election-related, however. The first day of a new system requiring visa-free travellers to apply for Electronic Travel Authorizations was Nov. 10, and had visitors heading to the site to fill out forms and pay $7 fees.
Andrew Griffith, retired director general of the Immigration Department, said the changes are long overdue and should have been passed last year if the opposition parties had not dragged the debate on.
“It’s good that the bill is through,” Griffith told the Star. “It delivered the Liberal government’s campaign commitment to facilitate citizenship, that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. It has shifted the overall balance somewhat to facilitate (access to) citizenship.”
However, Griffith was disappointed that Ottawa has chosen not to deal with the exorbitant citizenship application fees — $630 for adults [$530 administration processing and $100 right of citizenship fee] and $100 for minors [plus $100 right of citizenship] — that some said have prevented eligible applicants, especially refugees, from becoming full-fledged Canadians.
“The issue that remains for me is the fee,” said Griffith. “If the government really believed in diversity and inclusion, they should ensure it is not an insurmountable financial barrier for people to become citizens.”
Same logic would apply in Canadian cases of misrepresentation, whether it was material or not:
The justices unanimously rejected the government’s position that it could revoke the citizenship of Americans who made even trivial misstatements in their naturalization proceedings.
During arguments in April, several justices seemed indignant and incredulous at the government’s hard-line approach in the case, Maslenjak v. United States, No. 16-309.
They asked about a form that people seeking American citizenship must complete. It requires applicants to say, for instance, whether they had ever committed a criminal offense, however minor, even if there was no arrest. A government lawyer, in response to questioning, said that failing to disclose a speeding violation could be enough to revoke citizenship even years later.
Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan said that the law required a tighter connection between the lie and the procurement of citizenship.
“We hold that the government must establish that an illegal act by the defendant played some role in her acquisition of citizenship,” she wrote. “When the illegal act is a false statement, that means demonstrating that the defendant lied about facts that would have mattered to an immigration official, because they would have justified denying naturalization or would predictably have led to other facts warranting that result.”
The case concerned Divna Maslenjak, an ethnic Serb who said she had faced persecution in Bosnia. She was granted refugee status, at least partly on that basis, and became a United States citizen in 2007.
In the process, she made a false statement about her husband, saying she and her family had also feared retribution because he had avoided conscription by the Bosnian Serb military. In fact, he had served in a Bosnian Serb military unit, one that had been implicated in war crimes.
When this came to light, Ms. Maslenjak was charged with obtaining her citizenship illegally. She sought to argue that her lie was immaterial, but the trial judge told the jury that any lie, however significant, was enough. Ms. Maslenjak was convicted, her citizenship was ordered revoked, and she and her husband were deported to Serbia.
The Supreme Court, having ruled that Ms. Maslenjak had been convicted under the wrong standard, returned the case to the lower courts to consider whether the government may try the case again under the stricter standard.
Given the significance of Ms. Maslenjak’s lie, she may lose again in a retrial.
Granting citizenship to children born in Italy of immigrant parents is the right thing to do and will make Italy safer, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Saturday.
The so-called “ius soli” (“law of the soil” in Latin) bill has become a hot-button issue after last Sunday’s local elections which saw strong gains by the rightwing, anti-immigrant Northern League across Italy.
In remarks at a televised forum organized by La Repubblica newspaper in the northern city of Bologna, the center-left prime minister rebutted opponents of the bill.
The ius soli bill, which is supported by center-left parties and the business sector, would grant citizenship to children born in Italy of foreign parents, and to kids who have spent at least five years in the Italian school system.
Its opponents — the rightwing Northern League party and the euro-skeptic Five Star Movement — claimed it will give potential extremists a legal foothold in Italian society, that it is tantamount to an “ethnic substitution”, and that it is “an unvotable mess”.
“I know a part of parliament and of public opinion looks upon (the ius soli bill) with diffidence,” Gentiloni said. “We musn’t pretend they don’t exist.”
The prime minister explained that citizenship implies rights but also duties, and that is in the interests of the country to include children who are already Italian in everything but their passport, and who will grow into productive members of the society.
“We musn’t allow room for the notion that…we underestimate the significance of our culture and our identity,” Gentiloni said. Granting citizenship to children born in Italy is a sign of strength, not weakness, he added.
The prime minister also replied to those who “agitate the spectre of a threat to our security in a wholly unjustified way”. Counter-terrorism experience teaches that the only way to root out and prevent radicalism is social inclusion, not marginalization and discrimination, Gentiloni said.
“To those who stoke such fears, we must say extending citizenship to these children…is not just a matter of conscience and civil rights, but also one of security,” Gentiloni said.
“The time has come to consider these children as Italian citizens to all effects,” the prime minister said. “We owe it to them, it is the right thing to do, and I hope parliament (approves the bill) very soon, in the coming weeks.”
The ius soli bill was first proposed by an immigrant rights campaign called Italia Sono Anch’Io (I Also Am Italy), which gathered 200,000 signatures on a petition to parliament in 2011-2012.
Supporters of the bill argue that it grants rights to children who are already de facto Italians, boosts Italy’s aging population, and contributes to the national economy by giving them a reason to stay in the country, work, consume and pay taxes.
Daily Australian citizenship debate news following Labor’s refusal to back the proposed changes:
Labor has accused the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, of using changes to Australia’s citizenship laws as a campaign for the Liberal leadership and has confirmed it will oppose the package.
The Labor caucus on Tuesday morning signed off on a recommendation to block the government’s citizenship changes, which the shadow minister for citizenship and multiculturalism, Tony Burke, described as a “massive overreach”.
Burke told reporters the government’s legislation took some steps, “which, put simply, Australia should never take – and are inconsistent with who we are as a country”.
Labor’s decision to reject the package followed the ventilation of strong concerns internally from MPs from both the right and left factions about core elements of the changes, including the new English language test and residency requirements.
The government, which has attempted to elevate the proposed changes to a national security issue, leapt on Labor’s opposition.
The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, declared Labor “does not value Australian citizenship enough to say, as we do, that it must be more than simply the outcome of an administrative tick and flick form-filling process”.
Turnbull said the title, and the role of Australian citizen, “is the most important in our democracy”.
“Surely we care enough about our democracy, about citizenship, to say that it should be given, granted to people who make a commitment to our nation and share our values”.
“This demonstrates to all Australians that Labor is completely divided on the citizenship bill.”
He said would-be citizens needed to “abide by Australian laws, to abide by Australian values”.
Burke said Labor had taken the decision to reject the proposal unanimously because core elements of the package were deeply unacceptable.
He said the proposed language test required a university level grasp of English and “what sort of snobbery leads a government to say, unless you reach a university level of English, we’d rather you weren’t here?”
Burke said if there was “a national security problem” for people in the country already living as permanent residents, “then why on earth does the government have them already living here permanently?”
“It is a leadership campaign for Peter Dutton,” Burke said Tuesday. “It is a very silly game, and a very dangerous game, because he is not just playing with some random law here or there, he is talking about the thing that defines who we are as a nation.
“You don’t play games with that”.
The government will now have to rely on crossbench votes to pursue the citizenship package and Dutton told parliament the government did not intend to “back down”.
The proposal the government is seeking to legislate extends permanent residency requirements from one year to “at least four years” before someone can apply for citizenship and requires most applicants to provide evidence of “competent” English-language proficiency before they can become a citizen.
It would also give the immigration minister power to overrule decisions on citizenship applications by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal if the minister doesn’t think the decisions are in the national interest, and also give the minister power to decide whether or not the applicant has integrated into the Australian community.
Labor proposes to send the legislation to a Senate inquiry.
Burke said on Tuesday if that inquiry threw up “sensible changes”, which could be considered calmly, then the government could bring forward a new package and Labor would look at it.
Useful backgrounder on the changes in Bill C-6 and the coming into force provisions.
Short summary for the key changes: repeal of revocation in cases of terror or treason and the intent to reside provision immediately, changes to residency, pre-Permanent Resident time partial credit, and age requirements for language and knowledge assessment this fall. Changes to the revocation procedures in cases of fraud or misrepresentation expected early 2018.
Bill C-6, an Act to amend the Citizenship Act and make consequential amendments to another Act, received Royal Assent on June 16, 2017. This chart explains the changes that have been made to the Citizenship Act and indicates when these changes are expected to come into force.
Follow-up interview to CBS’s 60 Minute exposé of citizenship-by-investment schemes. Long article but interviews revealing:
It’s provided St. Kitts and Nevis with hundreds of millions of dollars for infrastructure projects, private development, and tourism but a lot of the money is unaccounted for. More than 10,000 people have purchased citizenship here, but it’s almost impossible to tell who they are because the information is not public. Chris Kalin doesn’t like the words citizenship for cash, or any suggestion that all you need is money to get a passport.
Chris Kalin: You have to go through a process. You have to apply. And you have to answer a million questions. And you have to undergo a background verification. And you have, at least in the properly run programs, you have to be a reputable person. And that’s checked.
But evidently, not that carefully. About the only way to identify people who have purchased St. Kitts citizenship is if they’ve happened to turn up on a list of international fugitives or gotten in trouble with the law, and St. Kitts and Nevis has had more than its share for two sleepy, little islands. Its passport holders have included a Canadian penny stock manipulator… a Russian wanted for bribery… a Kazak wanted for embezzlement… two Ukrainians suspected of bribing a U.N. official… and two Chinese women wanted for financial crimes.
Chris Kalin: I think it’s no secret that these islands have made decisions that are not always optimal.
Steve Kroft: They’ve taken some bozos, as you would call them?
Chris Kalin: Yes, exactly.
Steve Kroft: What about crooks?
Chris Kalin: Yes. It’s goes all the way down to crooks, yeah, absolutely. And it tended for some time to attract quite a few people that I would never let into the country. But I’m not the government of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Steve Kroft: But you set up their program.
Chris Kalin: We helped to set up the program. But, you know, as it is, advisers advise, ministers decide.
The island nation drew the ire of the U.S. Treasury Department three years ago after three suspected Iranian operatives were caught using their St. Kitts passports to launder money for banks in Tehran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It also had to recall more than 5,000 passports because they either didn’t include a place of birth or were issued to people who had changed their names. Since then a number of reforms have been made, but questions remain.
Peter Vincent: They’re not transparent programs. There are not safeguards in place.
Until 2014, Peter Vincent was the top legal adviser for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the department of Homeland Security, which he says is well aware of all the vulnerabilities. In fact, before General John F. Kelly became secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, he expressed concern in a 2015 report that “cash for passport programs could be exploited by criminals, terrorists or other nefarious actors.”
Steve Kroft: Does that present a security threat, do you think?
Peter Vincent: It does. In my opinion, the global community has established a very effective global security architecture to prevent terrorist attacks. I see these cash for citizenship programs as a gaping hole in that security architecture.
Government of Antigua and Barbuda’s Citizenship by Investment Unit
CBS NEWS
But it’s not stopped the programs from multiplying across the Caribbean…Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and Antigua are all competing with St. Kitts now for customers and badly needed cash.
Gaston Browne: So what are we supposed to do? Sit back and do nothing? You tell me.
Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, says the revenue from its four-year-old program has kept the government from defaulting on its international loans and has turned the economy around. Antigua also claims to have among the strictest programs in the Caribbean. You actually have to show up here to get citizenship, albeit very briefly.
Gaston Browne: Our law provides them to spend at least five days here.
Steve Kroft: That sounds like a vacation.
Gaston Browne: Yes. I understand. But however, we have made sure that at least there must be some face-to-face contact so we know who these people are.
Steve Kroft: For five days.
Gaston Browne: Minimum.
Steve Kroft: What kinda people are you looking for?
Gaston Browne: We’re lookin’ for high net worth individuals. People who are established business people. Who are well-known. And to make sure that we get the crème de la crème.
If so, they are recruiting them in some odd places. Last summer, Antigua announced it was opening an embassy in Baghdad hoping to sell passports to Iraqis. It didn’t work out. But it’s doing better next door in Syria after hiring a relative of President Bashar Al-Assad to represent them.
Steve Kroft: Have you had any applications from Syria?
Gaston Browne: Yes. We have had applications from Syria.
Steve Kroft: And you’ve approved them.
Gaston Browne: Syria is one of the areas in which we have had some concerns but did not place it on a restricted list.
Prime Minister Browne told us instability breeds opportunity. Besides Syria, Antigua has sold citizenship to Iranians, Libyans, Pakistanis, and the people who brought condos in this half-built complex in the desert outside Dubai, 7,300 miles away from Antigua. Its website advertised, “Buy a villa in the UAE and get citizenship of Antigua.”
Steve Kroft: I mean, you said that you were looking for the crème de la crème.
Gaston Browne: Crème de la crème.
Steve Kroft: I mean, there’s a developer in Dubai.
Gaston Browne: Yes.
Steve Kroft: Sweet Homes.
Gaston Browne: Yes.
Steve Kroft: Who is advertising that he’s giving away passports to anyone who buys a condominium there.
Gaston Browne: You don’t believe that, right?
Steve Kroft: Like you open a bank account, you get a free toaster.
Gaston Browne: That is not so.
Browne dismissed the sweet homes ads as advertising hype, saying the citizenship is not free or guaranteed. Somebody has to come up with $250,000 for Antigua and condo buyers must pass a background check.
Gaston Browne: You have to go through all of the due diligence.
Steve Kroft: What kinda due diligence do you do?
Gaston Browne: Well, and that is where the crux of the matter lies.
A diplomatic passport from Dominica
CBS NEWS
The prime minister claimed that the names of all applicants for Antiguan citizenship are screened by American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and generally speaking due diligence in the Caribbean has improved substantially since the scandals in St. Kitts. The small island offices with a few people are now backed up by international firms that take the screening to a higher level. But ultimately it’s up to each country to decide who gets a passport, and the Caribbean has a rich history of turning a blind eye to official corruption. It’s affected the way the way passports are handed out, especially diplomatic passports, that entitle the bearer to all sorts of special privileges, which Peter Vincent says represents a much more serious security threat.
Peter Vincent: The border officials at the receiving country, even without a visa, almost always admit an individual carrying a diplomatic passport. In addition, border forces are not entitled to search the luggage of diplomats like they are for regular tourists. They simply wave them through.
The sale of diplomatic passports is not part of the citizenship by investment program, but it’s gone on under the table, according to U.S. authorities, in places like Dominica, which has had a lot of dodgy diplomats.
Lennox Linton: We had a diplomatic passport in the hands of Francesco Corallo, who, at the time, was on INTERPOL’s list of most-wanted criminals.
Lennox Linton, who heads the opposition in Parliament, says no one in Dominica had ever heard of Corallo until he was stopped by authorities in Italy.
Lennox Linton: He said, “You can’t detain me. I’m a diplomat.” They said, “Diplomat? Diplomat of where?” He said, “Dominica.”
Then there’s Dominican diplomat Alison Madueke, a former Nigerian oil minister charged with bribery and money laundering. And Rudolph King, a Bahamian fugitive from U.S. justice, who presented himself as Dominica’s special envoy to Bahrain.
Lennox Linton: What we were doing with an ambassador in Bahrain, I don’t quite know. But they seem to think that there was some benefit in there for us.
Steve Kroft: I assume that you’ve asked the prime minister…
Lennox Linton: Yes.
Steve Kroft: How he ended up appointing these people, diplomats.
Lennox Linton: Yes.
Steve Kroft: And what was the answer?
Lennox Linton: The prime minister doesn’t answer those questions.
With vast sums of money flowing into these island nations, and more and more countries selling their citizenship, there is consensus that still more oversight and transparency is needed. But privacy and secrecy have always been a major selling point for people buying multiple passports, including Chris Kalin, the man who invented the business plan.
Steve Kroft: How many do you have?
Chris Kalin: I have multiple.
Steve Kroft: So you don’t wanna tell us how many you have?
Chris Kalin: There’s a few things in my life that, that I don’t talk openly about. And I keep for myself. But I am Swiss originally and many people think I’m very Swiss and so I’ll leave it at that.
Our report in January sparked a flurry of reaction in the Caribbean. In Dominica, there were riots demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit for his handling of diplomatic passports. He denies any improprieties. The St. Kitts government deactivated more than 15,000 passports, including 91 diplomatic passports. And Antigua’s program — singled out by the U.S. State Department as “among the most lax in the world” — has also recalled many of its diplomatic passports.
Multicultural Meanderings 