‘Stateless’ Ottawa-born man loses bid for citizenship

2014/09/12 Leave a comment

Latest update on the Budlakoti case.

In the end, keeping him in limbo rather than acknowledging his statelessness and regularizing his status, while reinforcing the overall Government messaging on fraud, is likely to be more costly, in terms of ongoing legal appeals and that he cannot work:

Budlakoti had no idea he wasn’t an official Canadian citizen until May 2010 when he ran afoul of the law. He was sentenced to three years in prison for weapons and cocaine trafficking, and ordered deported in December 2011 based on what federal officials deemed his “serious criminality.”

But India rejected him. Indian officials said Budlakoti is not a citizen and have refused Canada’s request to issue him travel documents.

It means that Budlakoti continues to live under the restrictive terms of a federal deportation order that can’t be enforced. He must report every month to the Canada Border Services Agency and live with his family. His other family members, including his parents, are all Canadian citizens.

For his part, Budlakoti contends he is effectively stateless: living in a legal limbo without health care, social services or employment opportunities.

‘Stateless’ Ottawa-born man loses bid for citizenship | Ottawa Citizen.

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FATCA/CBT: See You in Court

2014/09/11 Leave a comment

The Canadian angle:

Today, the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty ADCS-ADSC retained Jim Butera, a Washington D.C. attorney with Jones Walker LLP. Mr. Butera will explore legal options to reverse practices of the United States government preventing Canadian citizens who are “Accidental Americans” from freeing themselves of U.S. citizenship and obligations.

Accidental Americans include those born in the U.S. but who left the United States at a young age to live permanently in another country. Although they have no meaningful ties to the U.S., they are claimed as “U.S. citizens” and subject to lifetime taxation on their non-U.S. income. Accidental Americans not compliant with the Internal Revenue Service IRS are considered by the U.S. to be “tax cheats” not paying their “fair share”.

The Franco-American Flophouse: FATCA/CBT: See You in Court.

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Show us your citizenship: why the Tony Abbott birthers want to believe | Cam Smith

2014/09/10 Leave a comment

Australian left-wing conspiracy theories, just as nutty on the left and the US “birthers” on the right vis-a-vis Obama:

Why are people so willing to believe this stuff? Like the Obama birth certificate crowd, the idea that a hated politician can be brought undone without going through all the rigmarole of building a true political alternative is attractive. The proposition of Abbott facing karmic justice for the harsh nature of his government’s policies only adds to that attraction.

What is largely forgotten in the excitement is that this sort of thing can easily go both ways. If Abbott could be bundled off to the slammer for defrauding the Commonwealth in this way, why not honorary Israeli citizen Bob Hawke, or any other of the many MPs who have knowingly or unknowingly entered parliament as dual citizens over the decades.

Jello Biafra once gave some excellent advice: it’s possible to mix arthritis cream with hallucinogens and spread the resulting mixture on the doorhandles of police cars in order to dose the occupants.

He also gave some more relevant advice in 2012, at the Melbourne Festival. Appearing on a panel with The Church singer Steve Kilbey, Biafra said that rather than getting distracted by conspiracy theories about things that you couldn’t possibly hope to change, even if they were true, your time is better served by working towards more practical political goals.

Show us your citizenship: why the Tony Abbott birthers want to believe | Cam Smith | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

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What happened to Kenney’s cracking down on birth tourism? Feds couldn’t do it alone | hilltimes.com

2014/09/09 3 Comments

From my piece in the Hill Times (pay wall) on birth tourism or “anchor babies:”

But it is clear, that allegations of abuse play to the value Canadians attach to fairness, and fits into the overall government message and politics of cracking down on fraud.

But the evidence we have is clear: there is no business case to inconvenience millions of Canadians, for whom a birth certificate may no longer be sufficient identification, and cost taxpayers significant amounts to address a tiny problem.

Alexander’s spokesperson recently stated, refreshingly, that decisions will be “informed by facts,” rather than anecdotes.

What general lessons can we draw from this?

First, anecdotes drive identification of policy issues.

Second, rhetoric runs ahead of evidence.

Third, the provinces provided the most effective brake on anecdote-driven policy given that any workable response required their cooperation. Contrast this to the Citizenship Act changes, where the government had no need to be flexible.

Fourth, funding implications and provincial constraints ensured evidence trumped anecdote.

What happened to Kenney’s cracking down on birth tourism? Feds couldn’t do it alone | hilltimes.com.

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Intergenerational Circular Migration

2014/09/09 Leave a comment

Victoria Ferauge on David Cook-Martin’s book on circular migration:

All of these things are described and documented in David Cook-Martin’s book, The Scramble for Citizens: Dual Nationality and State Competition for Immigrants 2013.

He uses the case of Argentina – a country that experienced mass immigration from two European countries of emigration, Spain and Italy.  His point is that this process of welcoming and assimilating immigration is not uni-directional;  it can be reversed in a process that he calls “dis-assimilation.”

“I argue that the citizenship link can be reconfigured because competitive dynamics have produced particular membership patterns that under propitious institutional and structural conditions affect individuals relation to states, the nation, and the resources they monopolize.  People assumed to have been culturally integrated and embraced by a nationalizing state are becoming differentiated along specific and significant dimensions.”

Interesting argument and, if true, easy to see how this might be a bit disconcerting for countries of immigration and downright destructive of a democratic nation-states ambitions to make and keep citizens.  Why?

The first my point is how it skews citizen equality in a particular nation-state that has traditionally been a country of immigration.  A US citizen who is born with the potential for another citizenship is in a much better position to emigrate then his fellow citizens who don’t have that possibility.   The former will find it easier to be globally mobile, while the latter must stand in line and apply often in vain for the right to enter another country.

An individual who wishes to emigrate back to his parents or grandparents country will find that the move is facilitated though that country’s citizenship law and he will arrive in that country, not as a migrant, but as a full citizen.  That is a pretty powerful incentive provided that there are other positive factors in that decision like good employment prospects.  Furthermore, since this emigration is facilitated by blood ties it:

  1. Favors the children of more recent immigration those whose families are “native” for many generations wont have this option and
  2. It’s not strictly about class or money  – a working class person can, at least in theory, take advantage of it just as easily as those Highly Qualified Migrants provided that an individual has the right parents or grandparents. However, Cook-Martin says that it is mostly the struggling middle-classes that take the opportunity.

The second (his point) is that it is the very act of seeking to claim that citizenship in another country changes people.  As they document and it is much easier to find that documentation with good 20th century record keeping the history of their families and the original move to another country, what started out as a purely practical exercise a “just in case” second passport becomes something else.   They create an emotional tie to the ancestral country.

He talks about this in the long chapter “The Quest for Grandmas Passport.”  As much as some of his contacts talked about how the second passport was “just a piece of paper,” a kind of hedge against the devaluation of their own nationality, they were going to a lot of trouble to get it.  Days, weeks, months of digging through archives to find documentation.  “Clients are emotionally overcome when a search is successful” and they are “thrilled” to have the proof in their hands.  Clearly, that second citizenship is “meaningful” to them, though their attachment is going to be very different from that of a citizen actually born and raised in the ancestral country.

Combine this with concerns over “citizens of convenience” and economic opportunities, we have further variants of instrumental views of citizenship.

Intergenerational Circular Migration

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Douglas Todd: Ameri-Canadians point fury at Uncle Sam

2014/09/08 Leave a comment

Good column by Douglas Todd on American Canadians and the impact of FATCA:

But, except for writing this column, I basically never think of myself as having American origins. If someone asks about my ethnic background, I tend to emphasize my roots in England, Ireland and Wales. As a result of all these cultural forces downplaying what The Canadian Encyclopedia calls “overt displays of American consciousness,” many don’t realize some of the most influential Canadians were born in the United States.

They include economist C.D. Howe, CP Rail tycoon William Van Horne, White Spot founder Nat Bailey, fiction writers William Gibson, Robert Munsch and Jane Rule, journalists Barbara Frum, Jack Todd and Jeffrey Simpson, politicians Diane Ablonczy, Jim Green, Stanley Knowles and Elizabeth May, political commentator Tom Flanagan, scholar Jane Jacobs, athletes Donald Brashear and Jarome Iginla and actors Lauren Holly, Robin Thicke, Matt Frewer and Colm Feore.

Now — with FATCA causing investigators to scour the globe to hunt down more than seven million broadly defined “U.S. persons” it claims should be paying taxes to Uncle Sam — even more people in Canada with U.S. connections are finding another reason to bury their American identities.

Instead of just trying to be sensitive to fellow Canadians’ “vague hostility” towards the U.S., many Ameri-Canadians are experiencing an increase in their fury toward Uncle Sam.

Douglas Todd: Ameri-Canadians point fury at Uncle Sam.

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David Cameron seeks to seize passports of Islamist fighters

2014/09/03 Leave a comment

From The Economist

From The Economist

More on efforts to curb home-grown radicalization in the UK. While these are “hard” approaches to prevention, UK has also invested considerably in “soft” approaches as well.

As with all these initiatives, particularly their expanded application of revocation to prevent born-Britons without dual nationality to return home, questions about who decides and whether the person accused can defend himself.

One thing to hold them for investigation (legitimate), another to make a decision without due process.

One could argue that refusing entry, understandable from a security perspective, simply means that any such extremist would return to Syria or Iraq to continue their brutality, rather than being under the watch of the police in the UK:

“There are two key areas where we need to strengthen our powers to fill specific gaps in our armoury. These are around preventing suspects from travelling and dealing decisively with those already here who pose a risk.”

David Cameron’s new anti-terrorism proposals come days after the U.K. raised its terrorism alert to its second-highest level.

Cameron said he would bring in new “specific and targeted legislation” to give the police powers to temporarily seize a suspects passport at the border to give authorities time to investigate them. Currently only Britain’s interior minister has the power to withdraw a passport.

He also said the government would consult on a discretionary power to prevent Britons from returning home if they have pledged allegiance to extremist causes. This would extend existing powers which can only be applied to foreign nationals, naturalized citizens and those with dual nationalities.

David Cameron seeks to seize passports of Islamist fighters – World – CBC News.

Meanwhile, in Canada, more on the RCMP’s High Risk Travel Case Management Group approach to prevention (see also 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada):

While the report’s emphasis is on prevention and intervention, several recent cases related to the Syrian conflict have raised questions about the effectiveness of efforts to reason with determined youths blinded by zeal.

After serving a prison sentence for his role in the Toronto 18 terrorist group, which plotted bomb and shooting attacks in southern Ontario, Ali Dirie used a fraudulent passport to travel to Syria, where he fought and died last August.

A British Columbia man charged with terrorism in July, Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, was known to Canadian authorities because of a previous trip he had made to Afghanistan. Although he was on a no-fly list, he still managed to make his way to Syria using a passport that did not belong to him.

When Ahmad Waseem returned to Windsor, Ont. after he was wounded in combat in Syria, his mother hid his passport, his mosque counseled him and police spoke to him. But he returned to Syria last year and now calls the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham his “brothers.” He has been charged with passport fraud.“

Early intervention through a joint community/law enforcement response is no guarantee that a person will not radicalize to violence,” the report says. “However, early intervention is one constructive way to deter potential violent extremists from causing harm.”

Canadian government plans ‘targeted interventions’ to stop citizens from joining armed Islamists in Syria

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Ontario says No to removing citizenship by birth on soil | Toronto Star

2014/09/02 Leave a comment

Expect that Ontario, which accounts for 37 percent of all births in Canada, essentially killed federal plans when it formally notified CIC in September 2012 of its opposition:

“In our view, there is not enough evidence to justify the effort and expense required for such a system-wide program change. Citizenship and immigration Canada has not quantified the extent of fraud resulting from ‘birth tourism,’’ said Ontario Deputy Immigration Minister Chisanga Puta-Chekwe.

“At this time, there is insufficient data to demonstrate the demand placed on Ontario’s economy or public services from ‘birth tourists,’” he wrote in a letter to Ottawa, dated September 6, 2012, after a technical briefing on the plan. A copy of the province’s response was obtained by the Star this week.

On Friday, a spokesperson for Ontario Immigration Minister Michael Chan said the province has not changed its position.“While citizenship is the sole responsibility of the federal government under Canada’s constitution, any proposed change to citizenship policy can have profound impact on the provinces and territories,” said the spokesperson.

“Adequate time needs to be taken to understand the full implications of any change in policy. Canada needs to get this right, in partnership with provinces and territories.”

Ontario says No to removing citizenship by birth on soil | Toronto Star.

Direct link to the DM letter here, along with some other related Ontario documents:

ON – Letter from ON DM Citizenship and Immigration to CIC DM 6 Sep 2012

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The Franco-American Flophouse: US Citizenship Renunciation Fees to be Raised 422%

2014/09/02 Leave a comment

Victoria Ferauge on the increase in fees for citizenship renunciation (looks like a tax grab to me):

Well, its a complicated labor-intensive procedure:

“The CoSM demonstrated that documenting a U.S. citizen’s renunciation of citizenship is extremely costly, requiring American consular officers overseas to spend substantial amounts of time to accept, process, and adjudicate cases. For example, consular officers must confirm that the potential renunciant fully understands the consequences of renunciation, including losing the right to reside in the United States without documentation as an alien. Other steps include verifying that the renunciant is a U.S. citizen, conducting a minimum of two intensive interviews with the potential renunciant, and reviewing at least three consular systems before administering the oath of renunciation. The final approval of the loss of nationality must be done by law within the Directorate of Overseas Citizens Services in Washington, D.C., after which the case is returned to the consular officer overseas for final delivery of the Certificate of Loss of Nationality to the renunciant.”

And demand for this service is strong yep, they say that.  450 USD, they say, was already below cost and they are just raising the fee in order to not lose more money on the service.

Now I’m just an old lady and I don’t pretend to be the brightest crayon in the box but if the goal here is to “break even” then they are looking at this all wrong.  Read the outline of the procedure again. Does that sound efficient to you?  Just the assumption that any US citizen showing up to renounce his US citizenship doesn’t really understand what he/she is doing and has to have it explained ad nauseum intensive interviews? and then be sent off to a corner like a little kid to reflect on it before being allowed to come back and do the deed, is just ridiculous.  Right there Id say just treating people like adults and assuming that they do know their own mind would save a lot of time, money and hassle all around.

And the narrative that will come out of this fee raise is not likely to focus on “cost recovery” at US consulates around the world but on what is going to be perceived as a punitive act on the part of the US government.  It looks like they are so embarrassed by the renunciation numbers and the lines to renounce at the US consulates that they are looking for ways to reduce or slow down the demand.  Think about that.  Has the state of US citizenship in the world really come to the point where the US government thinks that Americans have to be actively discouraged from renouncing?

The Franco-American Flophouse: US Citizenship Renunciation Fees to be Raised 422%.

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Gregory and Collin Gordon, Calgary brothers, join ranks of Canadians fighting for ISIS

2014/08/30 Leave a comment

The latest extremists from Calgary and again, no particular pattern as the brothers, born in Canada and converts to Islam, appeared to be well-adjusted and integrated. What made them change? And how did Calgary become a centre?:

“All I know about Collin is that he moved back home [to Calgary] and started to be hardcore Muslim,” said Akan Swisslizz Ekpenyong, a Vancouver-based hip hop artist who used to host parties with Collin in Kamloops and was his classmate.

Ekpenyong said it became increasingly difficult to communicate with Collin due to his religious beliefs — and that’s when he decided to “unfriend” him on Facebook. Ekpenyong had no idea how extreme Collin would eventually become.

No one CBC News spoke with can explain how exactly Collin went from sports, hip hop and tweets about wanting to marry American rapper Nicki Minaj in early 2012, to becoming one among thousands of foreign fighters trying to establish an Islamic state in the Middle East.

Heartbroken and confused, their parents told CBC News that they raised their children to be peaceful, kind and smart — and that both were well educated and never had any run-ins with the law.

Asking the media for privacy, the parents of the Gordon brothers provided the following statement to CBC News: “We would like all to know we love and miss our sons dearly. We are deeply concerned for their safety. At this time we refuse to speculate with regards to the end of their story. We continue to keep hope alive.”

And while their parents are keeping hope alive, Collin’s social media photos portray someone who has become well-adjusted to life as a foreign jihadi.

As Canadian-born, without dual citizenship, their citizenship could not be revoked unlike other members of the Calgary cell not-born in Canada.

Gregory and Collin Gordon, Calgary brothers, join ranks of Canadians fighting for ISIS – CBC News – Latest Canada, World, Entertainment and Business News.

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