‘If we are not Canadian, what are we?’ How a 2009 law is leaving some children stateless

2021/12/14 Leave a comment

Not unexpected but the Act does have a provision to address statelessness. Would be interesting to have the data on the extent of its its application rather than just highlighting individual cases (which highlight issues).

The previous retention provisions were hard to administer consistently and fairly (“substantial connection” not as simple as it sounds), and there are advantages to clarity provided by the first generation limit.

From a policy perspective, the focus was on providing equal treatment for those born in Canada and immigrants who became naturalized Canadians.

And ironic that some expatriate Canadians complain about having to pay for healthcare should they return to Canada to give birth to “restart the clock” when more than a few thousand foreign women do so as “birth tourists.”

But a useful reminder that expatriates need to consider citizenship implications more closely when planning to have children.

After numerous failed attempts to conceive a child, including a lost pregnancy through in vitro fertilization, Emma Kenyon and her husband were grateful and thrilled for the arrival of their first baby.

On Dec. 5, healthy six-pound, two-ounce Darcy was born at a public hospital in Hong Kong. However, a bureaucratic nightmare for his Canadian expatriate parents has just begun.

As new parents, the nursing mother and her husband, Daniel Warelis — both foreign-born Canadian citizens who grew up in Greater Toronto — must fight to find a way to bring their stateless child home.

“I don’t think any country, especially a country like Canada, should allow little babies to be born stateless to Canadian citizens. It’s a travesty,” said Kenyon, 35, who was born in Tokyo while her father was working there for the Bank of Nova Scotia.

“The most important thing for us is that Darcy is not stateless as soon as possible.”

This week, the couple joined five other Canadian families to launch a Charter challenge against a rule in Canada’s citizenship act that denies the transmission of citizenship by descent to these foreign-born kids if both their Canadian parents also happened to be born overseas.

The previous Conservative government changed the law in 2009 and imposed the so-called “second generation” cut-off against Canadians born abroad after Ottawa’s massive effort to evacuate 15,000 Lebanese Canadians stranded in Beirut during a month-long war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006.

The $85 million price tag of the evacuation effort sparked a debate over “Canadians of convenience” about individuals with Canadian citizenship who live permanently outside of Canada without “substantive ties” to Canada but were part of the government liability.

“Citizenship is about more, far more than a right to carry a passport or to vote. It defines who we are as Canadians, including our mutual responsibilities to one another and a shared commitment to the values that are rooted in our history like freedom, unity and loyalty,” former federal immigration minister Jason Kenney said then.

“That’s why we must protect the values of Canadian citizenship and must take steps against those who would cheapen it.”

Although the law included limited exemptions for children born overseas if their parents are abroad serving in the Canadian military and for the government, critics had warned it would create two tiers of citizenships — those born by birth in Canada and those by descent — and that children of some Canadians might end up stateless.

Now, a generation later, according to the lawsuit filed on Thursday, the impacts of the law passed 12 years ago are felt by Canadians such as Kenyon and Warelis.

“We never imagined, even if there were different rules for second generation Canadians, that two people who are Canadians and grew up in Canada, and there’s no direct pathway for their children to become citizens,” said Warelis, who was born in New York while his father was working there for a global public relations company.

“As time goes on, there will be more and more Canadians who potentially can’t pass on their citizenship,” added the 36-year-old, who worked for the federal government before travelling to Hong Kong for an international career in 2016 with his wife.

“Citizenship is about more, far more than a right to carry a passport or to vote. It defines who we are as Canadians, including our mutual responsibilities to one another and a shared commitment to the values that are rooted in our history like freedom, unity and loyalty,” former federal immigration minister Jason Kenney said then.

“That’s why we must protect the values of Canadian citizenship and must take steps against those who would cheapen it.”

Although the law included limited exemptions for children born overseas if their parents are abroad serving in the Canadian military and for the government, critics had warned it would create two tiers of citizenships — those born by birth in Canada and those by descent — and that children of some Canadians might end up stateless.

Now, a generation later, according to the lawsuit filed on Thursday, the impacts of the law passed 12 years ago are felt by Canadians such as Kenyon and Warelis.

“We never imagined, even if there were different rules for second generation Canadians, that two people who are Canadians and grew up in Canada, and there’s no direct pathway for their children to become citizens,” said Warelis, who was born in New York while his father was working there for a global public relations company.

“As time goes on, there will be more and more Canadians who potentially can’t pass on their citizenship,” added the 36-year-old, who worked for the federal government before travelling to Hong Kong for an international career in 2016 with his wife.

Under the citizenship law in Hong Kong, now part of China, Warelis said his son is ineligible for citizenship by birth on the island because neither he nor his wife are citizens there.

Prior to 2009, the second generation born abroad automatically obtained Canadian citizenship by descent, but ceased to be Canadian citizens at age 28, unless they applied to retain their citizenship and register as a citizen, and either had lived in Canada for at least a year before or established “a substantial connection with Canada.”

However, Ottawa abolished the “substantial connection” regime and replaced it with the second generation cut-off as a blanket rule that denies the first generation born abroad the right to pass on citizenship by descent outside Canada to the second generation born abroad.

“This case is about modern Canadian families, who are deeply Canadian and have travelled to pursue opportunities to work and study or have fallen in love and had children. And they just want to come home and bring their children with them,” said Sujit Choudhry, lawyer for the litigants.

“And this very blunt law, which is completely unnecessary, is standing in their way.”

The lawsuit — including applicants who currently live in Canada, Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan, and the U.S. — claims the law created two classes of Canadian citizenship: one for Canadians born here and one for Canadians born abroad.

While Canadians born in Canada could pass their citizenship to their children born abroad, Canadians born abroad could not similarly do so.

As a consequence, it argues, the first generation born abroad have a second-class citizenship because of the circumstances of their birth, which “were entirely beyond their control” and which they are powerless to change.

The litigants are asking the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for an order to rule the second generation citizenship cut-off unconstitutional and that the same citizenship rights be afforded to them and their foreign born kids.

According to the 2016 census, 32 million of Canada’s 34.5 million population were Canadian citizens, including 8.2 million who weren’t born in Canada. Of those, said Choudhry, 183,000 were born abroad and obtained citizenship by descent.

Unlike Canada, he said, in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, the first generation born abroad can themselves pass on citizenship to their kids born abroad if they meet a “substantial connection” requirement, usually satisfied by some period of residence in their home country. The idea is to restrict the indefinite transmission of citizenship abroad by non-resident citizens.

“None of them would have had this blanket ban,” said Choudhry.

Litigant Roy Brooke, who was working for the United Nations in Geneva when he and his wife had their first child in 2010, was unaware of the second generation citizenship cut-off until a year later when he got a letter from immigration officials that his child would have no right to pass on citizenship to offspring born outside Canada.

He said there wasn’t a choice for the family to return to Canada at the time and for the baby to be delivered in the country because, as non-resident Canadians, they had no provincial health insurance here and didn’t have an obstetrician or gynecologist.

Fortunately, Brooke, 51, and his wife, 48, were both born in Ontario — him in Toronto and her in Goderich — and their child was granted Canadian citizenship by descent. The family returned and settled in Victoria, B.C., in 2011 to raise the child in Canada, as the couple had always planned.

Brooke said the second generation cut-off will make it more difficult for his child to follow his and his wife’s footsteps and “must trade off career against family.”

The concern over second class citizenship status for his family and others prompted Brooke to lobby the federal government, reaching out to the offices of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the immigration minister for legislative changes to amend the citizenship cut-off rules.

Both former cabinet ministers Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock were on board for the amendment, said Brooke in his affidavit filed in the Charter challenge.

“Everybody that I have spoken to knows that this is a flawed piece of legislation. Everybody knows that this is a legislative overreach. Everyone knows that this is a series of perverse and unintended consequences. Yet here we are,” said Brooke, an executive director of a not-for-profit organization that works on environmental issues.

“It’s going to affect millions of people. And once people start finding out, it’s also going to put a chill on people’s ability and interest in living, travelling and working overseas and all to no purpose.”

While Kenyon and Warelis are still unsure of what future may hold for their newborn, Victoria Maruyama, another litigant, has already had an uphill battle trying to acquire Canadian citizenship for her two children, both born in Japan, where she met her Japanese husband, an Air Force pilot, while she was teaching English there in 2002. The couple married in 2007 and have two kids, both Japanese citizens.

Born in Hong Kong to Vietnamese and Hong Kong parents, Maruyama moved to Canada with her family in 1980 when she was a year old. She got her Canadian citizenship by descent through her father and grew up in Edmonton.

In 2017, she brought her children to Canada on visitors’ visas with the intent to raise them in her homeland. She made a plea to the immigration minister for Canadian citizenship for her kids’ while fighting to get them into public school and access to health care.

When the kids’ visas expired in 2018, they left. A few months later, they returned from Japan just to show the family’s commitment to settle in Canada. After the immigration minister refused her citizenship plea, she applied to sponsor her children to Canada as permanent residents at the advice of immigration officials. They went back to Japan to wait for the decision.

A refusal letter came in early 2020 from an immigration officer, who wrote: I am not satisfied that your sponsor will reside in Canada if a permanent resident visa were to be issued and as a result, it would be contrary to the regulations to issue you a permanent resident visa or allow you to become a permanent resident.

“There is no doubt that I have a substantial connection to Canada. I lived in Canada for 21 years, including my formative years,” sighed Maruyama, who is still teaching English in Tokyo.

“My two younger sisters do not face the same legal restrictions that I do in passing on citizenship abroad because they were born in Canada … Our substantial connection to Canada is the same. I am as Canadian as they are. Yet, they have more rights than I do, simply because of their place of birth.”

Warelis agrees, “If we are not Canadian, what are we? We don’t have another home.”

Source: ‘If we are not Canadian, what are we?’ How a 2009 law is leaving some children stateless

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‘This is a screwed up system’: frustrated Liberal MPs want to slash immigration processing times

2021/12/14 Leave a comment

Of note:

Backbench Liberal MPs say they’re frustrated over extended delays in the processing of immigration and citizenship applications and they want new Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to take urgent action to fix the system.

“The entire system is broken down,” said one frustrated Liberal MP who spoke to The Hill Times on not-for-attribution basis in order to offer their candid opinion. “This is a screwed up system.”

MPs interviewed for this story said that for about two years they’ve been hearing that COVID-19 is the main reason for longer application processing times at Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada. Now, they said, they are being told the delays have been caused by the government’s decision to expedite the applications of 40,000 vulnerable residents of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The MPs said they think the government will come up with another reason for the delays once the Afghan refugees are settled, and their constituents will still have to suffer. They noted that their government has been in power for more than six years and they’ve had four immigration ministers since 2015, including John McCallum, Ahmed Hussen (York South-Weston, Ont.), Marco Mendicino (Marco-Mendicino, Ont.), and now Fraser (Central Nova, N.S.), but “the mess the Stephen Harper Conservatives left in 2015,” in terms of long wait times, is still not fully cleaned up.

Fraser was appointed to the immigration portfolio on Oct. 26. McCallum served as immigration minister from November 2015 to January 2017; Hussen from January 2017 to November 2019; and Mendicino from November 2019 to October 2021.

“They’ve been telling us COVID, COVID, COVID as the reason for the delay,” said a second MP. “Now they’re saying Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan. Who knows, tomorrow there will be something else.”

Some MPs said the “funny thing” is that the department is currently processing student applications or other temporary resident-to-permanent resident applications within a couple of months, compared to other streams of immigration and citizenship that in some cases take years. They said that in the past, one often cited reason for long processing times was the background security checks that alone, in some cases, would take several months or years. It’s hard to understand, they said, how the department now is completing the whole processing process, including background checks, within a couple of months for some applications.

The time to process an application at IRCC depends on whether it’s a family sponsorship, a refugee application, temporary resident permit, economic immigration application or a citizenship application. Also, it depends on whether the sponsored person or the immigration applicant is within Canada or outside of Canada. For example, according to IRCC website, in the case of spousal application, the current  processing time is 12 months. For a parental or grandparent application,  the processing time is 20-24 months. In the case of investor visas, the processing time is 64 months. All applications are not processed within the estimated time offered by the IRCC website.

Based on statistics provided by IRCC, CBC reported recently that as of Oct. 27, the department had a backlog of 1.8 million applications. Of these, the report said, 548,195 were for permanent residency, 775,741 were temporary residence applications, and 468,000 were for citizenship.

Immigration and citizenship issues are top of mind for all MPs representing major urban centres. MPs say that, in some cases, around 90 per cent of the calls they get from their constituents are related to immigration issues. For this reason, almost all MPs in urban centres have one or more staffers in their constituency offices who deal exclusively with these files.

Constituency work plays a critical role in the re-election of every MP. Major urban centres like the GTA and Metro Vancouver play a key role in deciding the outcome of every election. On top of that, MPs say it gives them a morale boost when they are making a difference in their constituents’ lives.

“It [constituency work] is everything, I mean, when I go knock on doors, and hear people give a positive response to recognize my office, especially a certain staff that they got served [by], I get an extra boost in my confidence,” said Liberal MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) in an interview with The Hill Times. “I’m there to serve a purpose and the purpose again is to serve [constituents]. So it’s very important.”

MPs said that in every weekly Liberal regional or national caucus meeting, MPs raise the issue of delays in immigration and citizenship applications with the immigration minister and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.).

Earlier this month, Liberal sources told The Hill Times that a GTA resident, frustrated with problems trying to sponsor his wife and children from a South Asian country, tried to commit suicide by pouring gasoline on himself in front of Liberal MP Judy Sgro’s (Humber River-Black Creek, Ont.) constituency office, but the police arrived on time and stopped the person from doing so.

In an interview Sgro confirmed that the incident had taken place. She said she believed that the person in question had mental health challenges, and the sponsorship of his family was just one of many other issues he was dealing with.

Still, Sgro said, seeing someone pouring a container of gasoline on himself and trying to light himself on fire was a traumatic experience for her staff. At the time of this incident, Sgro was in Ottawa.

“Gasoline was everywhere, the smell of gasoline for my staff was a lot because they were looking at someone who was about to light themselves on fire,” said Sgro. “So it was a very traumatic thing for my staff to go through. I had to close the office for a couple of days until we could clean up some of the fumes and for them to kind of recover from that shock.”

After the incident, Sgro said that House of Commons security visited her constituency office to assess if any measures could be undertaken to improve the security in her office.

Sgro said that she understands the frustration of people who have to wait longer for their family members’ applications to be processed, but she said that certain issues like COVID or the situation in Afghanistan are beyond anyone’s control. So, people will have to be patient.

Meanwhile, in an email to The Hill Times, Alexander Cohen, press secretary to Minister Fraser, said that the global COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected Immigration Canada’s ability to process applications in an efficient manner. He said that since the start of the pandemic, the department has made significant adjustments. Cohen said that the government is investing $800-million to create a new state of the art digital platform that will further improve the efficiency of the department. He added that the government is expecting to welcome 401,000 new permanent residents this year, “the most in Canadian history.”

“One of the very first things we did was implement priority processing for those who need it most, like vulnerable people, family members seeking to reunite and those in essential services.,” said Cohen. “We’ve also added new staff—including 62 new employees at the IRCC office in Sydney NS—to help reunite families faster. These will help us return to the one-year processing standard for spousal sponsorship. We’ve improved technology and digitized more of our operations, and increased the amount of processing happening virtually.”

As for the faster processing of student applications or other temporary residents, he said, it’s a “single time-limited program this year” under which Canada is granting immigration to 90,000 people, including essential healthcare workers and international students who are already in Canada and have the required skills and experience.

Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz (Davenport, Ont.), chair of the informal Liberal Immigration caucus, conceded there were challenges in processing the applications, but added that things have improved since her party first came to power in 2015. She agreed that a lot of work needs to be done but said that since coming to power, the government has made a number of improvements and it will improve even more in the coming months.

“There’s a lot of valid reasons why people are very upset,” said Dzerowicz. “But I will say to you that we’ve made a lot of advances. It’s been unfortunate that we’ve all gone through this COVID. But hopefully in the coming months, days and months, we’ll start seeing some of that cleared up.”

Liberal MP Terry Duguid (Winnipeg South, Man.) agreed: “We have made Minister Fraser aware of some of the challenges we have been facing with immigration cases at the constituency level,” said Duguid in an email. “We know he has listened carefully and have every confidence he will address these issues. COVID is a big factor in the disruption to our systems.”

Dong also echoed the same view, saying that things slowed down at the Immigration Department because of the pandemic, but now it has started to pick up the pace.

“Since the election, things are moving along actually, things are happening,” said Dong. “I get regular reports from the constituency office that some files [that are] outstanding, they’re being resolved. The ministry is getting back to MPs’ offices faster. So I see signs that things are recovering. But the backlog is one of the issues that we share regularly. There are signs things are getting better.”

Rookie Liberal MP Michael Coteau (Don Valley East, Ont.), who in the past served as an Ontario immigration minister, said that like other countries, Canada has to respond to international emergencies, and that put pressure on the immigration system. He said Fraser is committed to fixing the system, and that in the coming months wait times will reduce significantly.

Coteau said that his office gets several calls every day from constituents who need help with immigration cases. He said the callers are always very respectful and understand why the wait times are longer. Since the Sept. 20 election, he said his office has started several hundred immigration files for his constituents, and is trying to help those people.

“It’s the No. 1 issue because that’s 90 per cent of the phone calls we get,” said Coteau.

Source: https://www.hilltimes.com/2021/12/13/this-is-a-screwed-up-system-frustrated-liberal-mps-want-to-slash-immigration-processing-times/333636?utm_source=Subscriber+-++Hill+Times+Publishing&utm_campaign=41b722c1d0-Todays-Headlines-Subscribers&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8edecd9364-41b722c1d0-90755301&mc_cid=41b722c1d0&mc_eid=685e94e554

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The Conversation: Native nations are the experts on citizenship

2021/12/14 Leave a comment

Interesting discussion regarding elements of Indigenous identity and citizenship. Would be interesting to know how these vary by First Nation and how differences are resolved:

There is a growing movement to identify and call-out people who have fraudulently held positions by claiming indigeneity like Cheyanne Turions, Joseph Boyden, Michelle Latimerand Carrie Bourassa. 

The fraudulent claims of indigeneity are so widespread that the term “pretendians” has become part of regular vocabulary. 

On the surface, this seems to align with the interests of Indigenous Peoples, but with the call-outs come underlying components of colonialism. Namely, that Indigenous nations are not being recognized as the authorities when determining indigeneity. 

Genealogy as the only factor

Those quick to call-out are often not clamouring for Indigenous nations’ jurisdiction over citizenship, nor are they demanding “pretendians” be held accountable to Indigenous nations. 

Instead, people like non-Indigenous genealogists are being held out as “experts” on what does or doesn’t make a person Indigenous. 

The result of having genealogy as the only factor is that the dialogue is not centred on Indigenous people as socio-political groups, but racial purity which perpetuates colonial stereotypes of Indigenous identity. 

Understanding what makes a person Indigenous is complex. There are the obvious sources of indigeneity, such as kinship and receiving cultural teachings from Elders and knowledge keepers, that are established at birth and strengthen throughout a person’s life. 

Other customs and traditions include adoption of non-Indigenous people by Indigenous families. Adoption is a long-recognized practice across many nations that has resulted the adoptees learning the language, cultural teachings and values necessary to be a part of that nation. 

Whether an adoption is valid is an issue for the nation into which the person has been adopted in to decide. 

There are also examples of communities who have granted non-Indigenous people full membership, based on criteria that the First Nation has established. Fort Williams First Nation in Ontario made Damien Lee a full member, which means he is entitled to vote in elections, run for office and to benefits provided by the First Nation. 

He grew up on reserve, and while he is non-Indigenous and therefore does not have status according to the Indian Act, the First Nation has exercised its legal jurisdiction over identity and recognized him as a member.

The critical question at the heart of this issue is how to distinguish between fraudulent claims and legitimate ones. The answer lies with the nations. 

Jurisdiction as a human right

As self-governing nations with constitutionally recognized Aboriginal rights, Indigenous people should be the only authority when determining who is part of their nations. It should be based on their own criteria, as it was before the imposition of the Indian Act. And nations should have the jurisdiction to enforce the laws they develop.

With that in mind, Article 33.1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) recognizes that “Indigenous peoples have the right to determine their own identity or membership in accordance with their own customs and traditions.”

Now that Canada has passed legislation setting out a framework for implementing UNDRIP, Indigenous nations need to be recognized as the authority for determining who is Indigenous. UNDRIP does not automatically remove Canadian authority over identity, so the government will need to take action to ensure existing legislation recognizes Indigenous jurisdiction in this area.

Both the Canadian government and non-Indigenous experts need to relinquish the authority they have assumed. A failure to do so will continue the discrimination and systemic violence faced by Indigenous people.

Assimilative policies

Since Confederation, Canada’s assimilative policies have actively worked to strip Indigenous Peoples of their identity and deny Indigenous jurisdiction.

The federal government has dictated who is an “Indian” through the status definition in the Indian Act and recognizes “the Indian Registrar [as] the only authority under the Indian Act who can determine a person’s eligibility for Indian status.”

These policies are discriminatory and have led to the denial of indigeneity based on blood quantum and other arbitrary criteria such as marriage, university education or joined holy orders to the forceful removal of Indigenous children from their families into non-Indigenous homes and residential and day schools.

The result is thousands of Indigenous Peoples being traumatized by not knowing who their families or communities are, making it extremely difficult to reconnect.

The funding policies of the federal government — whereby resources and service delivery are concentrated to status Indians living on-reserve — serve to create and maintain a scarcity mentality that reinforces colonial approaches to identity and undermines self-governance.

If the current trend continues, whereby individuals’ claims to indigeneity are going to be interrogated by non-Indigenous people, based on criteria established by non-Indigenous perspectives, Indigenous Peoples are going to face even greater barriers in reconnecting with their families and communities, and decolonizing efforts will suffer.

A better solution to the issue of fraudulent claims is to support Indigenous nations and their jurisdiction over identity.

This approach aligns with the UNDRIP and supports the right to self-government. Indigenous nations have been the authority on who they are for thousands of years, it is time their jurisdiction over this be recognized. The Conversation

Cheryl Simon is an Assistant Professor in Aboriginal and Indigenous Law at Dalhousie University. Prior to joining Schulich School of Law, Cheryl worked with a rights-implementation organization in New Brunswick and has taught classes on colonizing Mi’kmaw identity.

Source: The Conversation: Native nations are the experts on citizenship

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Why Spain’s citizenship test contained a few nasty – and incorrect – surprises for aspiring applicants

2021/12/11 Leave a comment

Oops! Always worried about possible errors in Discover Canada:

According to the handbook to prepare for the official examination to become a citizen of Spain, Mariano Rajoy is still the prime minister (he hasn’t been since June 2018), the death penalty still exists (it was banned in 1978 and completely abolished, including for wartime conditions, in 1995) and the Spanish Constitution is just a secondary law.

The Cervantes Institute, the public cultural institution that drafts and administers the citizenship exam, said it has corrected the mistakes detected in the manual to prepare for the test that checks applicants’ knowledge about Spanish culture, society, history and laws, known as CCSE.

Obtaining citizenship typically requires passing the CCSE and also taking a language test, the DELE A2, unless a high level of Spanish can be proven.

According to the Cervantes Institute, a “computer glitch” is to blame for the erroneous information contained in the handbook to prepare for the 2022 CCSE test. The manual was published on November 29.

The CCSE test, which costs €85, asks applicants 25 questions that must be answered within a 45-minute time frame. In order to pass, it is necessary to get at least 15 questions right. Topics include government and political organization, fundamental rights and obligations of Spaniards and different aspects of Spanish society. Errors were detected in 12 of the 300 questions included in the preparation manual, or 5% of the total.

The multiple-choice questions on the CCSE test give applicants a choice of three answers (A, B and C). The errors were allegedly caused by the fact that the computer program preserved the same letters to represent the correct answers on new test questions that had been changed from the previous test.

The Cervantes Institute has called the incident “an unfortunate mistake” and admitted that it is potentially serious because tests get automatically corrected, meaning that the system could give a failing grade to applicants who check the right answer.

A group called Legalteam that provides legal advice on citizenship issues noticed the mistakes and alerted the public agency, where officials said the errors had already come to their attention through various channels. These sources said that experts have checked the handbook’s answers “one by one” and fixed all the mistakes.

But clearly this work was not carried out before publishing the manual in late November, as anyone with a working knowledge of Spanish society would have known that primary education is free and that driver’s licenses are issued by the traffic authority, the Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT), despite what the preparation manual said. Sources consulted by this newspaper did not specify whether the mistakes were attributable to the cultural institution’s own computer services or to a contractor.

Legalteam has also flagged up the fact that the Cervantes Institute requires applicants to show their TIE card (Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjeros or Foreign Citizen Identity Card), and accepts no other legal documents in its place. The legal advisors noted that when foreign citizens renew their residency papers, the protection this affords “has full legal effects before any government administration.” Sources at the Cervantes replied that it is up to the justice and interior ministries to determine what documentation is necessary to avoid cases of fraud in citizenship examinations.

Source: Why Spain’s citizenship test contained a few nasty – and incorrect – surprises for aspiring applicants

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LILLEY: Jihadi Jack’s parents ask Canada to bring the Brit here

2021/12/01 Leave a comment

Classic example of off-shoring citizenship revocation. One of the examples against the previous Conservative government’s C-24, ironically that Lilley supported at the time if memory serves me correct:

The parents of British-born terrorist Jihadi Jack are seeking the help of politicians in this country to get him sprung from a Syrian prison to live a life of freedom in Canada.

Emails obtained exclusively by the Toronto Sun show that John and Sally Letts have approached MPs and senators asking for meetings to assist their son Jack.

Nikita Bernardi, a public relations consultant working on behalf of the family, makes an empathetic pitch for a man who has admitted to being a member of ISIS and willing to detonate a suicide bomb.

“Jack, who is 23, has been held without charge, and therefore arbitrarily and illegally, since 2017 by the Kurdish forces in overcrowded and unsanitary prison conditions,” Bernardi wrote last week.

Jack Letts was born in Britain in 1995, and beyond some trips to Canada to visit relatives, has never lived here. He was raised in the U.K., educated in the U.K., converted to Islam as a teen in the U.K., and went to Syria in 2014 at the age of 19 because he rejected life in Britain.

He is able to claim Canadian citizenship because his father is a Canadian who moved to Britain decades ago. His connections to this country, beyond asking for consular assistance, are negligible at best, but since the British government stripped him of his citizenship there in 2019, Letts may only be recognized as a Canadian now.

That doesn’t mean we should take him or lift a finger to help him, despite claims by Bernardi that Letts is owed, “assistance and protection as is necessary.”

“Unfortunately, the Canadian government continues to take no action towards repatriating Jack,” Bernardi wrote.

You can’t repatriate someone who has never lived here.

He went to fight in Syria, something he and his family have denied for several years. But a 2019 interview with the BBC shows Letts discussing his work with ISIS and desire to be a suicide bomber — if needed — in battle.

“I used to want to at one point, believe it or not,” Letts told the BBC. “Not a vest. I wanted to do it in a car. I said if there’s a chance, I will do it.”

In 2019, when the Brits pulled citizenship from Letts, then-public safety minister Ralph Goodale said the government was disappointed with the British government’s “unilateral action to offload their responsibilities.”

Asked for comment Monday, Marco Mendicino, the current public safety minister, declined to comment on any specific case, but a spokesperson said criminal charges and prosecution could be in the future of any extremist traveller who comes to Canada.

“It is a Criminal Code offence to travel abroad to engage in terrorist activity. If an extremist traveller is seeking to enter Canada, federal departments work together to tailor an approach to address the threat that the individual may pose,” said spokesperson Craig MacBride.

He added that the government could use tools, including peace bonds, the no-fly list, and revocation of passports in dealing with such travellers.

The family has filed complaints against both the British and Canadian governments and with the United Nations. Bernardi wrote that Canada can be held responsible for anything that happens to Jack while he is in a Kurdish prison.

Did the Canadian government send him to Syria to fight with one of the most blood-thirsty groups the world has even seen? No, they did not — he did that on his own.

There are Canadians, actual Canadians born here or who have lived here at least, held in foreign prisons for various crimes. We don’t get them all back, and we don’t have to try.

If Letts gets out of that Kurdish prison, he is Britain’s problem, not ours.

Source: LILLEY: Jihadi Jack’s parents ask Canada to bring the Brit here

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Israeli children born abroad are automatically citizens, yet some are locked out

2021/11/30 Leave a comment

Of note (likely harder if not impossible for Israeli Arabs:

Thousands of Israeli children living overseas have been barred from entering Israel since March 2020 because they lack passports, and the issue has become even more pressing in light of Israel’s new Omicron-related border closures.

These children are legally Israeli citizens through parentage, despite having been born abroad, even if their parents never registered them with the state. This is because Israel’s 1952 Nationality Law automatically ascribes citizenship to a child born abroad to an Israeli parent. In a Kafkaesque turn, citizenship applies even if the state is unaware of these foreign-born citizens, and in a catch-22, citizenship can only be terminated following registration.

Prior to Israel’s first COVID-19 lockdown, these children were able to enter Israel as tourists on their foreign passports. This practice was abruptly ended when Israel closed its skies to non-citizens, and embassies abroad refused to grant entry permits to these Israeli children until their parents obtained Israeli passports for them, catching many off-guard.

Source: Israeli children born abroad are automatically citizens, yet some are locked out

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Germany to open up more to migrants under new coalition

2021/11/26 Leave a comment

Significant changes:

Germany’s incoming government plansto improve asylum seekers’ rights, facilitate immigration for skilled workers, and simplify the process of acquiring German nationality.

Immigration was a defining issue of Germany’s 2017 election campaign after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open the door to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in 2015.

Although it was not one of the main issues in this year’s election, it has moved up the political agenda again as thousands of migrants have tried to enter the European Union via Belarus in recent weeks.

A coalition deal agreed by the Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) said the new government planned to make Germany a more appealing destination for migrants, while making life easier for asylum seekers who are willing to integrate

The alliance also agreed to introduce a law to make multiple citizenship possible. Becoming a German citizen generally requires a person to give up any other passports, though there are exemptions, including for citizens of other EU countries.

“As a rule, naturalization should be possible after five years, with special integration achievements after three years,” the document said. That compares to eight years and six years respectively at the moment

‘GUEST WORKERS’

The new law will grant children born in Germany to foreign parents German citizenship if one of the parents has been legally residing in Germany for five years.

The law targets Germany’s ‘guest-worker’ generation of migrants, who came from southern Europe and Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s and contributed to the postwar “economic miracle”.

Some could not be naturalized even after living in Germany for decades due to language requirements or because they did not want to give up their original citizenship.

The wording of a controversial naturalization prerequisite of “living according to German life style” will be replaced with clearer criteria in the new law.

Keen to tackle a shortage of skilled workers that has held back economic recovery, Germany’s new government will improve access to study and apprenticeship for foreigners. Visa processing will also be simplified.

Asylum seekers with temporary status will be able to obtain more secure residency and bring in their families after four to six years if they integrate well.

Guenter Burkhardt, managing director of PRO ASYL refugee rights group, welcomed the deal but said more was needed to improve asylum seekers’ rights.

“Deportations to war and crisis areas are not clearly excluded,” he said.

Source: Germany to open up more to migrants under new coalition

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Denmark Expands Citizenship Exam With ‘Danish Values’ Test

2021/11/26 Leave a comment

Ongoing trend of hardening Danish policies:

Denmark’s government has introduced changes to its citizenship exam, designed to test potential new citizens’ knowledge of Danish society, culture and history. The new questions will test an individual’s awareness of so-called “Danish values” on areas including free speech, gender equality and the relationship between law and religion.

It’s the latest step in a tightening of immigration policy by Denmark’s center-left government. The latest changes were passed in parliament thanks to support from opposition parties on the center-right rather than the usual allies to the left.

Led by Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democratic party, the minority government has adopted many policies long associated with parties far to the right of the political spectrum. Foreign Policy described the revamp as “one of the harshest refugee policies in the world.”

How Danish are you?

Introduced in 2015, the citizenship exam is designed to verify an individual’s knowledge of Danish society, culture and history as part of a citizenship application.

Previously, candidates had to score 32 out of 40 to pass. Candidates taking the new-look exam will have to score 36 out of 45, but also answer at least four of the five Danish values questions correctly. The time available for the PC-based test remains at 45 minutes but despite this, the government insists the test is no harder than before.

“I do not know what the politicians mean by Danish values,” one candidate told DR prior to taking the exam. One of the issues highlighted by critics is that there is no study material, meaning what is meant by “Danish values” is entirely subjective.

The government’s citizenship spokesperson Lars Aslan Rasmussen said the revised test will prove applicants understand the society they are applying to join.

“I actually think it’s very simple. Should girls be allowed to do the same things as boys, does Denmark have the death sentence? These are very simple questions which I think you should be able to answer if you live in Denmark,” he told DR.

How to become a citizen of Denmark

Becoming a Danish citizen requires far more than passing one exam, of course. The exam is just one part of the process. There is also a requirement to have lived in the country holding valid residence permits for up to nine years, with a positive recent employment history.

There are a few groups of people not required to take the citizenship exam. Exemptions are available for most people from Norway, Sweden or the Schleswig-Holstein region of Germany. Children under 12 are also exempt.

Source: Denmark Expands Citizenship Exam With ‘Danish Values’ Test

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Why the Modi government is unlikely to repeat the farm laws pullback with the citizenship law

2021/11/25 Leave a comment

Of note:

On November 19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did something that he isn’t known for – revoke a major policy decision under public pressure.

He even topped it off with a public apology, which is a far cry from his otherwise haughty and unrepentant style of leadership. Whether it was a faux apology or a genuine one is a different matter.

Why did Modi walk back on the controversial farm bills after a year?

To put it simply, the costs of defending and maintaining the laws in the face of a year-long resistance by farmers had risen dramatically. With elections in the agrarian states of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh looming over his head, Modi couldn’t afford to appear dismissive of farmer unions, which have a strong sway in both states. And he certainly can’t afford to lose a crucial state like Uttar Pradesh – the hearth of the modern Hindutva political project.

But, the electoral imperative is a secondary, derivative factor. This isn’t the first time important state elections are taking place in Modi’s India. More importantly, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s current senior leadership isn’t quite the type to reverse major policy decisions before state polls. It has other political tricks up its sleeve to stay ahead in the game and offset any negative impact of its national-level decisions on state-level constituencies.

Meeting its match

What really made a difference this time was the extraordinarily defiant nature of the farmers’ movement, which not just successfully weathered all kinds of pressure from the top, but also handled its internal contradictions and shortcomings with much aplomb. This is a government that has mastered the art of attrition when it comes to protests. But this time, it met it’s match in the farmers who kept at it through four seasons.

From overt force to covert subterfuge, the Modi government deployed every single strategy in its playbook to diffuse the protests, but failed miserably. Even a concerted attempt by the pro-regime media to demonise the protesting Sikhs as Khalistani terrorists, anarchists and what not fell flat on the ground. Let’s be clear – we don’t get to see this very often in Modi’s India.

Thus, to only attribute Modi’s turnaround to sheer electoral realpolitik, would be to underplay the movement’s own role in creating fertile ground for a pullback. Without the grit, tact, conviction and consistency that the farmer unions showed in the face of an insolent administration, the farm laws wouldn’t have become an election issue in the first place, that too an issue big enough for Modi to do the unthinkable – retrench and apologise.

A movement with an edge

But here’s another important thing about the farmers’ movement that helped it win – it had a certain degree of social, political and economic leverage that other mass movements in Modi’s India have lacked. This is both an organic leverage, and one that the movement leaders crafted from scratch.

First, the Hindutva regime can’t target farmers in a manner that it can target religious minorities like Muslims. Even for a government as malevolent and divisive as this one, a strategy of ignoring and vilifying the large agrarian voter base can be a huge political gamble. It can backfire not just at the polling booths, but also at a deeper social level within the ambit of the Hindutva project.

Second, the farmers’ movement cut across specific identities, which allowed the union leaders to forge a rare cross-sectional coalition and stand up for each other. While Sikhs, a religious minority that is routinely profiled with various derogatory political markers, remained a dominant force within the movement and were repeatedly demonised by pro-government elements, the North Indian agrarian class straddles many sub-regional and religious identities, which reflected very well in the movement.

For instance, Hindu Jats from the sugarcane belt in western Uttar Pradesh played a central role in the second phase of the movement. The leadership of Rakesh Tikait, who eventually became one of the most prominent faces of the movement, was instrumental in this. Even some Muslim farmers from the sub-region rallied behind him, despite his murky past as a prime agent of the anti-Muslim Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013.

Show of defiance

One could even argue that it was Tikait’s tactful show of defiance and emotions at Ghazipur in late January that took the spotlight away from the “Khalistani infiltration” narrative that reared its head after the dramatic farmers’ march into the Red Fort on Republic Day. It might have been an unintended outcome of his actions, but was effective nonetheless.

This multiplicity of identities, sub-regional leaderships and the solidarity between them erected a protective fence around the movement. More significantly, despite the many sub-regional identities at play, the farmers, as a class of protestors, had become a singular political force. It was clear that eventually, the Modi government ran out of ways to deal with such a kaleidoscopic body of protestors with a common set of demands. It was no longer viable to launch sectarian attacks at one group of protestors without insinuating the others. Add to this the constant political risk of losing the agrarian constituencies for good.

This is where we come to the movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act – how it is very different from the farmers’ movement and why Modi is highly unlikely to kneel before it.

No pullback

The most obvious difference between the farmers protest and the movement against the citizenship initiatives is that unlike farmers, Muslims are not a core voter base for the BJP. Modi will not lose anything by plainly ignoring them. In fact, he stands to gain additional political points by crushing a movement that is primarily led by Muslims – the number one cultural enemy of Hindutva.

So, his government can go on dismissing them for years and still win one election after another. Occasionally, he can get a few of them thrown behind bars for “terrorism” or sedition and win a few extra votes in the next poll. While the government has filed hundreds of cases against protesting farmers too, the political costs of doing so are far lower in the case of Muslims.

Next, the farmers’ movement is based on a narrative that is primarily economic in its persuasion. Political concerns about the ruling party’s attacks on federalism and state excesses do routinely feature in union speeches and pamphlets, but the collective anxiety against privatisation of the agrarian market and the demand for a guaranteed Minimum Support Price continue to take centrestage in the movement repertoire.

This is compelling for all social groups invested in the agricultural sector in one way or the other. Even for the non-farming urban and semi-urban middle classes from the majority community, agrarian concerns matter as daily consumers of farm products. If not anything, farmer strikes affect them directly. That’s also why it eventually became a poll issue that the government had to take seriously.

This isn’t true in the case of the movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which is primarily centred around a single minority religious identity. The pool of stakeholders is much narrower here. While many conscientious Hindus participated in the movement, their numbers remained low and their commitment inconsistent. The social elite, including the Hindu middle classes in urban/semi-urban settings, remained apathetic – even hostile – to the movement.

The reality here is truly bleak: only Muslims stand to lose the most from the dangerous Citizenship Amendment Act-National Register of Citizens combine while the others couldn’t care less. In fact, most of the others see the movement as, at best, an irritant and at worst, a destructive force.

Further, by strategically decoupling the proposed all-India National Register of Citizens from the Citizenship Amendment Act (despite Home Minister Amit Shah unambiguously linking them both in the beginning), the government was able to project the sectarian citizenship law as a benign amendment that doesn’t really affect Indian Muslims in any way. This diffused overall participation. No such tactical decoupling was possible in the case of the three farm laws.

In all, the movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act lacked a watertight social coalition that could cut across identity and class lines, of the kinds seen in the farmers’ movement. It had no safety net that could absorb the state’s repressive and divisive offensives. This made it fairly easy for the Modi government to use the law enforcement machinery, pliant media and belligerent proxies to go after the protestors. The pandemic only came as a force multiplier.

Finally, if Modi revokes the Citizenship Amendment Act after repealing the farm laws, it would be nothing short of political suicide for the BJP. While the core party machinery is busy lauding him for the farm laws pullback, large sections of the wider Hindutva ecosystem are incensed. They see it as a betrayal, a meek surrender that is reminiscent of the seemingly weak Congress regimes. This is not the valiant prime minister they have grown to love.

Defying logic

There’s nothing to suggest that the Modi government isn’t aware of this. Modi is a leader who is highly conscious of what his people think about him. For him, his image is paramount. After all, that is literally the only pillar on which he has erected his shining political career. While he possibly has a plan to manage the publicity fallout (we don’t quite know what it is yet), bad PR from his own cheerleaders can very quickly spiral into a situation that even he could lose control over.

In such a scenario, revoking the Citizenship Amendment Act would defy all logic. It would only add to the badmouthing and alienate both hardliners and moderates. A strategy of attrition based on brute force, sectarian vilification and state intimidation has worked well for Modi with the protestors against the Citizenship Amendment Act so far. There’s no reason for him to abandon that playbook.

As far as the electoral imperative is concerned, several state polls have happened since the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act began, but BJP never considered repealing the divisive amendment. In fact, it has used the legislation to energise the Hindu voter base and strengthen their numbers. For instance, in Assam, defying popular belief, the BJP secured a landslide win this year despite months of fierce protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.

In short, the Citizenship Amendment Act has been a winning formula for the BJP from the beginning, unlike the farm laws. So the Modi government has no reason to junk it now.

This might be a cynical reading of the future, but it is crucial to understand the distinctions between the two movements precisely so that lessons can be learnt and strategies replicated. It is worth noting that the movement against the citizenship initiatives did manage to secure a critical concession – temporary rollback of the proposed all-India National Register of Citizens, which Shah had promised in the Parliament. Since the protests, he hasn’t mentioned it again. This too was no less than a victory, even if partial.

So, for the movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act , the possibility of a total triumph remains. But for now, it remains hidden behind a thick fog of cynical politics, anti-Muslim majoritarianism and authoritarian arrogance.

Angshuman Choudhury is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Delhi, and a former visiting fellow to the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin.

Source: Why the Modi government is unlikely to repeat the farm laws pullback with the citizenship law

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The Great Gulf Citizenship Competition

2021/11/22 Leave a comment

Overview of some of the changes (significant but restrictive in scope):

For years, expats from around the world who flocked to the Gulf could only dream of Saudi or Emirati citizenship, although they made up as much as 33% of the population in Saudi Arabia and approximately 85% in the United Arab Emirates. Neither the construction workers from Egypt nor the maids from the Philippines, the engineers from Iraq nor doctors from India or the UK could get citizenship, even if they lived in the Gulf countries for decades and built their homes there.

Nowadays, when the global and local demand for talent is high, the Gulf petrostates are changing their attitudes and fiercely competing with each other.

This week, Saudi Arabia announced that it will grant citizenship to a group of “outstanding” expatriates including doctors, clerics and academics, becoming the second Gulf Arab state to introduce a formal naturalization program for foreigners with exceptional skills this year.

Back in January, the UAE decided to grant citizenship to “talented” foreign residents that will “add value to the country.”

Currently the opportunity is very limited. According to Saudi media, there is no open application process; citizenship may be awarded by the state to individuals who “meet the criteria.” In the UAE, professionals can only be nominated by Emirati royals or officials as well.

Experts say that for now only a few foreign professionals will be able to take advantage of the offer. However, it’s quite certain that the need for foreign talents will keep growing and the citizenship card will serve as an extraordinary perk for job seekers.

Both the UAE and the Saudi Arabia also encourage “emiratization” and “saudisation” of the labor market in their respective countries in order to combat unemployment and to develop home-grown talents.

“These Gulf states are aiming at the technologies of tomorrow. They worry about the US pullout from the region, about Iran’s attempts to spread its hegemony, and they know that they need the super advanced technological edge,” Prof. Uzi Rabi, the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, told The Media Line.

“The Emiratis were ahead so far, and now Saudi Arabia is stepping ahead as well. They are buying entire systems of knowledge along with the people who operate them, and there are many opportunities for the professionals in Jeddah, Riyadh and other places. Speedy technological development is highly prioritized by the leaders – MbZ  and MbS,” Rabi said, referring to, respectively, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The Saudis see the UAE success and aspire to develop a similar strategy that will also be compatible with the conservative character of the state. Its leadership understands that they will have to open up, but at the same time there is a fear of losing control.

In fact, Kuwait can be considered the pioneer that opened up to foreigners in the 70s and 80s, but during the last three decades it has undone much of its previous success in attracting talent from abroad. Currently, if a Kuwaiti woman is married to a foreigner, even their children are not entitled to Kuwaiti citizenship.

Notably, there is a clear aspect of competition in many areas between the two Gulf states – for tallest buildings, extravagant projects and talented individuals, for example. The UAE began offering citizenship to talented expats in January, and garnered a great deal of media attention, while Saudi Arabia only followed suit in November. Earlier this year Saudi Arabia told international companies to move their regional headquarters to Riyadh or lose out on government contracts. For now, 44 international companies have moved their offices – mostly from glamorous Dubai – and more companies are expected to join them soon.

Source: The Great Gulf Citizenship Competition

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

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