Did Trump’s botched census citizenship push cost red states?

2021/04/29 Leave a comment

Ironic:

Among the many haphazard and politically transparent moves by the Trump administration, few rank quite as high on both measures as its botched push for a census citizenship question. The move was widely criticized as a thinly veiled attempt to dissuade undocumented immigrants from responding and to give the GOP a tool to draw more favorable political maps. The Supreme Court wound up rejecting the whole thing, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. effectively accusing the administration of hiding its true motives.

But even when the administration succumbed, some warned that damage might already have been done — that certain immigrants might still shy away from responding because of fears engendered by the lengthy battle. And there was data to back that up.

So did it happen? It’s not quite clear that it did in significant measure, but there are some indications it might have — though perhaps to the detriment of Trump’s red-state allies rather than Democrats.

Source: Did Trump’s botched census citizenship push cost red states?

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Korean citizenship may soon be more attainable for foreign children

2021/04/28 Leave a comment

Marginal change, given requirement for “deep ties”, with priority given to those whose families have been in Korea for two generations:

The underage children of foreigners with permanent residency in Korea may soon be able to acquire Korean citizenship under a revision to the nationality law proposed by the Ministry of Justice on Monday.

Generally, the acquisition of Korean nationality follows the principle of jus sanguinis, and ethnic Koreans are able to more easily attain Korean citizenship.

However, the Ministry of Justice’s proposed revision to the Nationality Act will introduce a “simple nationality acquisition policy for young children born in Korea to permanent residents.” Under the revised law, if a permanent resident with “deep ties” to Korea gives birth to a child in Korea, the child will become a citizen by simply reporting his or her intent to acquire Korean nationality to the Minister of Justice.

Previously, children born in Korea to permanent residents had to apply for naturalization, even if they completed their primary and secondary education in the country.

Although the revision does not signal a complete abandonment of the jus sanguinis principle, it would make it significantly easier for minors to become Korean citizens earlier in their youth.

If the revision passes, children 6 years old or younger would be able to report an intent to naturalize without any additional requirements. Children who are 7 or older can do the same, provided they have resided in the country five or more years.

However, not all children born on Korean soil to permanent residents can naturalize with ease under the policy. Priority will be given to those children whose families have been in Korea for two or more generations and permanent residents who have “deep blood or cultural ties” to the country.

One of the main beneficiaries of the law will be ethnic Chinese who have resided in Korea for several decades but were barred from citizenship under the strict application of the jus sanguinis principle.

According to government estimates, about 3,900 individuals are currently eligible to acquire Korean nationality under the revised scheme. The Ministry of Justice believes that 600 to 700 additional people will be eligible every year.

“By giving children of permanent residents with deep ties to Korean society an opportunity to acquire nationality early, [the policy] will help foster their cultural identity and establish stability,” the Justice Ministry said. “It will also contribute to secure growth in the labor pool in the era of low birth rates and an aging population.”

Source: Korean citizenship may soon be more attainable for foreign children

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with ,

Amid languishing numbers, Canada’s #citizenship process needs to be modernized

2021/04/26 Leave a comment

My latest:

COVID-19 upended all aspects of immigration policy and programs, requiring government flexibility with respect to documentation, time limits and other requirements. In many ways, this has been beneficial as it required rethinking processes and procedures and adapting to a more online world.

Citizenship was no exception, exposing the underlying weaknesses of citizenship program management: extensive paper-based processes and a dated IT infrastructure.

While Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) consistently meets its immigration targets (with the exception of during the first pandemic year), the number of new citizens has fluctuated widely over time, reflecting resource and administrative weaknesses. This is in contrast to the steady increase in the number of new permanent residents (figure 1).

https://e.infogram.com/5ea930a5-6598-488b-9ef1-c758b1e90094?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fapril-2021%2Famid-languishing-numbers-canadas-citizenship-process-needs-to-be-modernized%2F&src=embed#async_embed

For 2020, the number of citizenship applications declined 26.5 per cent (from 268,608 in 2019 to 197,472 in 2020). The number of new citizens dropped over twice that number – 55.9 per cent (from 250,083 to 110,214). Finally, new permanent resident applications declined by almost half at 45.9 per cent (from 341,175 to 184,615). Overall, as immigration numbers continued to grow, the naturalization rate of immigrants has declined.

Citizenship is simpler than the myriad immigration programs, and, unlike immigration, falls under exclusively federal jurisdiction. While changes to citizenship are more straightforward, it is a lower priority at both the political and bureaucratic levels than other IRCC programs.

While IRCC was quick to recognize the advantage of encouraging immigration from temporary residents already present in Canada during the pandemic, it initially shut down the citizenship program despite applicants already being in Canada and known to the department.

Modernization

The 2021-22 IRCC departmental plan notes how the department later responded through virtual citizenship ceremonies, piloting on-line knowledge testing and e-applications. Working with the citizenship program in 2008, during an orientation visit to the Sydney, N.S. processing centre, I was shown a large room of paper files that still had to be entered into the tracking system.

Budget 2021 includes $428.9 million over five years “to develop and deliver an enterprise-wide digital platform that would gradually replace the legacy Global Case Management System” to “enable improved application processing and support for applicants, beginning in 2023.” This would be a welcome change if my own experience is any example.

Modernization should result in more informative and timely citizenship information (currently, the government reports on the monthly number of new citizens by country of citizenship). However, there is no public reporting of monthly citizenship applications, province of residence or demographic data such as age, gender or immigration category, in contrast to most immigration datasets.

Modernization also needs to be accompanied by a meaningful citizenship performance standard, based upon the percentage of permanent residents who become Canadian citizens within five to nine years of arrival. This compares to the current and rather meaningless standard which uses the number of all immigrants, whether they arrived five or 50 years ago.

A more ambitious approach, albeit riskier, would help citizenship applicants by pre-populating their forms with permanent residence data and documentation (for example social insurance numbers and tax returns). With exit information now being collected from air carriers, determining whether an applicant has met residency requirements is more straightforward. Overall, applying for citizenship should become a largely automatic process. One could even go further and ensure invitations to apply are sent automatically to eligible applicants to encourage citizenship take-up.

Citizenship education

The IRCC also needs to deliver on existing commitments, including publishing the update to the citizenship guide, first promised  in 2016. A change to the citizenship oath to reflect Indigenous treaty rights is currently before Parliament. The government appears to have walked back from its 2019 election commitment to eliminate citizenship fees as this was not included in the 2021 budget.

The delay in releasing the revised citizenship study guide, Discover Canada, provides an opportunity to reflect on whether more efforts should be made with respect to citizenship education beyond the revising guide and holding high-profile citizenship ceremonies (e.g., at public locations such as a hockey arenas).

Given government plans to increase immigration and provide more pathways for less-educated and lower-skilled persons to become permanent residents, there is a greater need for citizenship education.

The 2018 evaluation of the IRCC’s settlement program indicated that while “Settlement clients reported having knowledge of Canadian laws, rights and responsibilities, …only employment-related services had a positive impact on the level of knowledge.” The 2020 evaluation of the citizenship program revealed that test “Pass rates are lower among applicants with less education and lower language proficiency.”

These evaluations, and census data on naturalization, confirm the need for greater citizenship preparation and training to help new Canadians better understand the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, particularly in the context of an increase in immigration numbers. Current training offered by settlement agencies and public institutions narrowly focuses on citizenship test preparation rather than a more fundamental understanding of Canada.

Consideration needs to be given to expand the current focus on early arrival integration to include citizenship preparation, either on a stand-alone basis or integrated into language training at intermediate levels, with the curriculum based on, but not limited to, the new citizenship study guide. This would facilitate civic integration, particularly those with less education and language proficiency, and should help address the decline in naturalization among recent arrivals.

COVID-19 continues to provide opportunities to rethink government programs and services, with immigration and citizenship being no exception. While existing government policies and processes make change complex and difficult, IRCC and other departments have been able to make some practical changes to improve existing processes and requirements to attenuate some of the impacts of COVID-19 and pave the way for further changes.

For citizenship, modernization of the IT infrastructure and related processes is key to addressing long-standing inefficiencies and deficiencies in the program. Broadening settlement programming to support more vulnerable groups becoming Canadian citizens should be viewed as part and parcel of increased immigration objectives.

Source: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/april-2021/amid-languishing-numbers-canadas-citizenship-process-needs-to-be-modernized/

Filed under Citizenship, Discover Canada Tagged with , ,

Covid accelerates India’s millionaire exodus

2021/04/14 Leave a comment

Of note:

India’s wealthy have topped a list of people seeking to relocate abroad through visa programmes that offer citizenship or right of residence in other countries in return for investments.

There was very little Rahul (name changed) didn’t have going for him, when he made the tough call to leave India six years ago. He is the second generation scion of a well-heeled Delhi-based family. They have a flourishing exports business with a monopoly in what’s typically called a ‘sunrise sector’- an industry that has great future prospects.

But he left it all behind and moved to Dubai in 2015, to look after the company’s overseas expansion. He also got a citizenship by investment in one of the Caribbean nations. Harassment by tax authorities in India’s Enforcement Directorate was a key reason, he says.

“I could see it becoming a problem for someone who had businesses spread across the world,” he told the BBC. “With a foreign passport, the red-tape has reduced substantially. I am less worried about being slapped with a random tax demand.”

‘Tax terror’ has been a routine gripe among Indian corporate tycoons. When the founder and owner of India’s largest coffee chain, Cafe Coffee Day died in 2019, he accused a former director general of the income tax department of harassing him. But the government has continued to tighten its noose around business owners in recent years.

According to one report, tax searches by India’s income tax department have more than trebled in the last few years.

The government has argued this is being done to eradicate “black money – illegal cash, hidden from the tax authorities – and improve tax compliance. But critics say the overreach is also often on account of pressure on bureaucrats to meet revenue targets.

But hounding by the taxman was just one reason for his move, says Rahul. His decision was also prompted by a growing trend of “divide and rule politics” in India, he told us. He didn’t want his kids to grow up in India’s increasingly polarised environment.

Many others in his circle of wealthy friends were also renouncing their citizenship or resident status, he added.

These claims are borne out by figures from the wall-street investment bank Morgan Stanley. A 2018 bank report found that 23,000 Indian millionaires had left the country since 2014.

More recently, a Global Wealth Migration Review report revealed that nearly 5,000 millionaires, or 2% of the total number of high net-worth individuals in India left the country in 2020 alone. And Indians topped a list compiled by the London-headquartered global citizenship and residence advisory Henley & Partners (H&P), of those seeking citizenship or residency in other countries in return for monetary investments.

Covid-19 has been a big driver of what was an ongoing trend of wealthy Indians seeking to “globalise their lives and assets” according to H&P. So much so that the firm set up its office in India in the middle of the lockdown last year to cater to growing demand.

“I think they [clients] are realising they don’t want to wait for the second or third wave of the pandemic. They want to have their papers now that they are sitting at home. We refer to this as the insurance policy or Plan B,” Dominic Volek, Group Head of Private at Henley & Partners told the BBC on a video call from Dubai.

According to Mr Volek, the pandemic could be a game changer, because it is making the wealthy think about migration in a more holistic fashion. It is no longer just about visa-free travel, or ease of access to global markets, but about wealth diversification, better healthcare and education, to protect against the uncertainties brought about by the pandemic.

Countries like Portugal, which runs a ‘golden visa’ programme as well as countries like Malta and Cyprus are preferred destinations for India’s well heeled, according to H&P.

This exodus of big money is not necessarily permanent in nature – people merely invest money in another country as a fall-back option rather than take out all their money from their home country and cut business ties. But it doesn’t bode well for a developing nation like India, say experts.

“When this happens, they remove themselves, their entrepreneurial ability and their income and wealth from the tax base. This is likely to be detrimental in the long run. Their exit sends a poor signal about the ‘doing business climate’ in India,” says Rupa Subramanya, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

Andrew Amoils, Head of Research at New World Wealth, a Johannesburg-based wealth intelligence group, told the Business Standard newspaper: “It can be a sign of bad things to come as high-net-worth individuals are often the first people to leave – they have the means to leave unlike middle-class citizens.”

Source: Covid accelerates India’s millionaire exodus

Filed under citizenship-by-investment, Immigration Tagged with , , ,

‘Kiss of death’: Advocates warn Democrats’ voting bill could harm immigrants

2021/04/13 Leave a comment

Interesting possible collateral impact:

Some immigration lawyers and progressives warn that a provision in Democrats’ sweeping voting-rights legislation risks inadvertently harming immigrants if it becomes law.

Their concerns reflect a debate among progressives about whether to amend the bill, and they have created tension between two of the party’s priorities — maximizing access to the ballot box and supporting immigration — as the Democratic-controlled Senate returns from recess this week and debates it.

Democrats who wrote the House-passed For the People Act want to require states to automatically register people to vote at times like when they apply for driver’s licenses or state identification — unless they opt out.

Some immigration lawyers are sounding an alarm, arguing that the measure could mistakenly register people who are legally in the country on work visas or green cards. That could subject them to grave consequences, like being deported or permanently banned from gaining citizenship.

Noncitizens wouldn’t have to intend to register, and they could be punished even if they never tried to vote. They could check the wrong box on a form or misunderstand a DMV clerk’s question about their legal status and face serious consequences.

“A false claim to U.S. citizenship is what we call the kiss of death. It is a permanent black mark that prevents a noncitizen from ever gaining status,” said Gloria Contreras Edin, an immigration lawyer based in Minnesota. “With the HR1 automatic voter registration system, the risk is there’s a strong possibility that there will be unintentional violation of that immigration law.”

Federal law is strict: It is a crime for a noncitizen to falsely claim citizenship in pursuit of benefits such as registering to vote. There are serious consequences even for honest mistakes. A person who does vote could go to jail.

“Ignorance isn’t necessarily a defense,” Contreras Edin said. “The proposed plan is likely to harm noncitizens. It could permanently bar lawful permanent residents who have been here for 20 or 30 years, working and paying taxes, who have their whole lives here.”

As the Senate reviews the legislation, immigration lawyers like Contreras Edin, as well as some election law experts and progressive strategists, are urging Democrats in private memos and conversations to make changes. They want to modify the “front end” automatic registration to a “back end” system that requires factoring in citizenship documentation before triggering registration.

The progressive community, which overwhelmingly agrees on the need for automatic voter registration, is debating how best to structure the measure to maximize effectiveness, reduce harm to immigrants and defend against political vulnerabilities.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, which claims credit for helping develop the bill, said it takes protecting vulnerable communities “very seriously” and argued that the legislation would shield noncitizens because it would apply only to applicants who are “affirming United States citizenship.”

“It doesn’t get down to the details of when and how agencies filter ineligible people out of the system, in part because when and how that happens depends on the agency and the information they are presented,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, a deputy director of the Brennan Center. “It is not the case that the For the People Act delineates the details of how that happens.”

Morales-Doyle said that more than a dozen states have adopted front-end automatic registration systems and that he’s not aware of any instances when a noncitizen was added to the rolls.

The automatic voter registration language is backed by the Latino advocacy group NALEO and Asian Americans Advancing Justice, among others, according to a March 24 letter.

‘Underestimating the political vulnerability’

The disagreement boils down to how strong the citizenship verification ought to be. And that creates tension: The stricter it is, the more hurdles it creates to register people, but the more it defers to agencies, the more room there is for error.

Some progressives argue that if Democrats enact a law that registers ineligible people, they risk fueling Republican criticism that they don’t care about secure elections.

“We as progressives could lose the upper hand in talking about election integrity and access to the ballot for a generation,” said a progressive strategist with deep roots in the voting rights community. “If ineligible voters — if green card holders and others — end up on the rolls, that gives Republicans and those who are trying to ruin voting rights the ammunition that they need.”

The strategist, like more than a half-dozen lawyers and advocates who were interviewed, requested anonymity to candidly criticize a bill that is passionately supported by Democrats. Party leaders say its passage is important to the survival of democracy amid new GOP-led voting laws in states like Georgia, which President Joe Biden has compared to Jim Crow.

The expert said staff members for Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have been made aware of the concerns. The legislation received a hearing in late March, and Schumer has promised a vote in the full Senate after it goes through committee.

Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have promised to fight the bill, describing it as a partisan power grab to impose election rules on states and maximize Democratic prospects of gaining power.

An election law expert who has spoken with congressional officials about the bill said lawmakers are “significantly underestimating the political vulnerability” of a bill that could lead ineligible people to be added to the rolls.

Source: ‘Kiss of death’: Advocates warn Democrats’ voting bill could harm immigrants

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@ASemotiuk: How To Fund Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Using Immigration

2021/04/10 Leave a comment

Benefits of investor immigration and citizenship-by-investment schemes over stated along with risks of corruption. Great benefits for immigration lawyers and consultants, however:

Recently, President Biden unveiled a $ 2 trillion infrastructure plan to fix roads and bridges, while boosting research and tackling climate change. Calling it a “once-in-a-generation investment in America,” he introduced the plan to address the inequalities exposed by the pandemic and to heal America’s economy from the bottom up. More recently, Biden specified how he would raise the money through higher corporate taxation. But could there be a better more creative way?

How Much Is That?

If you are anything like me, you’re not entirely sure just how many zeros there are in a trillion. I had to look it up, and it’s 12 zeros. In other words, President Biden’s infrastructure proposal would cost exactly $ 2,300,000,000,000. It has been estimated that $1 trillion worth of one dollar bills stacked one on top of the other would measure 109,220 kilometres. Put another way, if you stacked up all the dollars in President Biden’s plan one on top of another, they would reach half way to the moon. That’s a lot of money. While Biden has set out his corporate tax proposal as a way to fund it, he has indicated he is open to suggestions on this theme.

Raising Taxes Has Been Proposed

It seems to me there are basically three ways America could pay for President Biden’s plan. The first way is to raise taxes. Biden argues that for those taxpayers making less than $ 400,000 per year there would be no tax increase. Instead he has proposed to raise taxes on large corporations and high net worth individuals. It is clear that Republicans want none of that and will fight tooth and nail to oppose the plan. Let’s face it, rich people and big corporations just don’t want to pay for this proposed program. With the Democratic majority in both Houses, Biden may be able to shove the plan down their throats. Or he may not. That drama will play out in the weeks ahead. But let’s keep an open mind about this.

A Second Alternative

A second alternative would be to go further in debt, increasing the federal debt from its current $ 21 trillion to $ 23 trillion. This would be like drawing down even more debt on a federal credit card that has long ago already exceeded its limit. So far, with interest rates at record lows, going into debt has been workable. The challenge there is the day when holders of American dollars lose confidence in them. That’s when interest rates will start rising and the federal debt will become unmanageable. Until then though, just printing more money could work. This would be the lazy way out of the challenge, seemingly the least painful way immediately, but likely to cause a terrible hangover down the road.

But there is a third way. And this fits with the already mentioned Biden’s willingness to consider alternatives.

Paying For Infrastructure Repairs Using Immigration

The third way would be to adapt an investor immigration program to pay for at least some of the infrastructure plan. The current U.S. EB-5 investor immigration regional center program includes a component in which foreign investors invest $ 900,000 for a period of five years on a project approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). Each application must create at least 10 new jobs and enables such an investor and his or her family to immigrate to the United States permanently. Out of about one million applicants who immigrate to the United States each year, current allowances allocate only 10,000 slots to such foreign investors and their family members. However, it would not be hard to imagine how this program could be altered to help pay for Biden’s plan over a period of time. That would mean we would get the same result Biden proposes, without it costing Americans as much since the cost would be paid by new foreign investment brought into the country.

Suppose, for example, we agreed to increase the number of investor-related visas coming into the United States per year from the current 10,000, to say 100,000. Assuming each family on average has four persons, that would mean there would be 25,000 investors coming into the country under such a scenario. If each investor invested $ 900,000 and created 10 new jobs as required under the EB-5 program, that would mean the EB-5 program could generate $ 22.5 billion in revenues and 250,000 new jobs per year.

To be more exact, Biden’s plan calls for over $ 2 trillion in investment to be spent and paid for over 15 years. Using that as a measuring stick and assuming the $ 900,000 per investor would remain the same under the USCIS program, it would mean we would aim to attract some 375,000 investors to the United States over 15 years and earn just under $ 340 billion. However, if you spread this effort out over say a 40-year time frame, such an effort would exceed $ 1 trillion in investments.

Long Term Thinking

There are about 15 million millionaires in the world today outside of North America. This plan would call on attracting less than 10% of them to America over the next 40 years. That may not be easy, but maybe it could be done. The key thing is that such a program would generate 10 million new jobs for Americans. Assuming such a program was ongoing, the amounts invested would be repaid with ongoing investment over time. Further, this doesn’t even consider what other investments each such family would make in America as they buy houses, send kids to schools and spend money on consumer goods.

Maybe these assumptions about the EB-5 program are too unrealistic or miss the mark in some way. Even so, they do illustrate how the EB-5 program could help defray at least some of the costs of Biden’s proposal if used in combination with other ways of funding it. By tinkering with the various options available, a package may be created that will impose less of a burden on U.S. taxpayers and spur the economic recovery at the same time. It is worthwhile to consider these alternatives in this context.

Source: How To Fund Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Using Immigration

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with ,

Antigua PM accuses US of trying to kill Caribbean citizenship by investment programs

2021/04/10 Leave a comment

Of note:

Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister, Gaston Browne, is accusing the United States of America of trying to “kill” the Citizenship by Investment Programs (CIP) in the Caribbean.

Browne said to listeners on his weekly radio program Saturday gone, that “It seems as though they don’t want us to operate the CIP so they want to kill it”

“They attacked St Kitts and Dominica too. And they do that so often I don’t even know what to say. But anytime they kill it, countries like Dominica and St Kitts, their economies will be decimated and they will plunge tens of thousands of people e in poverty and then you end up with so many social ills,” said

His comment comes on the heels of a report last week, where the US government cited the CIP in three Caribbean countries for “lack of transparency”.

In the ‘Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government,’ section, the 2020 report identifies the CIP programs in Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica and St. Kitts & Nevis as citizen concerns on oversight and corruption due to a lack of openness.

In Dominica, the US report pointed to local media and opposition leadership, who continue to raise allegations of corruption within the government, including in the Citizenship by Investment program and pointed to the fact that while the law provides criminal penalties for corruption by officials … the government implemented the law inconsistently.”

And in St. Kitts & Nevis, the US report pointed to media and private citizens reporting on government corruption “occasionally” even as citizens “expressed concern about the lack of financial oversight of revenues generated by the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) program.”

Browne said instead of using information to disparage these countries, the United States should instead work with these small island developing states.

“Let us work together and strengthen the relations with the United States, Dominica, St Kitts…. I mean trying to use this information to disparage us is unhelpful. If it was truthful, I would understand,” he said.

The CIP Programs in the Eastern Caribbean countries have been a source of continued criticism by the US and many nationals locally who question the use of “donation” funds that are part of the attractive offer for a second passport in these jurisdictions and visa free travel to between 152 and 162 countries.

Five Caribbean countries offer the CIP programs but neither Grenada nor St. Lucia were cited for lack of transparency in the report.

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with , ,

Algeria withdraws law stripping citizenship to opponents abroad, big loss for regime hardliners

2021/04/06 Leave a comment

Of note:

The Algerian regime backed away from issuing a controversial law that would have stripped political opponents abroad of their Algerian nationality. he draft law was presented Wednesday, 3 March by the ultra-hardliner Justice Minister Belkacem Zeghmati at the Government’s meeting. On Sunday, 4 April, the attempt by extremist nationalists in government has failed and is now considered definitely buried.

The Zeghmati proposed law generated hostile reactions, prompting President Tebboune to announce on Sunday in a TV interview that “There has been misunderstanding and as such, the draft bill was withdrawn.”  Tebboune has also acknowledged that “the bill would have threatened social and national cohesion, as well as state security.”

At the heart of the now-defunct bill is the Algerian regime’s efforts to eliminate any form of opposition, in particular among Algerian opponents abroad. Many such opponents are extremely vocal critics of the regime with hundreds of thousands of online followers.  The Algerian regime has been working extremely hard to discredit any voice that stands with the Hirak pro-democracy movement. In 2019, the regime, headed by the late General Gaid Salah, attempted to divide Algerians along ethnic lines, by demonizing the Amazigh people. The effort has failed miserably. This year, the government’s political police are seeking to create divisions in the Hirak by pitting secularists against Islamist opponents, in particular a group known as the Rachad Movement, who have been the principal targets of the Zeghamati law. It is also going after secular activists, with recent articles in pro-regime press attacking the likes of secular human rights lawyer, Mustafa Bouchachi and many others. Opposition parties are also facing turmoil, with the Algerian political police attempting to create major divisions as in the FFS and the Workers Party.

In response, the Hirak movement remains unimpressed. The latest Friday’s rallies were the biggest to date this year, with almost all cities contributing with their anti-government marches. Slogans used during those marches included references against the military and its notorious intelligence agencies. Protesters have been chanting slogas accusing the military of being “traitors.”

The withdrawal of the Zeghmati law is clearly a major defeat for the hardliners in the regime. However, we expect this faction to remain active in preventing any democratic progress in Algeria

Source: Algeria withdraws law stripping citizenship to opponents abroad, big loss for regime hardliners

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#Citizenship applications, new citizens and Permanent Residents: 2020 Update

2021/04/05 Leave a comment

IRCC kindly provided me with the 2020 citizenship application monthly data (not available on opendata), allowing me to update one of my standard charts, showing the dramatic declines in 2020:

Annual decline 2020 compared to 2019:

  • Applications: 26.5 percent
  • New Citizens: 56.8 percent
  • Permanent Residents: 45.7 percent

Surprised by the relatively small decline in applications compared to new citizens, suggesting that IRCC may be developing a backlog as has happened in the past.

As I have noted in the past, the number of applications and new citizens fluctuates widely compared to the more stable trajectory of new Permanent Residents, reflecting policy changes in terms of applications and resource and management issues in the case of new citizens.

Historically, this has been met by injections of funding to clear backlogs (often near to elections!) and I understand that the 2014-15 increase in citizenship fees (from $200 to $630 for adults) may have been a way to pay for increased funding.

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Methodology for Investment Migration Programs 2021 (Henley & Partners)

2021/03/31 Leave a comment

For those of you interested in indexes and citizenship and how the private companies make their assessment:

In constructing the Global Residence Program Index (GRPI) and Global Citizenship Program Index (GCPI) we have referred to multiple sources and experts to obtain and interpret the primarily qualitative data used. We have relied principally on the expertise of residence and citizenship analysts and the experience of investors and government officials. As a result, the explanatory power that supports the scores in the different categories is based on surveys, interviews with respondents, and opinions solicited from selected experts. Where possible, the subjectivity of the various factors has been assessed against publicly available data and widely accepted composite indicators.

The data for surveys and interviews has been consistently collected from a representative sample that includes respondents, experts on citizenship, and practitioners who have been involved in the design of qualitative research in global mobility and related spaces. The sample frame for respondents consists of existing and potential investors, their advisors, and government officials in countries that either already have, or are in the process of establishing, investment migration programs. Relying on potential clients means that the responses of those who decided against proceeding with any program are also included. It may also be noted that among our respondent and expert base are government officials and consultants engaged in investment migration programs that have been discontinued as well as those that are in the process of being established or reformed.

The factors that are analyzed in each of the indexes are as follows:

Global Residence Program Index

  • Reputation
  • Quality of Life
  • Visa-free or Visa-on-arrival Access
  • Processing Time and Quality of Processing
  • Compliance
  • Investment Requirements
  • Tax
  • Total Costs
  • Time to Citizenship
  • Citizenship Requirements

Global Citizenship Program Index

  • Reputation
  • Quality of Life
  • Visa-free or Visa-on-arrival Access
  • Processing Time and Quality of Processing
  • Compliance
  • Investment Requirements
  • Residence Requirements
  • Relocation Flexibility
  • Physical Visit Requirements
  • Transparency

Reputation 

Reputation relies on the perceptions of investors and advisors regarding the image of the countries in which they invest. This indicator is subjective by nature, but much like the Attractiveness Indicators employed by the IMD in its Executive Opinion Surveys, our intention was to allow our respondents and informants the space to consider intangible and unanticipated factors while assessing the reputation of destination countries.

Endeavoring to assess reputation is not new, and the relationship between reputation and outcome is a popular mechanism for assessing the competitiveness of organizations, cities, and even regions. Furthermore, the reputation of a country, much like the reputation of a corporate, is a historical indicator that allows its previous efforts to meet investor expectations to be assessed.

Quality of Life 

The assessment of Quality of Life (QoL) uses a wide range of methods to evaluate subjective perceptions of various sample groups in different contexts, as well as developing factors that are independent of subjective perceptions. Like Reputation, QoL could well benefit from considering investors’ experiences and what is particularly relevant to individuals who are interested in investment migration.

We are aware, moreover, that there are substantial institutional efforts in developing composite indicators for QoL — the United Nations Human Development Index is one of the most comprehensive (relying on life expectancy at birth, schooling, literacy rates, and gross national income per capita). These factors do not cover all civil and political liberties though; for assessing democratic values, Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report is a preferable indicator.

As our focus is also on investment, the World Bank’s Doing Business reports are pertinent, since investors may have to negotiate the regulatory environment of destination countries for a variety of economic activities. We have sought to anchor the framing of our questions in established indicators but recognize that such indicators do not always correspond to what is being assessed in the GRPI and GCPI.

Visa-free or Visa-on-arrival Access

The methodology for this factor is relatively straightforward. It aims to measure an improvement in the mobility of an investor, or their ability to enter additional countries visa-free or with visa-on-arrival access as a result of being a citizen of, or resident in, a particular jurisdiction.

For the GCPI this factor relies on the 2021 Henley Passport Index, which curates data from 227 different travel destinations (including countries, territories, and micro-states), collated by the International Air Transport Association, to arrive at the ranking. The Henley Passport Index compares data on the number of destinations that a citizen of a given country can visit without requiring a prior visa. A relaxed travel policy is worthwhile in itself, but it also characterizes a country’s political regime and the extent of its civil liberties.

While acquiring alternative citizenship is more directly linked to ease of travel, an alternative residence can also enhance the mobility of individuals. It thus also features as a factor that motivates residence investments and is included in the GRPI.

Processing Time and Quality of Processing

Processing time for applications and their quality of processing are two distinct aspects that are assessed differently. Some countries may offer a short processing time between lodging an application and issuing a visa or permit, but there may be uncertainties in administrative processes. In this regard, input from respondents has proved valuable: the responses and analysis thereof have verified the official or declared processing time and complemented the ‘hard’ data on actual processing time taken (namely, the number of days), including obstructions faced.

Compliance

Countries have different procedures and varying due diligence requirements for profiling applicants (including criminal records and financial statements), sources of funds, the manner of fund transfers, and the vulnerability to abuse of the funds invested. The standard measures adopted are best practices developed by international associations and professional agencies for anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, and anti-bribery and corruption. The EU, unlike the USA, does not have a joint or federal procedure for conducting due diligence, so EU countries differ widely in terms of their national rules. Clear information and frameworks regarding due diligence facilitate better risk assessments for potential investors. A more intensive due diligence requirement may be an advantage as this translates into less uncertainty in private investments. Since financial institutions usually engage in Know Your Customer audits regardless of the regulations of investment migration programs, they are less vulnerable than private investments. Vulnerability to money laundering in different sectors could, furthermore, be avoided in the presence of clear regulations.

Investment Requirements

The upfront investment amounts for residence differ in terms of amount required, nature of investment, and additional costs. For this indicator, we consider the required investment amounts. The range in the stated amounts is broad and the nature of the investment is not always left to the discretion of the investor. Options for different forms of investment are specified by the destination governments, largely depending on policy considerations and benefits to the respective countries. Generally, a country offering more choice in how to invest and requiring lower investment amounts (including additional costs) scores higher.

Because of the unique nature of citizenship-by-investment (CBI) programs, investment amounts are substantial, and the accompanying conditions do not allow much choice in the nature of the investment. There is a noticeable pattern to the investments required for CBI programs: the investment amounts are generally greater than those required by residence-by-investment (RBI) programs, there is usually a requirement or at least an option to purchase real estate, and there is usually a requirement or an option to make a non-refundable contribution.

Tax

This factor raises the question of the extent of the tax burden that a resident is required to bear for both corporate and personal economic activities. It is rare for a country not to impose any taxes on its residents. The only two countries in our indexes that have that distinction are Monaco and the UAE, since they do not impose personal income tax, property tax, capital gains tax, or net worth taxes. For all other countries, preferential tax schemes and tax waivers, and incentives for applicants with significant investments heavily influence the score arrived at for this factor.

Total Costs

The stated investment amount does not always constitute the total actual cost an investor must bear to acquire residence status. As the nature of investment differs considerably across programs, it is difficult to compare the total actual cost of investment. Programs that offer a range of investment options score higher in this sub-indicator. Some investors have, however, raised questions about the uncertainties and volatility of foreign markets and therefore the value of choosing options that appear to be safer. Generally, destination countries that reduce investors’ opportunity costs by providing a wider choice of investments or by offering incentive-based investments are considered by investors to be more attractive.

Time to Citizenship

The time it takes applicants to gain citizenship is one of the criteria for assessing a RBI program’s attractiveness.

This refers to the process of naturalizing as a citizen once already a resident, which is distinct from direct CBI. Countries that have appeal in this regard offer a relatively fast path to citizenship, mainly because the time it takes to naturalize is comparatively short. However, this factor considers both the formal time required and any physical presence requirements. Countries with prohibitive rules governing the transition to citizenship score zero.

Citizenship Requirements

This factor examines all the requirements to qualify for naturalization after the specified minimum time has been fulfilled, including physical presence requirements, additional investment requirements or other ‘commitment’ requirements, and other requirements to qualify for citizenship, such as language requirements and cultural integration tests. In some countries, the transition from permanent residence to citizenship is less demanding and there are minimal additional requirements. Other countries have stringent physical presence but few additional requirements.

Residence Requirements

None of the countries ranked in the GCPI impose demanding conditions of residence. Smaller countries keen on attracting investment use waivers or substantial reductions in residence requirements to their competitive advantage.

Relocation Flexibility

An assessment of the number of citizenship investors in the different countries reveals that a substantial percentage of them apply for the migration of family members with the intention of either settling in the destination country or keeping the option open in case they need to leave their home countries. For this factor, we evaluated first the number of investors who indicated their intention to relocate and compared it to the number of investors who have relocated, in order to gauge which countries are conducive to relocation. Subsequently, we assessed the factors facilitating relocation. In this regard, EU member states have a clear advantage because a citizen of an EU member state can consider relocating to another member state or to a choice of several additional countries that have agreements with the EU, such as Switzerland. Though such relocation is not automatic, the rules are well established, they provide clarity on how and when relocation to another EU member state is permissible, and the process entails lower information costs. Destination countries’ efforts towards enabling family unification, and the ease with which they deal with private property, reduce the uncertainties that relocation can entail. Furthermore, for citizens who can support themselves financially, EU law imposes very few restrictions on their freedom to relocate.

The rule of law plays an important part in informing investors’ choices in relocation: their confidence in an existent fair process for securing personal freedom, settling investment disputes, and the legal wherewithal to negotiate with government authorities, all point towards a higher score.

Physical Visit Requirements

This indicator assesses whether physical visits are required as part of the application process, usually for interviews, oath-taking ceremonies, and passport renewals, by evaluating the number of visits required and the bureaucracy of the processes that precede them.

Transparency

The World Economic Forum’s transparency indicators for CBI programs are: public support, evaluation studies, availability of public data, and due diligence criteria. No GCPI countries publish evaluations of CBI inflows, but the other criteria inform the structure and content of the surveys, which inquired about access to clear information on application processes, including due diligence, and how funds are used. Although many investors wish to understand, and preferably choose, where their investments are used, investments are often deployed in predetermined ways, making it difficult to influence their use. The visibility of such contributions in domestic projects and the earmarking of funds influence investors’ decisions and perceptions of program transparency.

Circulating such information is advantageous as it enables investors to conduct meaningful risk assessments. Furthermore, the impact of investments on potential and existing businesses could influence business decisions. The pivotal aspects for transparency are program rules and regulations, and processes and their implementation in program administration.

Source: https://www.henleyglobal.com/publications/investment-migration-programs-2021/methodology

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with ,

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