DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen to Tucker Carlson: Getting Rid of Birthright Citizenship Is ‘on the Table’

2019/04/05 Leave a comment

Reality will eventually catch up with virtue signalling given the 14th amendment:

Hours after President Trump declared he would “100 percent” close America’s southern border if he can’t make a deal with Congress on border security and immigration, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that eliminating birthright citizenship is “on the table” as a way to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants and asylum-seeking migrants.

Nielsen, who recently requested additional resources from Congress as border officials aim to quadruple the number of deportations of asylum seekers, appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight Tuesday evening to discuss the influx of Central American migrants at the southern border, and Carlson immediately began grilling her about what the administration was doing to “fix this.”

At times, it even seemed as if the Fox News host might be gunning for Nielsen’s job as he bombarded her with his own proposed solutions to the border crisis.

What about punishing employers “who are setting the bait in this trap, who are encouraging illegal aliens to come into this country?” he asked. (Interestingly, the president’s own businesses allegedly employed numerous undocumented workers—until they were caught by the press.)

“That is part of the problem,” Nielsen said, adding that steps are already being taken to address just that issue. “We’re looking to do everything we can throughout the system to apply penalties where we can,” she said.

Carlson was not satisfied with that answer. “Well how bout this, why wouldn’t your agency write an executive order, present it to the president, have him sign it and do it tomorrow?”

Nielsen went on to argue that “there’s a debate in Congress” regarding the executive branch on implementing an order like that, prompting Carlson to blast Congress while advocating for more direct executive actions.

“It looks like Congress is not going to act because one party has a vested interest in changing the population and the other party is, in effect, controlled by people who want illegal immigration,” Carlson asserted. “So would there be a downside for the president to act unilaterally on that question or, for example, birthright citizenship? Would you be willing to draft an executive order eliminating birthright citizenship?”

The Homeland Security chief responded that Trump has been clear that it is “all on the table” and he’s serious about shutting down the border.

“Yes, everything is on the table,” she reiterated.

Carlson, after noting that “things seem less under control now” at the border than before Trump was elected, asked later in the interview if the administration would send the military to the border since “it’s really a crisis of that magnitude.”

Nielsen said they “are looking into that” and have sent a request to the Department of Defense, causing Carlson to ask who is in charge and if it would be possible for the commander-in-chief to move “troops to the border tomorrow.”

Source: DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen to Tucker Carlson: Getting Rid of Birthright Citizenship Is ‘on the Table’

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with ,

‘Birth tourism’ case presents quandary for parents after break-up: to settle their custody dispute in Canada or China?

2019/04/04 Leave a comment

Another wrinkle when families fall apart:

In 2015, a Chinese couple expecting a child wanted their son to have Canadian citizenship. They arranged to give birth in Richmond, B.C.

What they didn’t anticipate was the legal and jurisdictional quagmire this “birth tourism” arrangement would create when they broke up. At issue: where to settle their custody dispute? In a Canadian courtroom or a Chinese one?

Their years-long court battle — at a time when some critics are pushing the federal government to do away with birthright citizenship altogether — was only settled recently when B.C.’s highest court upheld a ruling that the parent’s custody battle should be dealt with in China even though the boy, now 3, was born in Canada.

Alina Chekh, a Vancouver family lawyer who has been monitoring the case, said while she sees a lot of jurisdictional questions arise in family disputes, it’s the first one she’s seen in the context of a birth tourism case. Parents, she said, should not interpret the outcome of this case as indicative of a trend of judges punting cases to other jurisdictions.

“If you look at the facts of the case, this case is very unique. This won’t apply to every baby in Canada,” she said.

According to court records, the father, who has permanent resident status in Canada, was said to split his time between China and Canada. In September 2015, records show, the mother flew to Canada on a visitor’s visa a couple months before her due date. She and her partner acknowledged this was a “birth-tourism arrangement.”

(The National Post is withholding the names of the parents as the B.C. Provincial Court Act prohibits the identification of a child or party to a family matter before the court.)

Their son was born that November in Richmond, B.C., often dubbed the “epicentre” of Canada’s birth tourism industry. According to Vancouver Coastal Health, during the 2017-18 fiscal year 474 babies were born to non-residents in the Vancouver suburb, representing 22 per cent of all babies born there in that period.

After spending six months in Canada, the trio returned to China in May 2016. At some point, the relationship between the unmarried couple fell apart.

They agreed on a living arrangement: the boy would reside primarily in Beijing with his mother, a television host, and her parents, and spend the rest of the time in nearby Tianjin with his father, a bottled-water business owner, and his family.

Tensions flared in December 2017 when the father flew with his son to Vancouver son on one-way tickets, apparently without the mother’s consent. The mother flew to B.C. a few days later and spent a couple of weeks with her son before flying back to Beijing for work. She agreed to let her son stay in Canada until February 2018.

However, when February rolled around the father refused to hand over their son’s passport, prompting the mother to apply in B.C. Supreme Court for a declaration that the boy was a “habitual resident” of China who had been wrongfully removed from China, and that all matters concerning guardianship and parenting arrangements should be handled in China.

The father argued that matters involving the child should be decided in B.C. because his son was a Canadian citizen and had spent a good part of his life in B.C. He said it was always their intent for their son to return to B.C. for at least part of his education.

After reviewing the evidence, Justice Andrew Mayer said in an August 2018 ruling that it was clear the boy’s habitual residence was China, citing the fact that the mother never quit her job and never made an application for permanent resident status in Canada. Even though the boy was born in B.C., “place of citizenship and place of habitual residence are not the same thing,” Mayer said.

As for whether the parents had a “settled intention” of having their son stay for an extended period in B.C., the judge concluded they had not. He cited several text messages between the pair.

During one exchange on Sept. 24, 2017, the mother wrote: “In the future if you ever go over there alone and bring the child with you … I would not object to that so long as the child likes it and can adapt to it.”

The father replied: “I am just hoping that our son can stay a little longer. Our son should not be living like this.”

“But for our child the bulk of his education should still be received here in China. … The opportunities of the world exist in China,” she wrote back. “Therefore he must be familiar with China and understand everything about China. It is okay for him to live in Canada for a while when he is young in order to establish the framework for English thinking.”

Mayer ruled that the father did not have authorization from the mother to remove their son from China and concluded that B.C. was not the proper jurisdiction to settle questions about the boy’s guardianship and parenting arrangements given his “tenuous” connection to the province.

The father appealed the decision arguing that Mayer had committed a number of errors of law or fact.

But writing on behalf of a three-person panel, Justice Daphne Smith of the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on March 8.

The Post reached out to lawyers for both parents but they either did not return messages or were unavailable.

Canada is one of about 30 nations that confers automatic citizenship to those born on Canadian soil. A recent online survey by Research Co. of 800 B.C. residents found that 66 per cent of respondents said birth tourism degrades the value of Canadian citizenship and 73 per cent supported establishing new guidelines for birthright citizenship.

Critics have also complained that there is a flourishing underground industry of hotels and food providers catering to expectant birth tourists.

But some legal observers have said the issue is overblown and that any attempts to restrict birthright citizenship could lead to unnecessary bureaucracy and cause some newborns to become stateless.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen has said his department is studying the extent of the phenomenon. In a statement, a department spokeswoman said there is “no set date for reporting on any findings.” She noted, however, that available data show “only a small proportion of more than 380,000 annual births in Canada are by women who do not reside in Canada” and includes “Canadians living abroad who may have chosen to return to Canada to give birth.”

• Email: dquan@postmedia.com | Twitter:

Source: ‘Birth tourism’ case presents quandary for parents after break-up: to settle their custody dispute in Canada or China?

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Asylum seekers should make claims through ‘appropriate’ channels: Canadian envoy to U.S.

2019/04/04 Leave a comment

One further detail that I hadn’t noticed before – Canada has been pressing this for more than one year (so not just short-term pre-election positioning):

Canada’s ambassador to the United States says “legitimate refugee claimants” should make their claims through an “appropriate” process rather than crossing from the U.S. between official points of entry.

David MacNaughton said the U.S. moving to begin the process to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement is an encouraging sign. Ottawa wants the pact changed to close a loophole in order to allow Canada to quickly turn away most asylum seekers coming from the United States who enter from unauthorized points.

Asked to square this request with the federal government’s position that refugees are welcome in Canada, Mr. MacNaughton said asylum seekers should use an “established” process.

“We’re open to immigration. We’re also open to legitimate refugee claimants who go through the process that is established,” Mr. MacNaughton said Tuesday in the U.S. Capitol after a lunch meeting with legislators on trade. “What we’re trying to do is make sure that those who are wanting to claim refugee status do so in the way in which it’s appropriate.”

More than 40,000 asylum seekers have entered Canada through unofficial points of entry since U.S. President Donald Trump launched his crackdown on illegal immigration two years ago. The flood of claimants is bogging down the refugee protection system in Canada.

Under the current pact, most refugee claimants who come to Canada from the United States through official points of entry – such as border stations – are immediately sent back to the United States, as it is considered a safe country for refugees under the treaty. But the agreement does not apply between such points of entry, so those who cross between border stations have the right to make a refugee claim.

Mr. MacNaughton said he is encouraged that the United States is starting to move on renegotiation. But he said he did not know whether the United States would agree to the rewrite Canada wants.

“We have had no firm indication as to what they’re prepared to do or not do,” he said. “It’s a positive thing that it’s gone to State [Department] to give a negotiating mandate because that hasn’t been the case for the last however long we’ve been asking for this to happen.”

Canada has been pressing the United States to renegotiate for more than a year. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now working with State Department officials on a formal request to reopen the deal, The Globe and Mail reported on Monday. An assistant secretary would have to authorize the request for talks to start.

Border Security Minister Bill Blair has proposed a change to the agreement that would see Canadian border officials take such asylum seekers to an official crossing, where they would be denied immediate entry. But that plan would have to clear legal hurdles articulated by the Supreme Court that guarantee a hearing to any refugee claimant setting foot in Canada.

Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said a renegotiation could backfire on Canada. She said Canada risks drawing Mr. Trump’s attention to the 2004 border agreement, which could lead the United States to propose changes to the agreement that Ottawa doesn’t want.

“This agreement was negotiated to favour Canadian interests and at Canadian request,” Ms. Dench said. “And so in asking to renegotiate the agreement, the Canadian government must be aware that the U.S. government may … actually want to negotiate it so that fewer refugees are sent back to the U.S. or that the U.S. would think maybe we should actually withdraw ourselves from this agreement.”

The CCR, along with Amnesty International and the Canadian Council of Churches, launched a Federal Court challenge to the agreement in 2017, arguing against Canada’s position that the United States is a safe country for refugees under the Trump administration. A decision has not yet been issued by the court.

The NDP has called on the Liberals to suspend the pact so asylum seekers in the United States can claim refugee status at official Canadian land border posts.

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel urged the Liberal government to act immediately to stop the flow of asylum seekers between official points of entry along the border, saying she doesn’t buy its assertion that Canada can’t make the appropriate changes without agreement from the United States. She accused the Liberals of putting forward ideas without a plan to practically implement them.

“We’re six months out to an election and after trying to make electoral hay out of calling Canadians who raise questions about this fear mongerers and un-Canadian and thinly veiled accusations of racism, I think that this is now about electoral calculus rather than action,” Ms. Rempel said.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Laïcité: les libéraux fédéraux reçoivent un guide pour répliquer à Québec

2019/04/04 Leave a comment

Prudent to have consistent media lines. The actual lines makes the necessary points:

Les libéraux de Justin Trudeau ne veulent pas entendre de voix discordante dans leurs rangs dans le débat sur la laïcité qui fait rage au Québec.

Des notes ont ainsi été préparées à l’intention des ministres, des députés, des adjoints de la colline et dans les bureaux de circonscription, de même que pour les proches collaborateurs du premier ministre afin de les guider dans la réplique fédérale aux mesures contenues dans projet de loi du gouvernement Legault sur la laïcité, déposé la semaine dernière à l’Assemblée nationale.

Le ton ferme de ces notes pourrait laisser entendre que le gouvernement Trudeau prépare soigneusement le terrain à une forme de contestation judiciaire de certains pans du projet de loi sur la laïcité. Certains experts juridiques estiment qu’Ottawa pourrait contester la constitutionnalité du projet de loi, une fois qu’il aura été adopté, en plaidant qu’il est discriminatoire envers les femmes.

Mais une source gouvernementale a insisté pour dire mardi soir que le gouvernement écarte l’idée d’une bataille juridique sur cette question, même si le ministre de la Justice David Lametti a affirmé encore plus tôt en journée que son ministère est toujours en train d’étudier le projet de loi de Québec.

« Le Canada est un pays laïque et cela se reflète dans toutes ses institutions. Les employés de l’État ont le droit d’afficher leurs croyances et personne ne devrait à choisir entre un emploi et son droit de porter un signe religieux », peut-on lire dans les notes de réplique obtenues par La Presse mardi.

« La Charte canadienne des droits et libertés protège les droits de tous les citoyens, et on ne peut pas choisir ceux que l’on protège et ceux que l’on restreint. Notre position est claire : ce n’est pas à l’État de dicter aux gens ce qu’ils peuvent ou ne peuvent pas porter, peu importe leurs croyances », peut-on aussi lire dans ces notes.

« Notre parti a toujours défendu et continuera de défendre les droits fondamentaux de chaque Canadien », ajoute-t-on aussi, prenant soin de souligner qu’il incombe à « tous » de protéger les droits fondamentaux « et toute tentative de les éroder est inacceptable. Le Canada est ouvert, inclusif, et riche de sa diversité ».

Dans les rangs libéraux, on a tenu à minimiser mardi la teneur des notes envoyées aux troupes libérales, affirmant que de tels messages sont envoyés quotidiennement pour les aider à expliquer les positions du gouvernement Trudeau.

Le projet de loi déposé jeudi dernier à l’Assemblée nationale par le ministre de l’Immigration, Simon Jolin-Barrette, interdira aux  employés de l’État ayant un pouvoir coercitif (policiers, gardiens de prison, notamment) de porter des signes religieux. La même interdiction s’appliquera aussi aux enseignants du primaire et du secondaire du secteur public et toute personne souhaitant offrir ou recevoir un service de l’État devra se présenter à visage découvert.

Le projet de loi contient une clause de droits acquis qui permettra aux personnes déjà l’emploi de l’État de conserver leurs signes religieux. Mais pour éviter toute contestation judiciaire, le gouvernement Legault entend invoquer la clause dérogatoire.

À cet égard, les stratèges libéraux à Ottawa font un parallèle entre cette décision du gouvernement Legault d’invoquer la clause dérogatoire et celle du gouvernement conservateur de Doug Ford pour réduire la taille du conseil municipal en Ontario.

« La clause dérogatoire porte entrave aux droits des Canadiens. C’est un élément de notre Constitution auquel on devrait avoir recours uniquement dans les situations les plus exceptionnelles. C’était le cas il y a quelques mois avec Doug Ford, ça demeure le cas maintenant », peut-on lire dans les notes.

Le ministre fédéral de la Justice, David Lametti, a d’ailleurs repris à son compte lundi certaines de ces répliques à la Chambre des communes en réponse aux questions du Bloc québécois sur les intentions du gouvernement fédéral

« Notre gouvernement a toujours défendu les droits fondamentaux de chaque Canadien et Canadienne, et il continuera de le faire. La Charte canadienne des droits et libertés protège les droits de tous les citoyens. On ne peut pas choisir ce que l’on protège et ce que l’on restreint.  Notre position est claire : ce n’est pas à l’État de dicter aux gens ce qu’ils peuvent ou ne peuvent pas porter, peu importe leur croyance », a-t-il déclaré en réponse à une question de la députée bloquiste Monique Pauzé.

La ministre du Patrimoine, Mélanie Joly, a toutefois tenu un discours plus nuancé dans les rangs libéraux, se disant certes très « préoccupée » par les intentions du gouvernement Legault, « mais on pense aussi que c’est aux Québécois d’avoir cette conversation-là et on respecte le fait que l’arène de discussion pour ce sujet est au Québec ».

Dimanche, le premier ministre François Legault a choisi de s’adresser directement aux Québécois  dans l’espoir de les rassurer sur la portée réelle du projet de loi 21 encadrant les signes religieux.

Il a notamment affirmé que le projet de loi est « modéré », en conformité avec les valeurs et l’histoire du Québec, dans son court message de deux minutes et demie diffusé sur son site web et sa page Facebook. Avant même de connaître les grandes lignes du projet de loi sur la laïcité, le premier ministre Justin Trudeau avait affirmé qu’il serait « impensable qu’une société libre légitime la discrimination contre quiconque, basée sur la religion ».

« Le Canada est un pays laïque, un pays qui respecte profondément les libertés individuelles, y compris la liberté d’expression, de conscience et de religion. Le Québec l’est aussi », a alors déclaré le premier ministre, qui était de passage en Nouvelle-Écosse. « Je vais toujours défendre les libertés individuelles. C’est un élément qui fait de nous une société juste, ouverte, libre. »

Source: Laïcité: les libéraux fédéraux reçoivent un guide pour répliquer à Québec

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A New Law Finally Passed on Foreign Women’s Lebanese Citizenship

2019/04/04 Leave a comment

Partial progress:

It is no secret that women in Lebanon have to deal still with archaic gender-bias laws that require urgent changes, adjustments, or even the total eradication of some. Reconciling their reality with the Lebanese progressive mentality and our women’s high level of education and career success has been a painful hardship for our society.

Among these laws, the rights of Lebanese women to nationalize their children when born to foreign fathers, and the rights of foreign spouses to the nationality.

The struggles have been more relevant these past two decades, naturally, considering the ongoing evolution of our women and their awakening to what’s right and fair and what isn’t in our laws. Hence, in recent years, their efforts and endeavors have been many, even countless, to bring balance and harmony to our human society with judicial fairness and rights.

So, no wonder we get to heartily welcome now the memorandum of the Director-General for Personal Status, Mr. Elias Khoury. He demands from the Head of Departments and Registry Officers the application of Article 5 of the Lebanese Nationality Law.

The Article 5 declares, “The foreign woman married to a Lebanese shall, upon her request, become Lebanese after one year from the date of registration of the marriage in the Civil Status Office.”

Therefore, as of this month, foreign women spouses of Lebanese citizens are entitled to apply for the Lebanese citizenship at the registry offices without the signature of their husbands.

The memorandum stressed that “A new form must be adapted to fill the application for citizenship, which preserves the law of nationality from one side and is less complicated than the previous model, in both practical and administrative terms, while adhering to the same mechanism in order to ensure all information contained in the application and the right of women to obtain Nationality.”

In force as of April 1st, both the memorandum and the new form state: “Memorandum No. 35 concerning the mechanism and conditions of reception and completion of transactions of acquisition of nationality by marriage.”

These Mechanisms and conditions can be reviewed on the website of the Directorate General for Civil Status www.dgcs.gov.lb

It remains that foreign women working or residing in Lebanon cannot, by law, apply for citizenship if they are not married to a Lebanese man. That privilege is granted only by ‘male priority placed on women’ and not by their own rights.

Nonetheless, we maintain hope that this is only the beginning for more and more improvements and changes towards a more consciously evolved human society. After all, the reason of existence of any and all laws is, by principle and ethics, to serve the well-being of all citizens equally. Failure to do so, their reason to exist is no longer.

Source: A New Law Finally Passed on Foreign Women’s Lebanese Citizenship

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The unlikely similarities between the far right and IS

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

Another article comparing extremists:

Far-right extremists in Britain have been accessing terrorism material published online by the Islamic State group, counter-terrorism experts have told the BBC.

They say neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists have been studying methods of attack shared by jihadists with their followers on the internet.

But we should not be surprised that they do share some similarities.

‘All-consuming hatred’

Since the middle of last year, MI5, the security service, has been tasked with helping the police tackle the growing threat from British far-right extremists.

Counter-terrorism officers have been using a range of methods, including phone taps, to gather intelligence on what the most violent individuals have been planning or aspiring to do.

In some cases, arrests have been made after suspects have been caught downloading child pornography. But officials say that neo-Nazis and other extremists have also been accessing material to plan attacks published by their ideological enemies, Islamic State.

This may seem strange, but it should not come as a surprise.

Their ideologies may be diametrically opposed to each other but there are some disturbing similarities between them, some of which are obvious, others less so.

Many white supremacists and violent Islamist extremists tend to inhabit a narrow-based world dominated by an all-consuming hatred and a total intolerance of anyone’s views but their own.

For the jihadists of IS, for example, this means treating not only non-Muslims as enemies but also Shia Muslims and anyone they see as co-operating with “the non-believers”.

Using the concept of “Takfir”, jihadists will declare even their co-religionists as “unbelievers” and “apostates” and therefore in their eyes a legitimate target.

This narrow-based intolerance, coupled with gratuitous violence, has been a major factor contributing to the inability of al-Qaeda, IS and other groups to appeal to a wider swathe of Muslim populations around the world.

Likewise in the UK and the rest of Europe, far-right extremists see as enemies all those who – in their eyes – have helped enable changes that they dislike, such as allowing inward migration from Asia and Africa.

In 2011, the Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik carried out his murderous attack in Oslo, not on Muslims or immigrants, but on youth members of a party he blamed for changing the racial mix of Norway.

‘Vile material’

White supremacists rail against a multicultural society.

So too do jihadists. They refer to Muslims living in the West as being “in the grey zone” and constantly urge them not to mix with the predominant non-Muslim populations in Europe.

Both far-right extremists and jihadists see themselves as righteous purists, yet they want very different societies.

What they do share in common is an often obsessive interest in extremely graphic imagery online, much of it encrypted but some of it circulated more widely for recruitment purposes.

Counter-terrorism officers have described some of this material as so vile that staff monitoring it have had to be given counselling.

In the years immediately after the 9/11 attacks of 2001, al-Qaeda made constant use of the imagery of planes going into the Twin Towers.

IS took this a stage further, shocking the world with its gruesome videos of hostages appearing to be beheaded on camera, as well as other atrocities such as men being thrown off high buildings after being “convicted” of homosexuality.

While these had the effect of alienating mainstream Muslim populations, they simultaneously attracted to the cause young men from around the world who often had criminal, psychopathic or sadistic dispositions.

During the IS self-declared caliphate between 2014 and 2019, its practice of enslaving Yazidi girls as young as nine for sex is known to have attracted paedophilic recruits from European countries.

Whitehall officials say far-right extremists have been sharing violent, satanic and occult images and videos, sometimes using gaming and music forums to recruit new members.

The aim, they say, is partly to desensitise people for the violence they believe is inevitable in a coming clash of civilisations.

Lack of cohesion

However, one area where the two groups do differ widely is in co-ordination and cohesion.

Broadly speaking, jihadists are united in wanting to see their ultra-strict version of Sharia Islamic law forcibly imposed on everyone under their rule.

But in Britain, far-right groups that have mostly splintered off from the now-banned National Action show little sign of working together.

Some aspire to what they see as racial purity, others want their own territory where only their own laws apply, while others are simply anarchists, bent on destroying “the system”.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with ,

Douglas Todd: Would-be immigrants to Canada being sold ‘false dreams’

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

Yet another story on immigration fraud with some examples of more reputable consultants:

The migration agents confronted Vancouver’s Laleh Sahba as she walked on the sidewalk last month near the Canadian embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

The street hawkers told her that, for $25,000 or more, they would get her to an immigration professional who would be sure to hand her a visitor or student visa so she could be well on her way to obtaining a Canada passport.

The sidewalk agents mistook Sahba for another near-desperate Middle Eastern person who would spend almost everything she had for the dream of becoming a permanent resident in Canada, land of promise.

But Sahba — an Iranian-Canadian and a regulated Canadian immigration consultant — says her encounter with Turkey’s street agents was just another reminder how easy it is for people abroad and in Canada to claim to be immigration experts to take vulnerable people for a nasty ride.

“They are selling wrong information. They are making up false dreams,” Sahba said at her downtown Vancouver office. “This is a huge business. And what disturbs me is that many are in it for the money in Canada. They’re playing with people’s lives.”

Sahba, who works with professional immigration partners in the Middle East, is among a small number of Canadian immigration consultants and lawyers who are coming forward to describe the wide range of misinformation, misdeeds and scams being foisted on would-be immigrants.

Some of those posing as immigration specialists are telling anxious people they will eventually get a Canadian passport if they pay large sums, in the tens of thousands of dollars, just to obtain a study or visitor’s visa, which have limited use. Some are also falsely telling clients they can finagle them status as a refugee.

The immigration fantasies of foreign nationals often end in tatters, says Sahba, 40, who came to Canada from Iran two decades ago and has been a consultant for 15 years. Many immigration specialists are making promises they can’t deliver on. By the time most would-be immigrants come to her to find a way out of their migration problems “they are absolutely screwed. We can’t help them.”

Much more must be done, Sahba says, to clean up the fast-growing immigration-advice industry, which in Canada includes 5,400 regulated immigration consultants and 1,000 immigration lawyers, but also an untold number of unlicensed agents.

Marina Sedai, a Surrey immigration lawyer, tends to agree. She told a Conference Board of Canada workshop in Vancouver last month that there is “rampant immigration fraud” being perpetrated by some consultants and agents.

Sedai said she is constantly hearing from troubled clients about how they’ve being misled or defrauded by self-professed experts who demand large fees to guide foreign nationals through Canada’s intricate immigration system.

As national chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration section, Sedai highlighted how her organization has told federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen the system Ottawa has set up to regulate immigration consultants, who have less formal training than lawyers, is not working.  “There are good reasons,” the society said in 2017, “to limit the practice of immigration law to lawyers and Quebec notaries,” with immigration consultants working under the supervision of lawyers.

Many wives are being advised by immigration specialists to get a study visa so their husbands can come to Canada and work and their children can attend school, says Laleh Sahba. The trouble is many wives “don’t really want to study” and end up failing. It leads to big problems for the family.

Sahba, however, believes the majority of regulated immigration consultants do excellent work. Still, she hears at least five times a month from foreign nationals who have become embroiled in shady agreements that involve both Canadian immigration advisers and lawyers.

While Sahba generally supports Ottawa’s aim to make it simpler for some of the more than 500,000 foreign students in Canada to become permanent residents, for instance, she said some advisers are increasingly misrepresenting the study visa program as the backdoor immigration ticket for entire families.

Many wives in their 40s and 50s are being advised, she said, to apply for a study visa so that their husband can come to Canada on a spousal work visa and their children can attend schools in Toronto, Metro Vancouver and elsewhere.

The trouble, Sahba said, is many of the wives are unable to pass English-language exams and “don’t really want to study in the first place.” They begin failing courses and can’t get into postgraduate school, which means they and their husbands and children are expected to return home.

“It’s all over for them. They’ve wasted their time and huge amounts of money. And their kids have in the meantime become used to Canadian society. This is where my heart bleeds.”

In addition to describing scams in which so-called immigration specialists have charged clients many thousands of dollars just for a visitor’s visa, Sahba said other illicit schemes involve provincial immigrant entrepreneur programs, including those operated by Quebec, B.C. and Manitoba.

Since a large number of so-called immigration specialists also have real-estate licences, Sahba says, some become embroiled in housing deals with rich prospective newcomers.

Other advisers direct so-called entrepreneurs to make “passive investments” in Canadian properties or businesses, which often involve nothing more than appearing to transfer money between relatives’ bank accounts.

In one extreme case, Sahba worked with two sisters from Pakistan who transferred more than $170,000 to immigration agents in Canada who said they were arranging the purchases of a gift shop and pet store in Vancouver. The entire process, which involved transferring photos and signatures via Skype, was fake. The culprits couldn’t be tracked.

The Canadian Bar Association, in its attempts to target “incompetent and unscrupulous” immigration advisers, told Canada’s immigration minister in 2017 there had been an “astonishing” 1,470 complaints against the regulated members of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) since it began in 2011, plus 1,115 more against non-members.

That regulatory council posts some of the online allegations against its licensed Canadian immigration consultants, with one ICCRC page describing disciplinary investigations against almost 50 named members, who regularly charged clients $10,000 to $30,000 for relatively small tasks. Many of the consultants are accused of misdeeds such as: “Deceiving client,” “misleading client,” “falsely advising client,” “failing to notify client,” “charging client exorbitant fee” and of “misrepresenting” themselves in a variety of ways, including as border officials.

Sedai said some immigration advisers have even become involved in presenting false job offers to would-be immigrants — an activity she says she has run into in Surrey. Burnaby immigration lawyer George Lee is among those who has tried to expose the widespread jobs deception.  

Although the clients of people who make a living in the immigration industry continue to take part in illicit schemes based on bad advice, Sabha wants to make clear some clients have not been innocent in the process. “They’ve got dirty hands, too.”

And the chances for all concerned of getting caught are increasing.

“The immigration officers are also not stupid anymore, not like in the old days,” Sahba says, chuckling. “They’re smart. And they’re looking at all aspects of every immigration application.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Would-be immigrants to Canada being sold ‘false dreams’

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

‘He was supposed to help us’: Chinese immigrants out thousands after immigration agent disappears

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

It would be a lot simpler just to ban consultants and only advise applicants to use lawyers. And hard to understand why people would trust a 24-year-old with that kind of money (no, lawyers have a few bad apples too, but there are meaningful codes of conduct and enforcement):

A Winnipeg immigration agent has allegedly skipped town, leaving a group of Chinese immigrants in the lurch and out thousands of dollars.

Jiatoo Immigration Consulting Inc., run by 24-year-old Zhihao Jia, quietly shut the doors at its Pembina Highway office in early March, clearing out furniture in a seemingly overnight move with no notice given to its landlord or clients.

“He was supposed to help us — but he didn’t help, but hurt us,” said Julie, a client of Jia’s, who the CBC has agreed not to identify.

Julie said she gave Jia $10,000 on March 1, 2019, to help her apply for a post-graduate work permit and eventually help her get permanent residency in Canada.

Instead, less than two weeks later, she was left scrambling to find Jia after he stopped returning her calls or texts.

‘No people, no furniture, nothing’

When Julie went to Jia’s office on March 11, she knew there was a problem.

“We found his office was totally vacant. Nobody was there. They were all gone. No people, no furniture, nothing,” she said.

The CBC has agreed not to name the woman we are calling Julie, as she is afraid that speaking out could impact her future immigration applications.

She is one of at least 13 Chinese immigrants who claim they were affected by Jia’s disappearance, according to licensed immigration consultant Yu Xiang, who is working with Julie and a few other clients left in the lurch.

One person gave Jia over $20,000 and only received partial services before the immigration agent packed up and left, Xiang said.

“The severity of harm done to them [varies],” person to person, he said.

Some clients paid and got nothing, he said, while others got partial help and some received full service. But Xiang questions the legitimacy of their applications, because Jia was not licensed to fill them out.

CBC has not been able to speak with Xiang’s clients to independently verify this claim.

Julie said she felt she could trust Jia after seeing online advertisements for his company, and a website saying it was nominated for a 2017 “new emerging Chinese company” award at the Manitoba Chinese Business Gala.

When she went to the company, Julie had just graduated college and needed to get a job in order to obtain a work permit and stay in Canada.

She agreed to pay Jiatoo Immigration Consulting $15,000 for help to find a job and eventually receive assistance with her application for permanent residency in Canada, according to the retainer agreement signed by the client and the company.

Julie paid Jia $10,000 up front, and was to pay the remaining $5,000 at a later date.

“We are newcomers. We are not familiar with the immigration service or the working environment here in Canada,” she said when asked why people pay for immigration services.

“We need help. We need guidance and instruction. We need to consult people who know how to help us.”

Jiatoo owed 2 months’ rent

The landlord at 675 Pembina Highway got a call from an employee of Jiatoo Immigration on March 5, saying the office was empty.

“She said the place was cleaned out,” said property manager Eileen Gaynor.

CBC has not been able to reach Jia for comment. Texts and phone calls to the cellphone number he provided to clients, and which is listed on Jiatoo’s website, went unanswered.

CBC reporters also visited two properties associated with Jia through land titles. Both were abandoned. Stacks of newspapers were piled up outside the front door of one of the properties.

Gaynor said Jia still owed rent for February when he vanished. He had given her a cheque but it bounced. By March, he had closed his bank account so she could no longer collect on his debt.

Jia moved into the strip mall in April 2018, according to Gaynor. Company records show he is the director of Jiatoo Education Service Inc and also the president of Club Royale Immigration Inc.

Winnipeg police investigating

Julie said despite paying Jia, she got nothing in return. At first she wasn’t sure what to think, but after telling police what happened, the woman is confident she’s been duped.

“It’s official now, so we aren’t suspicious anymore. We are pretty sure that he’s a fraud,” she said.

For weeks, the woman kept trying to get ahold of Jia. He eventually phoned her husband, telling the couple to stop looking for him — or else.

“He said he knew us. He has got our information, and he [said] if we called police, it will have a bad influence on our immigration process,” Julie said.

After reporting Jia to police, Julie called the Canada Border Services Agency and Winnipeg-based immigration consultant Yu Wang — the licensed immigration consultant Jia worked under as an agent. Company records show that Wang is the director of Internationalized View Investments Consulting Ld.

In Canada, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, advice or representation for immigration applications can only be provided by either a person licensed through the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) — the regulatory body for immigration consultants — or a lawyer in good standing (or in Quebec, a member in good standing with the Chambredesnotaires du Québec).

Winnipeg police confirmed that they received a report from the client and are investigating. The CBSA said it is not their practice to confirm or deny whether they have launched an investigation.

At this time no charges have been laid.

Not allowed to give immigration advice: ICCRC

Jia was not licensed to do immigration work, but had been hired to recruit clients for Wang.

Jia is not a member of the ICCRC, but was registered as an agent of Wang’s.

Agents are not allowed to provide any advice for immigration under the current ICCRC regulations, but those rules are frequently skirted, explained Xiang, who is a licensed consultant under the regulatory council.

Wang told CBC News he had no idea Jia was taking money from clients until a woman called him mid-March to allege the agent stole her money.

“He’s supposed to [be] recruiting clients for me,” Wang said. “I prepare the application to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.”

Wang said Jia informed him earlier this month he was moving to Vancouver, so Wang cancelled his agency agreement with him. The ICCRC confirmed the agreement was cancelled on March 15.

He says he has no idea where any money Jia collected would be and he does not have access to a client list. He said repeated messages to Jia about the money have gone unanswered.

“I didn’t see the money at all,” he told CBC.

Xiang said the likely reason more people have not reached out to Wang is because they do not understand that he is the consultant Jia worked under.

Julie said at first, she was afraid to speak out, but decided she couldn’t stay quiet and allow other people to be victimized.

“We trusted him,” she said.

“We want people [to know] what kind of a company Jiatoo is, and we want people to know what kind of person Zhihao Jia is — and to me personally, I want my money back.”

Julie said Jia came to Canada as a student in 2012, and took the same path as she did which makes his actions even more egregious.

“He studied here and graduated and [worked] here. So I think he should know what we think. He should know what we feel — what we feel as a newcomer here.”

200 cases reported each year: CBSA

The Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council cannot legally prosecute or investigate allegations of fraud. It can discipline a consultant if an agent of a member acts unethically.

On first offence, the council member receives a written warning.

On second offence, the member is fined $100.

The CBC requested an interview with the ICCRC, which could not be accommodated in the time frame requested.

In a prepared statement, the regulatory council said it could not disclose information on any investigations that are currently underway.

But Xiang says he’s heard stories like Julie’s too many times.

“It has a very huge impact on the reputation of Canada’s immigration system,” he said.

“And there’s lack of trust between these newcomers and the various service providers in Canada.”

Almost 180 cases of suspected immigration-consultant offences are brought to the attention of the Canada Border Services Agency each year, according to data provided by the agency.

About 120 of those complaints involve unlicensed consultants.

Xiang says those cases aren’t just about money. A late application form or forms with missing errors can mean the applicant is denied a work permit or permanent residency, and the consequences can be deportation.

“We’re talking about people’s lives here,” he said.

Source: ‘He was supposed to help us’: Chinese immigrants out thousands after immigration agent disappears

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Canada must bring home its own from the ruins of Islamic State

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

Almost completely silent on the challenges of successful prosecution. And there is a different in terms of letting them return to Canada and actively facilitating their return:

I despise Daesh (the Islamic State group) and its ilk. In fact, I have spent a better part of my life challenging their religious  interpretations and practices.

Yet, I believe that Ottawa must repatriate Canadians who answered the Daesh call, because this is the right thing to do if we truly believe in human rights and constitutional principles.

For children’s sake

We must learn from the recent death of Jarrar, the newborn son of British-born Shamima Begum, who left the UK as a 15-year-old. The baby died after London revoked Shamima’s citizenship and left them both to ostensibly stew in her hate.

Under British law, Shamima Begum was a child when she left. Now, a British baby is dead for his parents’ sins. As British MP Anna Soubry wrote, the UK breached its duty to Jarrar.

There are at least 32 Canadians being held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces

The former Conservative MP rightfully argued that Shamima should have been brought to the UK, questioned, and had the law books thrown at her while her son should have been given the “protection and the support that a civilised country provides for all its children.”

Kurdish authorities say that 5,000 former alleged IS fighters and their families are being held in makeshift prisons in Iraq.

This includes 1,300 children. Russia repatriated 27 children in February. France has agreed to repatriate around 130 fighters and their families.

Belgians, who composed the largest number of Caliphate fighters per capita, are not feeling particularly welcome. Late last year, going against public opinion, a Belgian court ruled that the government must repatriate its citizens.

In a principled and courageous decision, the Solomonic judge ruled that bringing the children without their mothers – who were convicted in absentia – would violate their human rights. The judge also imposed a daily penalty of 5,000 euros per child against the government until they were returned.

Belgium’s migration secretary said: “We won’t punish young children for their parents’ misdeeds. They have not chosen the Islamic State.”

Unfortunately, an appellate court overturned the decision a few weeks ago and now 160 Belgian children are in limbo.

A mature debate

Canadian Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale says the government has not decided what to do.

Canada needs to act before we read about Canadian children dying in Syrian camps.

Rather than having a mature  debate about bringing IS members to justice, our politicians appear to be gauging the public mood rather than stepping up

According to CBC, there are at least 32 Canadians being held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Dr Alexandra Bain of the Canadian group Families Against Violent Extremism (FAVE) claims that more than half of those held in Syria are under the age of five.

Rather than having a mature and constitutionally rooted debate about bringing Daesh members to justice and dealing with non-combatants as well as women and children, our politicians appear to be guaging the public mood rather than stepping up.

Leadership may require that you sometimes stand up to mobocracy (the whims of the majority) and it always means standing up for constitutionally entrenched rights – even for the detested.

Why bring them back?

Rather than following the examples set by Macedonia, Russia, France, etc, Canada caved into British “arm-twisting” and breached a deal with Kurdish authorities to repatriate Canadian citizens, according to a report by the Guardian.

These individuals went there for reasons ranging from ideological affinity, out of a sense of religious obligation, due to being brainwashed, the promise of adventure, the opportunity to create an Islamic utopia, out of empathy to relieve the suffering of others, while others were duped, forced or taken against their will.

Why should we bring them back?

First, as citizens, they have a right to come back to Canada. Though this does not impose an obligation on Ottawa to take proactive steps to bring back adults, a strong argument can be made that there is a mandatory duty owed to Canadian children.

Indeed, under the common law, our government through the courts have the parens patraie jurisdiction to look out for the best interest and welfare of our children. This is reason alone.

Setting a precedent

Second, contrary to what many people want, under international law we can’t just watch as these people are executed without due process, or held to rot even as evil as they are. Otherwise, as President Trump said correctly, if they are left alone they may continue to create havoc elsewhere.

We must set a precedent and send out a message to any of our citizens who may contemplate such actions in the future that there are consequences for such actions. This is best done by putting those who are culpable on trial.

Leaving Canada to participate in a terror group is an offence under the criminal code punishable to a term of up to 10 years. Indeed, as General Lord Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British army, told the Guardian about British fighters:

“They have to be put through due process and imprisoned if that is the right thing to do,” he said. “But I think it is also important that we treat them fairly with justice and tempered with a bit of mercy as well because I think the way we treat them may well have important significance for the way other people view our society.

“We don’t want to see others radicalised and going off overseas in the future. How we treat these people coming back – fairly but firmly – we’ve got to get it right.”

We have failed

Third, most of these individuals were born “here” and more importantly were radicalised “here” not “there”. We bear part of the responsibility because we – as a society – and our institutions failed in not preventing them from being radicalised and in the case of many women from being groomed as brides.

It is tempting to dehumanise them and easy to “other” them, but let us not forget that we extend full due process rights even to paedophiles, mass murderers and serial killers.

Fourth, some of these individuals may serve as resources to fight radicalisation after they have been de-radicalised, after serving time, if deserved.

As argued in a New York Times op-ed by Bryant Neal Vinas, America’s first Al-Qaeda fighter, these returning fighters “can be a strategic asset” to fight radicalisation if we play it right.

Fifth, western nations, including Canada, pursue criminals to the far corners of the world using extradition treaties and other means. Indeed, we have even engaged in extraordinary rendition and participated in torture of our own citizens when we thought it was necessary. Yet, now it’s too difficult to pursue these people?

Of course, it would be disingenuous to argue that traitors who engage in terrorism should be treated the same as other criminals, because the state interests are especially compelling. At the same time, the values engaged in this context – equality, freedom of speech, religion, and association – make it important that we tread in a firm but cautious manner.

It is high time that we engage in reasoned, nuanced and considered debate in a manner consistent with our well-established values, including justice, fairness and compassion.

We cannot base our decisions on emotion, populist fear, hatred or our whims, because then we are no better than them.

Source: Canada must bring home its own from the ruins of Islamic State

Filed under Citizenship, Radicalization Tagged with , , ,

ICYMI: This English same-sex couple fathered twins who are half-siblings — and a Canadian surrogate helped them

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

A different wrinkle to birthright citizenship (see earlier How Canada became an international surrogacy destination [another form of birth tourism]) as well as U.S. example below:

With two kids under two, the Berney-Edwards household in southeast England is a busy one. There are toddlers running all over the place. One pokes his dad in the eye and laughs before accidentally hitting his sister with a toy vacuum cleaner, causing her to wail. It can be a bit chaotic.

But Graeme and Simon Berney-Edwards wouldn’t have it any other way. As gay men, there was a time when they thought they could never have any of that.

Now, however, they have their twins, the result of an arrangement involving a Canadian surrogate and Canadian surrogacy laws they feel are more progressive than those on the books in the United Kingdom.

“You see them tearing around and they’re having fun, and just for a moment, you just sort of step back and go ‘Wow, this is it. They’re here,’ ” Simon Berney-Edwards said in an interview at their home in Redhill, south of London.

“It can be very surreal,” his husband Graeme Berney-Edwards chimed in.

When they decided surrogacy was the way they would have a family, they reached out to a surrogacy organization that helped them understand their options.

That organization connected them with a clinic in Las Vegas where in vitro fertilization took place. That’s also where they learned they could have twins and each be a biological father to one child by fertilizing half of their American donor’s eggs with Simon’s sperm, the other half with Graeme’s sperm, and then implanting the embryos in the same surrogate.

It means Alexandra and Calder, now 21 months old, are twins but only half-siblings. Born just minutes apart, they have the same biological mother, but different fathers.

They quickly chose to have the birth take place in Canada rather the U.K. That was because, they say, the surrogacy laws in their country are dated, primarily as a result of the U.K. considering the surrogate, and her partner, if she has one, to be the legal parents for the first six weeks of the child’s life.

“And in that time, if the surrogate decides to change their mind, you have no recourse,” said Simon Berney-Edwards. “Basically, that’s it. Your child is gone.”

Andrew Spearman, a British fertility and surrogacy lawyer, said the U.K. laws are “archaic” and that many of his clients turn to Canada for surrogacy.

“I think it gives an element of certainty. It gives the transparency, which we can’t offer always, and it gives a very clear structure,” he said in his London office.

Spearman said while U.K. surrogates and intended parents do draw up contracts outlining their agreement, the contracts aren’t legally binding as they are in Canada.

Neither country allows surrogates to be paid, other than to cover their expenses, which Spearman said helps British parents explain the process to English courts when they return home. They still need to get a “parental order” in the U.K. that makes them legal parents and gives their children U.K. citizenship.

The Berney-Edwards say they were also drawn to the altruistic nature of Canadian surrogacy because they wanted more than a “transactional” experience.

“We wanted someone that was prepared to be part of a family throughout the children growing up,” said Graeme Berney-Edwards.

After consulting a website that has profiles of women wanting to be surrogates, they found that in Meg Stone of Hamilton, Ont. Stone said that’s also what drew her to them.

“They mentioned that they wanted twins and I’m always up for a challenge,” she said. “And they also said they wanted lifelong friendship, which was also something I wanted.”

After a couple of false alarms that saw the dads dashing off to Canada early, Alexandra and Calder were born on June 25, 2017, in Hamilton, where they stayed for the first seven weeks of their lives.

Stone, who has two of her own children, has continued to watch the twins grow from afar, swapping messages and photos and even making the trip to England for the twins’ first birthday.

Her 12-year-old son, Jeffrey Seroski-Stone, said he’s proud of his mom for helping to create a family.

“I think it’s exciting how my mom ended up helping them out by giving them children, and I think we usually have a really good time, so I consider them to be like family to me,” he said.

Stone is pregnant with twins again, helping another same-sex family have children.

“I love being a mom and why wouldn’t I want to help somebody else do that, too?” she said.

She maintains she wouldn’t want to be paid for helping others have children, but there is a debate in Canada about whether paying surrogates should be decriminalized.

The current Canadian law came into force in 2004 and prohibits paying surrogates other than to reimburse them for certain medical and maternity costs.

The federal government is reviewing the legislation, including identifying categories for reimbursement and making them more clear. A Liberal MP tabled a private member’s bill that would decriminalize payments to surrogates but opponents say it amounts to commercializing a woman’s body.

Stone disagrees with the idea that a surrogate be given the chance to change her mind, as is set out in the current U.K. law.

“I never felt like they were mine to give away,” she said. “They were [with] me to watch and nurture until Simon and Graeme were able to.”

The Berney-Edwards say when it comes to surrogacy law, Canada has it right, but that doesn’t mean it was easy or cheap.

They won’t put a figure on it, but experts say they would have spent tens of thousands of dollars on Stone’s expenses, agency and legal fees, not to mention three trips back and forth to Canada.

“But it was worth it,” said Simon.

“Every single penny, cent, was worth it,” said Graeme.

Although none of their biological parents is Canadian, Alexandra and Calder are Canadian citizens because they were born in the country, and their fathers say it’s an important part of their heritage.

They look forward to the day they can explain to their children how they came into the world, how badly they were wanted and how much love was around them.

In fact, they’ve already started to do just that.

As the children begin to get ready for bed, the entire family sits on the living room floor sharing a story.

Simon reads aloud, “Before I settle down to sleep, I’ll blow a kiss goodnight, to make sure all of Canada will have sweet dreams tonight.”

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-k-canada-same-sex-surrogacy-twins-half-siblings-1.5069654

In 2016, a married gay couple in Canada became parents of twins using a surrogate mother. One father is a U.S. citizen, the other an Israeli citizen. The two fathers made a decision to contribute one embryo each to the surrogate mother so the twins would be biologically related to each of them. However, that turned out to be a determinative factor when the parents went to the U.S. Consulate in Toronto to register the twins for U.S. citizenship. Only one of the twins, Aidan, who was biologically related to his U.S. citizen father, was granted a U.S. passport. The family was devastated by this decision. When the Dvash-Banks family decided to move to California, the other twin, Ethan, had to enter as a visitor on a B visa. His B visa eventually expired, leaving him “undocumented.” [both are Canadian given  birthright citizenship]

With regard to children born in wedlock, section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act states that a “child born outside of the United States . . . acquires citizenship at birth if at the time of birth one parent is a foreign national and the other parent is a U.S. citizen; and the U.S. citizen parent was physically present in the United States for at least 5 years, including at least 2 years after 14 years of age.” Section 309, which applies to children born out of wedlock, requires, among other things, that “blood relationship between the child and the father is established by clear and convincing evidence.” The State Department, in its published policy, apparently reads the “blood relationship” clause into section 301 and would not budge on that policy for the Dvash-Bankses.

The Dvash-Bankses challenged the Department of State’s (DOS) decision with regard to Ethan in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California. In response to a motion for summary judgement, Judge John F. Walter declared that Ethan was a U.S. citizen and ordered DOS to issue him a U.S. passport as soon as possible. The order applied only to Ethan and did not prevent DOS from applying its “blood relationship” policy to other families. In post-summary judgement proceedings, the Dvash-Bankses argued, “The State Department’s refusal to approve [Ethan’s] applications . . . and its persistence in litigating this action full-bore to summary judgement, was manifestly unreasonable and not substantially justified.” The Judge awarded $1.3 in attorney’s fees and costs to the couple.

Ethan’s fathers believe that a straight couple who had used assistive reproductive technology would never have been asked to submit to a DNA test, as they were required to do by DOS. In a similar case, a lesbian couple of one U.S. citizen and one Italian citizen whose children were born in London brought a claim in the federal district court in D.C. – using the same lawyers who represented the Dvash-Banks family.

Source: Birthright Citizenship for Child of Same Sex Couple

Filed under Birth Tourism, Citizenship Tagged with

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