Birth Tourism | Multicultural Meanderings

Blood, soil, birth tourism and anchor babies – Globe Editorial

2014/08/27 Leave a comment

The Globe’s editorial take on birth tourism – evidence-based policy, which Minister Alexander appears committed to, given his and his spokesperson’s recent comments stating that decisions “will be informed by facts” (in contrast to earlier anecdotes dramatizing the issue):

At present, however, birth certificates are the most common proof of Canadian citizenship. They do not include any information about a newborn baby’s parents’ citizenship.

Hospitals are a provincial jurisdiction. That is one of the reasons why the provinces and territories have been in charge of birth certificates for a long time. The subnational governments of Canada would doubtless not be eager to spend a huge amount of money to overhaul their birth-certificate system – let alone unanimously.

Ottawa could choose to foot the bill. But if the government is to go any further, it should commission a rigorous study to discover whether so-called birth tourism is a significant phenomenon. So far, the evidence is anecdotal. The available numbers in a given year are in the low hundreds. The real numbers may be higher, but it would be premature to remake the basics of our citizenship on a hunch.

Blood, soil, birth tourism and anchor babies – The Globe and Mail.

Related to this, the BC Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (Carmen Cheung and Audrey Macklin) wrote a comprehensive response to the earlier Jan Wong article on birth tourism (see my post Canada’s birthright citizenship policy makes us a nation of suckers):

But how serious an issue is birth tourism? While the government does not publish statistics on actual cases of birth tourism, Statistics Canada reports that of the 377,913 live births recorded in Canada for 2011, only 277 of those were by mothers who lived outside of Canada. The numbers were slightly higher in 2010 – 305 babies born to non-resident mothers out of 377,518 live births. That is less than one tenth of one percent of all births in Canada.

A recent article in Toronto Life magazine proposed another metric for measuring birth tourism, by collecting the number of uninsured mothers giving birth in Toronto-area hospitals over a five-year period. Based on those numbers, we’re still looking at less than one percent of all live births in the city of Toronto.

Using the number of uninsured mothers as a proxy also likely overstates the problem. Provincial health cards are only issued after a minimum period of residency in the province – this is the case whether an individual has arrived from another country as a landed immigrant, or has just moved from British Columbia to Ontario. There are also foreign nationals who are excluded from provincial health care schemes, such as students, temporary foreign workers and diplomats. Particularly vulnerable Canadian citizens – such as the homeless or transient – may also not be able to prove their eligibility for provincial health insurance because of lost documentation.

By any measure, the number of babies born to non-resident non-Canadian mothers is negligible.

Born Equal: Citizenship by Birth is Canada’s Valuable Legacy

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with Audrey Macklin, BCCLA, Birth Tourism, CARL, Carmen Cheung, globe and mail

Ottawa urged to remove citizenship by birth on Canadian soil | Toronto Star

2014/08/19 2 Comments

Nicholas Keung’s story on the recently released under ATIP birth tourism briefing material (Citizenship Reform Proposal #19: Birth on Soil link to document), including my quote:

The proposal, marked “secret” and with inputs from various federal departments, found fewer than 500 cases of children being born to foreign nationals in Canada each year, amounting to just 0.14 per cent of the 360,000 total births per year in the country.

The issue of citizenship by birth on Canadian soil once again raises concerns among critics over the current government’s policy considerations being based on ideologies rather than evidence and objective cost-benefit analyses.

“An impartial observer would conclude that the evidence supports no need for change, given the small number of cases. Yet the recommendation supports the government’s public rhetoric and anecdotes on the need for change,” said Andrew Griffith, a former director general for citizenship and multiculturalism at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and author of Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias.

The Conservative government overhauled the Canadian Citizenship Act earlier this year by further restricting eligibility. However, the “birth on soil” provision was left intact and required further studies.

“Eliminating birth on soil in order to ensure that everyone who obtains citizenship at birth has a strong connection to Canada would have significant cost implications,” said the 17-page report prepared for former immigration minister Jason Kenney, obtained under an access to information request.

“The challenge of communicating this change would be convincing the public that restricting the acquisition of Canadian citizenship is worth that cost, particularly in a climate of deficit reduction.”

The office of Chris Alexander, Kenney’s successor, confirmed with the Star that the government is still reviewing citizenship policy with regard to the issue of “birth tourism” — a term referring to foreigners travelling to give birth in Canada so the baby can claim automatic citizenship here.

Dubbed “anchor babies,” these children are eligible to sponsor their foreign parents to Canada once they turn 18. It is unknown how many of them actually return to their birth country with their parents, but it’s believed the number is low.

“As provinces and territories are responsible for birth registration, consultation and co-ordination with the provinces is required,” said Alexis Pavlich, a spokesperson for Alexander.

“Canadian citizenship is an honour and a privilege, and our Conservative government is committed to increasing its value. Birth tourism undermines the integrity of our citizenship program and takes advantage of Canadian generosity.”

I have some outstanding ATIP requests to the key provinces (QC, ON, BC) on their data on “anchor babies” and will share when released.

And if you have a different take than me on Citizenship Reform Proposal #19: Birth on Soil, please share.

Ottawa urged to remove citizenship by birth on Canadian soil | Toronto Star.

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with anchor babies, Birth Tourism, Nicholas Keung

Ottawa to consult with provinces on dealing with “birth tourism” | Toronto Star

2014/02/08 Leave a comment

No surprise that not included in the changes to the Citizenship Act given the implications for the provinces (and the government may have learned something from the Jobs Grant experience). Hopefully, the consultations with the provinces will ask for hard data on the number of births that were to mothers who were not covered by medicare (i.e., birth tourism and immigrants within the three-month waiting period) to give more than anecdotal information on the extent of the issue.

“We want to address the issue of people who have absolutely no strong connection to Canada and have no desire to live here, coming solely for the purpose of giving birth and then leaving,” Alexander told a news conference in Toronto after Bill C-24, Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, was tabled.

“It will be addressed down the road in an appropriate way. It does involve consultation and co-ordination with the provinces and territories who deliver health care obviously.

“We have to make sure we get it right in a way that doesn’t disrupt the vast majority of Canadians who are having their legitimate births in hospitals, but does detect and deter those cases where our generosity is being abused.”

Ottawa to consult with provinces on dealing with “birth tourism” | Toronto Star.

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with Birth Tourism, Minister Alexander

Birth Tourism: Chinese Flock to the U.S. to Have Babies

2013/11/28 2 Comments

What is striking is that the numbers are relatively small in the US as in Canada. 10,000 may sound like a lot but in context of the number of illegal residents (in the millions) or overall US population, this is minimal.

One could also view this as another immigration channel targeting high-powered and high net worth immigrants, given the amount of money this costs. 🙂

Birth Tourism: Chinese Flock to the U.S. to Have Babies | TIME.com.

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with anchor babies, Birth Tourism, Canada, China, US

The Franco-American Flophouse: Ted Cruz: Birthright Citizenship is Not Voluntary

2013/08/21 Leave a comment

A good discussion of birthright citizenship by Victoria Ferauge that captures some of the issues, as well as questioning the philosophical basis for birthright citizenship.

As always with these kinds of policy discussions – and they are needed and valuable – is that they need to be weighed against the practical impact of changes, particularly for immigration-based countries where birthright citizenship has traditionally been the most simple approach.

But as many have noted, beyond “birth tourism” concerns, the nature of citizenship is changing as people have increasingly complex lives and identities, and governments need to reflect on these changes and implications.

The Franco-American Flophouse: Ted Cruz: Birthright Citizenship is Not Voluntary.

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with american citizenship, Birth Tourism, birthright citizenship, Franco-American Flophouse

The trouble with birth tourism

2013/08/13 Leave a comment

Robert Sibley of The Citizen on birth tourism. As per my earlier post (‘Birth tourists’ believed to be using Canada’s citizenship laws as back door into the West | National Post), while the CIC consultations earlier this year were helpful in clarifying the nature of the problem, and suggesting that it was more widespread among more communities, it was not ‘hard’ evidence with ‘hard’ numbers. It was rather ‘informed anecdote’ without the due diligence of applying more rigorous statistical analysis based on medicare billing and other records.

It may be adequate to give the government cover to change Canadian legislation – and there is, in today’s globalized world, a case to be made. However, CIC has not managed well previous policy and program changes, with the result that the number of Canadians granted citizenship fell 37 percent in 2012 (from an average of 172,000 during 2007-11 to 113,000 in 2012), and the waiting period increased to 25 months (Australia’s is 6 months). And like all changes, the linkages between citizenship and related federal and provincial policies (e.g., vital stats) require detailed attention to get the balance right between improved citizenship integrity (needed) and efficient service to Canadians.

So a note of caution to Sibley and others: current implementation problems in citizenship can undermine the policy rationale.

The trouble with birth tourism.

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with Birth Tourism, citizenship laws, Robert Sibley