‘Birth tourists' using Canada's citizenship laws as back door into Canada

[chickenkiev]

The best gift you can give your newborn is a Canadian passport

Aside from the United States, Canada is the last remaining developed nation that still grants citizenship to everyone born in the country, regardless of the circumstances. As a result, giving birth in Canada has become, to some, a back door into the West.

Foreign-language websites now offer to house pregnant mothers close to hospitals in the “maple syrup kingdom,” while listing the social welfare benefits available in Canada — free education, free health care, child benefits, old age pension. Many of the websites offer toll free calling from China.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/09/birth-tourists-believed-to-be-using-canadas-citizenship-laws-as-back-door-into-the-west/

 

[mikeymyke]

Well, did you also know if a foreign national is pregnant from a Canadian man, the baby automatically becomes a Canadian citizen even if he/she was born in another country? That's not as bad as having to wait 18 years for your kid to become an adult to sponsor you.

 

[PMM]

Hi

Well, did you also know if a foreign national is pregnant from a Canadian man, the baby automatically becomes a Canadian citizen even if he/she was born in another country? That's not as bad as having to wait 18 years for your kid to become an adult to sponsor you.

Actually it would be longer that 18, as the child would have to meet the LICO + 30% for the 3 years prior to the application. Can't see many 15 years old making $60K a year.

 

[gongdi]

Yes, and there are many advertisements on Chinese websites for buying immigration to Canada. If you are rich enough, you can do it. Bring your whole family over quite easily, use Canadian healthcare and social nets while the father returns to China to make money he will not pay taxes on. It's easier for a wealthy, sorrupt Chinese official to bring his entire family over to Canada than it is for a CANADIAN to bring a Chinese wife (1 person) to Canada.

 

[scos]

And yet Beijing has one of the fastest processing times at 9 months. Go figure.

 

[gongdi]

I never realized how corrupt the immigration system is until I started my own sponsorship process for my wife. We've done it the suggested way (outland). Meanwhile, most people get travel visas and apply inland. If you are a corrupt official from China you can just buy your way in and not have to wait an entire year. If you want guaranteed health care for your kid, "visit" Canada and drop an anchor baby. If someone wants to work for peanuts at RBC or a Chinese mining company, your application will likely be fast-tracked to suit the company's scam (er, "need"). The last priority seems to be what CANADIANS want, and the system is coordinated so that Canadians trying to sponsor a loved one have to wait on the edge of their seat, sometimes for years.
Most people I've met in China tell me that Canada is the easiest 1st world country to "get into". Is this the best worldwide reputation to have? That we are suckers? I think Canada sells itself short.

 

[mikeymyke]

And yet Beijing has one of the fastest processing times at 9 months. Go figure.

Ok see that, I don't understand at all. I know Beijing/Hong Kong has lots of cases of marriage fraud, yet their processing time is ridiculously fast. Maybe their offices have a larger # of staff, and their offices only deal specifically with China/HK, and not multiple countries, who knows.

 

[frege]

The best gift you can give your newborn is a Canadian passport

Aside from the United States, Canada is the last remaining developed nation that still grants citizenship to everyone born in the country, regardless of the circumstances. As a result, giving birth in Canada has become, to some, a back door into the West.

Foreign-language websites now offer to house pregnant mothers close to hospitals in the “maple syrup kingdom,” while listing the social welfare benefits available in Canada — free education, free health care, child benefits, old age pension. Many of the websites offer toll free calling from China.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/09/birth-tourists-believed-to-be-using-canadas-citizenship-laws-as-back-door-into-the-west/

Almost all countries in the western hemisphere have birthright citizenship, not just the U.S. and Canada. See the map at the following Wikipedia article; North and South America are pretty much solid blue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

There may be some number of people doing this kind of birth tourism, but when you look at the social consequences in countries that don't grant citizenship automatically to people born in the country, you understand that the medicine is far worse than the disease. For example, Latvia has a huge population of ethnic Russians who were born there and live there permanently, but have no right to vote.

Another huge contradiction here is that practically all countries either recognize a virtually unrestricted right to pass down citizenship by descent OR an almost unrestricted right to citizenship for those born in the country. Now, since 2009, our Conservative government has been denying citizenship to second-generation Canadians born abroad. (For example, if your father was born to Canadian parents in a U.S. hospital just across the border and then spent his entire life in Canada, he has no right to pass on his citizenship to his kids born abroad.) So Canada is denying citizenship to people on the basis that Canadians born abroad are in some way less Canadian. How can you then turn around, with a straight face, and deny citizenship to people born in Canada? It would make no sense.

Here's a scenario. Imagine Canada denied citizenship to children born to non-residents in the country. Now imagine the U.S. adopted the exact same crazy laws as Canada. Now a couple of tourists born in Canada, but with U.S. citizenship through their parents, themselves have a child in Canada. What country is that child a citizen of? None!

 

[scos]

Ok see that, I don't understand at all. I know Beijing/Hong Kong has lots of cases of marriage fraud, yet their processing time is ridiculously fast. Maybe their offices have a larger # of staff, and their offices only deal specifically with China/HK, and not multiple countries, who knows.

That's why all Kenney's interviews where he used to talk of delays being caused by marriage fraud were lies. Remember the Star articles posted on this site months ago about Cuban marriage fraud and CIC saying it was a problem? Well guess what the wait time for Havana is? 9 months as well! So why do these places where supposedly marriage fraud is rampant seem to process so quickly?

 

[PMM]

Hi

That's why all Kenney's interviews where he used to talk of delays being caused by marriage fraud were lies. Remember the Star articles posted on this site months ago about Cuban marriage fraud and CIC saying it was a problem? Well guess what the wait time for Havana is? 9 months as well! So why do these places where supposedly marriage fraud is rampant seem to process so quickly?

1. Well lets see, 800 applications in Cuba, 9% refusal Hong Kong 2400 21% refusal, Beijing 2100 5% refusal , Islamabad 2300 20% refusal rate.
2. Also depends on the staffing level. Total of 1500 applications in Havana, 5000 in Isbad, 22,000 in New Delhi, 15,000 Hong kong.

 

[zardoz]

The Wikipedia article actually states the following, which is rather more "informative" and relevent to the discussion at hand. The critical bits are in bold, It rather changes the tone of the previous reply.

Jus soli is observed by a minority of the world's countries. Of advanced economies (as defined by the International Monetary Fund), Canada and the United States are the only countries that observe birthright citizenship. As is shown clearly on the map, the jus soli is mainly in use in “the new world” — the Americas. Since 2004, no European country grants unconditional birthright citizenship.

While much of the land mass on the map is blue in the "western" hemisphere, only two "advanced economies" should be considered. This is what the original article states... I am not sure that there would be many "birth tourists" heading to Equador or Columbia.

 

[frege]

The Wikipedia article actually states the following, which is rather more "informative" and relevent to the discussion at hand. The critical bits are in bold, It rather changes the tone of the previous reply.

While much of the land mass on the map is blue in the "western" hemisphere, only two "advanced economies" should be considered. This is what the original article states... I am not sure that there would be many "birth tourists" heading to Equador or Columbia.

Wikipedia has many contributors. The one who added that is clearly trying to make a point. I rely on Wikipedia for simple factual information, but don't always expect the articles to be neutral.

Argentina is also a well-off country, quite high in the human development index, even though it may have some problems. At various times there have been large numbers of illegal immigrants there.

The point about the western hemisphere is that unlike Europe, where citizenship is tied to bloodlines in people's mentalities, the Americas have a much more democratic tradition that it is tied to where you are from. Changing that would mean turning our back on a tradition as old as our continent's post-Columbian history, something that sets us apart from our European friends and places us, in my view, on the moral high ground.

 

[gongdi]

Recently, a popular Chinese rom-com movie came out about just this: A rich Chinese businessman sends his two wives to give birth in America, and "hilarity" ensues.
The worst part is that it's a common practice especially in Canada, which has the worldwide distinction for being "the easiest 1st world country to get into“。 I‘m all for immigration but laws as they are render this country as the first world's sucker. Even using biased government statistics, we are at an unemployment rate of 7.2%. Birth of convenience should belong in the same category as marriage of convenience. In both cases, it's a scam that all Canadians must pay for.

 

[on-hold]

This is probably a bit beyond the purpose of this thread -- but if you look at Europe, you can see that the combination of very low birth rates and a terrible economy can be devastating. For example, Ukraine or Portugal (but many countries fit the bill). When the populations starts to shrink, it increases taxation levels on the young (to pay for services for the old). If the economy gets bad, this pressure increases. Young people start to go abroad -- the tax bases shrinks, villages become half empty, old people need MORE services, because they can't get informal support from their community. Raise taxes again, more people leave -- it is a poisonous, self-reinforcing cycle of economic decline and abandonment. Google this subject, and you can find an interesting analysis of Ukraine, and I think Latvia.

This cycle is playing out in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Japan, and perhaps elsewhere -- it is a modern version of the depopulation of farmland in Western countries. I'm just saying, that in twenty years we might consider the attractiveness of Canada to foreigners to be a vital key to keeping the country healthy -- perhaps the 20th century is going to be a competition for immigrants, especially high quality immigrants, and if wealthy people are finagling their way in, that's a good sign . . .

No one ever pities a club that was so popular they lined up halfway down the block, and tried to climb in the second story windows -- I'd rather be that club than the half-empty one.