Citizenship
 

What are your thoughts on how "initial" citizenship should be structured?

I've simplified it in the poll, leaving out a foreign national obtaining citizenship well after birth (ie Green Card, or via Immigration Process") as this tends to go through a "residency permit" process, rarely would a country offer full citizenship straight away.

In NZ, we switched from having citizenship by birth, to citizenship via parents, a few years ago, and this thread was also inspired by an article in my local paper about a woman who had lived here for 50 years but had only just got her citizenship. She had moved from the Netherlands as a small child, but had not got NZ citizenship because the Dutch government didn't allow dual citizenships until quite recently. However, she claimed she had felt "100% New Zealander" for her entire life - which made me wonder why she held onto her Dutch citizenship for 50 years.

Re: Citizenship
 

I like the current US system. If your parent is an American, you're an American. If you're born here, you're an American.

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same here, its relatively easy for anyone to be a citizen here.

Re: Citizenship
 

Imma go with parent's citizenship. Currently, in the US, we have a major problem with "anchor babies." Essentially, illegal immigrants will come over pregnant and about to give birth, have the kid in the USA, and then be able to stay in the country as their child is now a US citizen, despite being in the country under false pretense.

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I think that system is best, other wise makes little sense, or could be called un fair.

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Quoted for truth.

Citizens by parents, definitely.

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I keep hearing about how it is a "major problem". Do you have information that supports that claim? As in, something that shows that anchor babies are harming America?

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I think he means that illegal immigrants are using their babies as an excuse to stay in america.

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I guess I can compare this with the situation in New Zealand.

By getting New Zealand citizenship, you also get access to a 'Special Category Visa' for Australia, meaning you are able to live and work there indefinitely, the only difference being around financial aid. For example, if I were to go to study in Australia, I would be eligible for the government-subsidised fees, but not the weekly/monthly student benefit.

Comparing the Australian and NZ employment situation, the minimum wage is $18.80 vs $12.75, taxes are lower (eg GST is 10% vs 15%), and the job opportunities are far higher. Migration is massive as well, there are 4 million NZers in NZ, and 500,000 in Australia. Some towns, especially in WA state, NZers are the largest 'ethnic' minority.

This is not just a brain drain, it's people from all sections of society. The effect is pretty debilitating however. In extremely limited positions, like specialist doctors, they have to work much harder to cover the losses of doctors going to Australia. That means that not only is their pay far lower, but the working conditions far worse. The flow-on effect is that health services here become degraded, despite this country producing enough doctors to meet its own needs.

Why would anyone stay?

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Bingo. They illegally enter the country, many times being involved in drug smuggling and human trafficking in order to pay their fare across with the cartel and coyote organization routes, and then have a baby who becomes a US citizen automatically, making it next to impossible to deport them. They have committed crimes, are in the nation under false pretense, and yet are allowed to stay and often steal/fake social security numbers in order to draw welfare whilst not paying taxes. :) Fun eh?

Re: Citizenship
 

Wait, this still doesn't make it clear to me. There's plenty of illegal shit that isn't particularly damaging to the country. An example you might be familiar with is the consumption of marijuana. Sure, drug cartels are a problem, but I'd rather take the time to stamp out drug cartels/make certain drugs legal (thus weakening the cartels) than make citizenship based on heritage.

The way you are phrasing your post makes it sound like the illegal immigrants coming into this country are leading the drug cartels and human trafficking circles, instead of being used by them. How many illegal immigrants or children of illegal immigrants do you know? How many of them are living on welfare, and how many are avoiding welfare because they want to be off the government's radar?

I was not asking for "the immigrants these days, with the drugs and the welfare fraud", I was asking for a source, a survey, something with numbers backing it up. I was asking so that we can compare those numbers, that "damage to the USA", with the benefits to the USA of a cheap labor pool.

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Birth by parents is obviously the best solution. It prevents the child of those parents from lacking citizenship if they are inadvertently born abroad, while preventing people from deliberately birthing their child in this country in order to stay, as people have outlined above.

Removing the concept of citizenship altogether is a nice idea in theory, but in practice it would create significant administrative and legal problems in wealthier countries, who already have major problems with illegal immigration.

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To be honest I'd prefer if it was a multi option poll.
Ius Soli and Ius Sanguinus should both be applied. Though I do agree that there ought to be some limits to Soli.
For instance that it is only applicable to children who's parents have a long term living permit in the nation.

Though I do understand why nations are unwilling to allow dual citizenships. At the same time it requires a certain sacrifice. In the same vein - why did the dutch woman not abandon her original citizenship in favour of the NZ one, if she felt a 100% Newzealander?

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I have no idea as the dumb journalist who wrote the story obviously didn't bother to ask.

Edit, taken another look at the story "I really do relate more to New Zealand, but I am very proud of my heritage," she said.

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Citizenship via parents sounds the most fair and practical to me. Citenship by birth *could* work, but then you have the problem of how to keep the family together. Granting the parents citenship automatically would be unwise. So you'd either have to "postpone" citizenship untill the person can support him/herself. Or place them in a foster family.

In theory atleast getting rid of citizenship altogether would be even better. Simply go and live in the country you want to live, aslong as you respect the laws and are "productive", thus contributing to whatever nation you are living in in a positive way. In practise it would be a bit more difficult to deal with when it comes to wellfare, various rights that give certain advantages and so on.

I'm quite happy to live in the Netherlands, but I wouldn't care to much if I were to live elsewhere (say Germany, the UK, Canada, Italy, elsewhere).

You might have gotten that the other way around. It used to allowed dual citizenship but thanks to moving to the right (nationalism, conservatism) it's no longer possible to have dual citizenship. You have to give up your second passport. It's only tolerated if it is impossible for you to give up your other passport, such as people from Marocco since that country will never let you give up your Marocco citizenship.

Personally I find it rather silly. If I'd were to move abroad I'd like the idea of being able to fall back more easily just incase things don't work out. Obviously it could be expected of my new host country that I contribute in a positive way to get permanent citizenship.

Second reason might be various social benefits and such on. If I lived in NL for a good deal of my life and would move abroad I'd like to make use of whatever I contributed to the Dutch society (financially and in other ways).

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Starship Troopers style: Everyone is a citizen, then you must server some sort of federal duty to become a citizen.

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While I agree with everything you said, I see that as a pipedream sadly, but I'm in favor of learning to speak the national language and being able to pass a history test, to becoming a citizen that is if you weren't born into the country and immigrated into it.

Re: Citizenship
 

No approach is pragmatic by itself. If you go purely by parenthood how will you attract qualified individuals to your society? And if you go with birth what about people born abroad, or those with foreign parents who are born here?

I'm in favour of citizenship by descent, after all it's hardly practical to neglect people in poverty - even if they're not citizens they're going to cause social problems if left to rot - but I also favour citizenship by virtue. If someone has a few tens of thousands of pounds, has good qualifications and employment history; you want to nab 'em. They represent a boost to your economy and you have put no money into developing that person. Hell you probably ought to be offering them tax breaks to help them get on their feet when they're here.