On citizenship by birth

Before you proceed, please note that these are my thoughts. I’m neither a lawyer nor a politician.

 

INCENTIVES

I do not think the idea of citizenship by birth as is practiced in the US and other American countries is ideal, at least for the modern time. It incentivizes the wrong things while being unfair to some others.

 

The idea that someone can be on a visit to your country, and the mere fact that they give birth while on the visit guarantees the child citizenship of that country doesn’t sound right. It incentivicizes what is now called birth tourism. That is, a pregnant woman will plan to visit the country (say US) close to their delivery date so that delivery can happen while they’re in the country. This way, the new born child is entitled to citizenship.

 

Or the idea that someone can find their way into your country illegally. But by virtue of giving birth while in the country, their child is therefor a citizen and that grants certain rights to the parent. It incentivizes what is now called anchor baby.

 

None of the 2 things is something a country should be enabling. Especially when same country has several millions that have lived there for decades legally, paying taxes and all, but don’t even have Permanent Residence (PR/Green card), talkless of citizenship.

 

I’d think what makes sense is to incentivize those already in the country legally, contributing continuously to the society with PR and citizenship, as is done in most parts of the world.

 

Take Germany for instance, if a child is born in Germany, whether or not they’re instantly eligible for citizenship depends on whether one or both of the parents is a German citizen or PR holder that lived in the country legally for certain number of years. They only get a permit just as their parents. Such a child is eligible for citizenship when one or both of the parent becomes a citizen too. Or after the child has lived and integrated in the country for a couple of years.

 

This arrangement makes more sense to me in the context of incentives.

 

NEED FOR CITIZENSHIP

Now, the idea of having a country’s passport or not doesn’t hold much value to a child, from my perspective. Let’s say a child is born and they get a German passport instantly, they have very little use for the passport. A child cannot vote. A child cannot travel on their own. I think the main value for the child is right to stay in the country indefinitely, which of course still somehow depends on parents. Because which parent will leave their child behind if they’re leaving the country for whatever reason?

 

 

STATELESS INDIVIDUALS

As with a lot of geopolitical issues, there’s no simple solution. Some people are stateless. They do not have the passport of any country and probably can’t easily get one. For example, if a Nigerian travels to benin republic, they do not need a passport to cross the border as fellow ECOWAS state. If they somehow find a way to smuggle themselves to Italy. At the border, they won’t have an ID to show. And do not have the ability to return back to Nigeria to get a Nigerian passport. Such a person falls under the category of stateless.

 

Hence, if they have a child, the child too will be stateless, which is not ideal.

 

The first thought will be to create exception for stateless parents. However that introduces a new loophole. People can go ahead to make themselves stateless to qualify for the exception.

 

CONCLUSION

While I do not have an easy solution/replacement for the concept of “citizenship by birth” as is practiced in many American countries, I don’t think the current structure is ideal. It’s for sure not favorable to the stakeholders as we can see from current turn of events.