People who don't live in a jurisdiction with unconditional jus soli, would you be in support of unconditional jus soli in your country? Why or Why not?
For Reference:
Light blue countries have restrictions (such as permanent residency) so I wanna hear your opinions as well.
No. Because I don't think citizenship is solely about what plot of land you are born on.
The world's a fucked up place, and birthright citizenship probably isn't the best way to go about things (neither are borders in general but that's a tangent), but I don't think removing rights before a better implementation is in place is the best way to go about things. More people get hurt this way, obviously, and we lose sight of what the actual point of this was. Not to mention it's easy for fascism to take root when you can more easily say who gets to be a citizen.
Surprised at the amount of commenters here fine with making kids' lives worse because they're afraid of brown people.
Two weeks ago I learned about someone losing her child's custody because the kid doesn't have citizenship, and her PR doesn't extend to the kid, so the dad had to get full custody or the kid had to fly back (by themselves apparently). This is the kind of shit jus soli helps with.
If your nationality is tied to your blood rather than your identity, you have an ethnostate, not a nation.
Wow. I’m looking at all these “no” responses and they ring so much of the MAGAt’s yelling about “anchor babies”.
I mean, in most of the cases on the map it's actually brown people afraid of other brown people. America invented racism, or at least the main kind of racism, but being a bigot in other ways is ancient and ubiquitous.
Nationality should be about building a community, so nationality should be given if the parents have an effective connection to the country. For this reason I think the best solution is combining nationality "by blood" (i.e. if one of the parents is a national), restricted "jus soli" (i.e. children of permanent residents get the nationality too), and, as an exception, I believe children that would otherwise be stateless should get nationality on birth to fix the glaring human rights issue.
As for children naturalisation, I believe any child that does most of mandatory schooling in a country should automatically get nationality.
This being said, I also believe that very few rights and duties should be restricted to nationals. People shouldn't have to live in fear of having their entire life upturned or not have access to services and social support just because they have the wrong passport.
People shouldn't have to live in fear of having their entire life upturned or not have access to services and social support just because they have the wrong passport.
Very important aspect! Thank you for mentioning this.
Fully agree. I would add that a child should be able to opt out in case their 'other country' does not allow multiple citizenships.
Lotta people in here have never had to immigrate. If the first thing you think of when you hear "immigration" is brown people trying to trick their way into a country, you might be a terrible fucking person.
Jus soli should always be an option because the harder it is to get citizenship, the harder that family's life is going to be, regardless of circumstances. No single person should have to suffer just because of where they or their parents were born when there are other options.
Wouldn't the correct answer in that case just be to make it easier to immigrate and gain citizenship, rather than expecting you to be born there?
Wouldn't the correct answer in that case just be to make it easier to immigrate and gain citizenship,
And the answer to climate change is to stop using carbon sources.
And the answer to wealth inequality is to tax the rich.
Lots of hard problems have simple answers. They're easy, and impossible to implement.
The question wasn't about expecting people to be born in the country they wish to live, it was about whether citizenship by jus soli should be an option without conditions.
As a whole, yes, I believe immigration should be easier. Citizenship by birth should be one of the routes available.
I theoretically, I would say I'm generally against it, with the understanding the citizenship is not the same as permission to live/work in the country nor the same as permission to access services.
Citizenship should generally mean that the country is your "home country" rather than place of origin. In that case, citizenship should be given to those who want to commit to participating in and improving the government and culture of the country (if only because thats where they spend most time). Where you were born doesn't relate to this strongly. What matters is how much time you'll spend here in the future, such as if your parents are citizens or permanent residents (meaning you'll likely grow up here) or if you want to move to the country permanently.
Basically, where you're born shouldn't matter. What should is your intent on living in the society you've gained influence in.
You should know that the Americas case is an exception because colonialism. It's not even a "good" thing. It's just a residue of the excuse settlers used to take natives lands without their consent.
No. It would be abused and ultimately break the country so it's no longer good for anyone.
In order to still be a country where people can seek for a better future the first objective should be maintain the country prosper, and that would need some restrictions.
If you just look for the short term you would be advocating everyone for a terrible future. Even if you are well intended and think that allowing a limitless number of people to stablish seeking for a better life (which is what would happen), ultimately the system will be unable to hold and we all will fall together.
We must be smarter and think of a system that can keep improving people's life for the foreseeable future.
It would be abused and ultimately break the country
Exactly. But that can happen when citizens have children too. We can't be too careful when we're talking about protecting our ideal society.
Everyone, even children of citizens, should have to apply for citizenship and be granted it. Otherwise they get deported.
No. Citizenship for a child in my country is tied to a huge amount of rights and access to welfare that essentially extends across a lifetime. Birthright citizenship would inevitably lead to an increase in (already significant) abuse of our strained welfare system.
Right now what's needed is rapid reform in order to salvage as much of it as possible. We can't afford to rapidly expand the system to include more people.
Tax the rich instead.
They already are. Marginal tax rate on income is ~66% and tax pressure as a whole is close to 50% of GDP. Hence increasing taxes isn't really feasible.
No. People will use children as tools to migrate. They already do to an extent, but this would exacerbate it significantly. People should have children because they want to raise a family, not to use them as a tool to bypass inconvenient red tape.
No. What's the advantage for me as a citizen?
Seeking a better life for one's children tends to be a powerful motivator for people. The promise of a better life has driven a lot of people to get on a boat and sail to the United States over the last few hundred years. As a natural born citizen, I benefit from them all, from the cleverest inventor to the humblest fruit picker. We got folks in power right now trying to abolish it, and look how it's going for us.
You sound, to me, like a Republican.
I don't live in the US, I only care for your foregin policy. I'm all for immigration for anyone who can be bothered to work and pay taxes with the rest of us. In fact if you manage so sneak into the country and pay tax you should be given a temporary residence permit just for the trouble.
If you have been a permanent resident for a long time you should be allowed to become a citizen. If your parents were here for a few years when you were born I'm not convinced it's a good idea.
No. In our country, the majority bellieves that descent should be the first criterion that decides citizenship, and I belong to that majority. During recent years, it has been made much easier for foreigners to acquire citizenship, so that's somewhat balanced now.
Why should descent be required?
A "nation" is a community, and without conducting a full investigation into every individual birth, the two main indicators that a child will likely have strong ties to a national community are:
"Required"? That's looking at it from a funny angle. Descent is not usually lacking. Don't you have parents?
Descent simply decides which citizenship you have, at first. That's all. But if you feel you "require" a different descent, then I don't know... :)
Yes.
Because all the ideas of "national character" and "nation" are worth about as much as the paper to write them on, or electricity to transmit and display them, you get the idea.
Only the life itself matters.
And the life itself becomes the better the wider is the participation in the government and the society's life by all people in it, with which citizenship helps a lot. And people having a baby on some territory are obviously sufficiently firmly present there to be its inhabitants in fact, and all inhabitants of a territory should be citizens. They already, directly or not, pay taxes and work. Citizenship is (should be) just the other side of the coin.
It's not acceptable for two people to work in one country and one of them to not have citizenship. From labor interests, from ethics, and just from plain dignity, why the hell should someone living in a land not have citizenship? It's not a privilege. It's a set of rights and responsibilities, someone having a different set is segregation.
Also cultural diversity (not the artificial bunching together into protected groups, like that bullshit Americans do) is precious, having an influx of immigrants that become citizens without any fear of being stripped of that citizenship or being deported is a blessing. There are countries like Argentina, Brazil, USA, that once were close to becoming better and richer than Europe, US still is by inertia. They all had such a trait.
At the same time the education system should guarantee that such a citizen will really be a member of the society when they turn 18. Speaking the language, knowing the constitutional law at least. Not a ghetto dweller.