ARTICLE: NATURALIZATION/CONFERMENT A TOOL FOR CITIZENSHIP
INTRODUCTION
A citizen is a participatory
member of a political community. Citizenship is gained by meeting the legal
requirements of a national, state, or local government. A nation grants certain
rights and privileges to its citizens. In return, citizens are expected to obey
their country's laws and defend it against its enemies. The value of
citizenship varies from nation to nation. In some countries, citizenship can
mean a citizen has the right to vote, the right to hold government offices, and
the right to collect unemployment insurance payments, to name a few examples.
Living in a country does not mean that a person is necessarily a citizen of
that country. Citizens of one country who live in a foreign country are known
as aliens. Their rights and duties are determined by political treaties and by
the laws of the country in which they stay. In the United States, aliens must
obey the laws and pay taxes, just as U.S. citizens do. They must register with
the U.S. government to obtain legal permission to stay for an extended length of
time. Legal aliens are entitled to protection under the law and to use of the
courts. They may also own property, carry on business, and attend public
schools. But aliens cannot vote or hold government office. In some states they
are not allowed to practice certain professions until they become citizens.
Under United States law, a
noncitizen national is a person who is neither a citizen nor an alien but who
owes permanent loyalty to the United States. People in this category have some
but not all of the rights of citizens. For example, inhabitants of a United
States territory may not have the right to vote. Noncitizen nationals of the
United States include those people on the Pacific islands of American Samoa who
were born after the territory was taken over by the United States in 1900.
CONFERMENT A TOOL FOR CITIZENSHIP
Conferment/Naturalization is an
important milestone in the path toward U.S. citizenship. The decision to apply
for citizenship is a very personal one. To help you prepare, many community
organizations and social service providers offer citizenship classes and
assistance with the naturalization process.
Canada and the United States have
similar naturalization processes and immigration histories, especially when
juxtaposed with a comparison of either to a European nation receiving
immigrants. Both are settler nations with significant histories of immigration.
Both lifted race- and ethnicity-based immigration policies in the 1960s (Bean
and Stevens 2003; Wilson 2003). Canada has a smaller population than the United
States, and fewer immigrants, but the foreign born comprise a higher proportion
of its population, at 21 percent compared to 13 percent in the United States
(Statistics Canada 2013; Migration Policy Institute 2014). While family
reunification provisions are the major route to permanent residency in the
United States, skill-based migration is more important in Canada, although
immigrants in both countries have similar average levels of education
(Bloemraad 2006). Sources of contemporary migration differ as well:
Asian countries are the primary
source of immigrants in Canada, and Latin American immigrants, particularly
immigrants from Mexico, are the largest foreign born group in the United States
(Migration Policy Institute 2014; Statistics Canada 2013). Access to American
and Canadian citizenship has been similar since the post-World War II period
(Bloemraad 2006; Weil 2001). In both countries, the primary qualification is
holding permanent residency
(United States) or landed
immigrant status (Canada), which serve as precursors to citizenship. Immigrants
on various temporary visas and those without authorization are not eligible for
citizenship. Permanent residents in the United States are able to apply for
citizenship after five years of residence, three years if they are married to a
citizen, and immediately if they are a member of the military under special
provisions for wartime, still in effect in 2015. Landed immigrants in Canada
are eligible for citizenship after three
years of residency. In both
countries, applications for citizenship require extensive paperwork, fees,
language and civics testing, and administration of an oath. However, there are
some differences in the naturalization procedures. For instance, American
applicants undergo individual interviews with immigration officials, during which
their fitness for citizenship is evaluated along several dimensions, and which
could result in an order of removal if irregularities in earlier steps of the
immigration process are found (Author 2015). Most current Canadian applicants
sit for a multiple choice citizenship test after all other requirements have
been cleared, and do not undergo an individual in-person evaluation (Paquet
2012).
Major differences emerge in the
uptake of citizenship, which is higher in Canada, at 73 percent citizens among
the foreign born, compared to 44 percent in the United States (Statistics
Canada 2013; US Census Bureau 2012). The dramatic gap cannot be explained
entirely by the lower residency requirement
(three vs five years),
differences in the mix of origins, or presence of undocumented immigrants
ineligible for citizenship (Author 2013; Bloemraad 2006). More significant are
institutional factors that frame the naturalization process in each country,
such as Canadian programs that actively encourage and support citizenship
acquisition, treating it as a right, contrasted with the less interventionist
American approach that leaves citizenship up to the individual (Bloemraad 2006;
Mahler and Simieyatkcki 2011).
The disparity in naturalization
rates is in the opposite direction from what can be expected given greater
benefits of citizenship in the United States. In both countries, citizenship
status protects increasingly vulnerable immigrants from deportation, although
the rights associated with Canadian and American
citizenship have themselves been
eroded after 9/11 (Aitken 2008; Barnes 2009; Bauder 2008). Immigrants who have
become Canadian or American citizens can vote and run for office. Travel is
often easier with Canadian or American passports, which also ease restrictions
on living abroad. In addition to these benefits of citizenship, naturalization
improves immigrants’ ability to sponsor the migration of their family members
to the United States. (Landed immigrants in Canada are equal to citizens in
their ability to sponsor relatives.) American citizenship also means much
improved access to welfare benefits (after 1996 reforms, Balistreri and Van
Hook, 2004; Van Hook et al. 2006) and government jobs and contracts.
Although there are a few career
limitations for non-citizens in Canada, access to social benefits, including
health care, is not limited to citizens. Given the greater benefits of
citizenship in the United States, it would be reasonable to expect higher
levels of naturalization there. Canada officially recognizes dual citizenship,
although there is a de facto dual citizenship regime in the United States1
(Bloemraad 2006; Kivisto and Faist 2007).
NATURALIZATION/CONFERMENT A TOOL FOR CITIZENSHIP
Immigrants’ understanding of
citizenship and its acquisition engages several theoretical debates in the
literature. Citizenship itself is a concept with multiple meanings, including
legal status, rights, political participation, and belonging (Bloemraad et al.
2008). These meanings intersect with three main models of citizenship:
traditional, transnational, and post-national. Traditional citizenship denotes
an exclusive connection between an individual and a nation-state, with
corresponding rights and sense of identity and belonging (Bloemraad 2004).
Hence, if immigrants naturalize for the ‘wrong’ reasons, such as to access
welfare benefits or to make it easier to live abroad, that can be seen as
undermining the institution of citizenship (Honig 2001).
The transnational model of
citizenship expands beyond attachment to one nation to highlight the
multiplicity of connections between people and nation-states in the globalized
world. Thus, migrants may identify with and participate in their sending and
receiving countries, facilitated by multiple formal
citizenships (Basch et al. 1994),
and relatively tolerant attitudes towards multiculturalism (Waldinger 2015).
Dual citizenship can enable transnational ties, although it does not
necessarily undermine political participation in the receiving country
(Jones-Correa 1998). Nor is interest in political participation in the new
homeland incompatible with continuing identification with sending country
(Mosivais 2001). Immigrants may separate the meaning of citizenship as legal
status from citizenship as belonging, in which case naturalization does not
interfere with the nurturing of dual identities (Brettel 2006). That legal
status of citizenship may not be connected to ideas about belonging becomes
evident when even those immigrants who have access to dual citizenship in
Canada, do not claim it on census forms (Bloemraad 2004).
In addition to the traditional
and transnational models of citizenship, some scholars argue for the
postnational model, which underlines the growing salience of human rights
inhering in individuals and identities that go beyond nation-states (Soysal
1994). Ironically, such an orientation towards citizenship
among immigrants themselves may
have been more prevalent during an earlier era of mass migration, when labor
internationalism combined with relatively weak or new nation-states (Waldinger
2015). More recently, there is evidence of flexible citizenship (Ong, A. 1999)
among the affluent globalized elites who criss-cross the globe to maximize
business opportunities and living standards (Massey and Akresh 2006).
REFERENCES
Weber, Max (1998). Citizenship in
Ancient and Medieval Cities. Chapter
3. Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota. pp. 43–49. ISBN 0-8166-2880-7.
Zarrow, Peter (1997), Fogel,
Joshua A.; Zarrow, Peter G., eds., Imagining
the People: Chinese Intellectuals and the Concept of Citizenship, 1890-1920, Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, p.
3, ISBN 0-7656-0098-6
Pocock, J. G. A. (1998). Shafir,
Gershon, ed. The Citizenship Debates.
Chapter 2 -- The Ideal of Citizenship since Classical Times (originally published in Queen's Quarterly 99,
no. 1). Minneapolis, MN: The
University of Minnesota. p. 31. ISBN