Ask Lemmy

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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. 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.

No. What's the advantage for me as a citizen?

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.