Tag: Citizenship

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Politics

Home passes immigration payments establishing path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands

House passes immigration bills establishing path to citizenship for millions

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during a press conference on immigration at the U.S. Capitol on March 18, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Win McNamee | Getty Images

Legislators in the House of Representatives on Thursday passed two bills paving the way for the citizenship or legal status of millions of undocumented immigrants, including those illegally brought into the country as children and agricultural workers.

The law was passed largely partisan, with Democrats and Republicans.

The bills are tighter than the comprehensive immigration package launched in February with the assistance of President Joe Biden. Even so, they face a difficult path to the Senate, where 10 Republicans would have to vote with each Democrat to approve them.

A non-partisan immigration deal – a key priority for the Biden government – has been hampered by recent events. Republicans have noted an increase in unaccompanied minors arrested on the US-Mexico border to press for stricter immigration enforcement.

About 4,500 children are in the care of Customs and Border Protection, most of whom are in a facility in Donna, Texas, an administrative officer said Thursday. Under Biden, more unaccompanied children are allowed to enter the United States than under Trump, whose administration was quick to evict minors seeking entry into the country.

In a television interview on ABC Tuesday, Biden said, “I can be very clear, don’t come,” adding that “we’re in the process of settling in, don’t leave your town or town.” “

Continue reading: Apple CEO Tim Cook praises the Dreamer bill and calls on Congress to pass it

The government has asked the Federal Agency for Disaster Management to protect the minors and move them to more humane facilities while refusing to label the situation a “crisis” or an “emergency”. During a call to reporters on Wednesday, an unnamed administration official said the issue was older than the Biden administration and that legislation was needed to address it.

“This is quite a government effort. We are currently managing the situation, but it will take time for the damage caused to be repaired,” the official said. “We also need to work with Congress to pass an immigration law that will give us more sensible laws to implement and enforce.”

The two bills passed on Thursday are the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.

The first would apply largely to those immigrants known as dreamers who are protected under former President Barack Obama’s “Deferred Action for Child Arrivals 2012” program. About 2.5 million people who came to the United States as children are entitled to a path to citizenship under the law, according to the authors.

The bill was passed between 228 and 197, and nine Republicans joined the Democrats in favor of the legislation.

The second bill would provide farm workers illegally in the country with a route to legal status estimated at at least half of the 2.4 million workers in the sector. Some farm workers could get a green card if they pay a fine and stay in the industry for another four to eight years, depending on how long they have already worked on the farm.

The bills aren’t as extensive as Biden’s immigration plan, the US Citizenship Act of 2021, which would have opened up avenues to citizenship for most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Democratic and Republican leaders have said in recent days that such a sweeping proposal has virtually no chance of garnering bipartisan support.

“I see no way to do that,” Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., The Majority Whip, told CNN. “I want it. I think we’ll be much more likely to deal with discrete elements.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., a Senate immigration leader, said Monday, “It’s going to be really difficult to put together a bipartisan bill on anything that has a legalization component until you stop the flow.”

The White House officially endorsed both bills early Thursday in statements calling on lawmakers to move forward with the citizenship bill.

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World News

Israeli Courtroom Says Converts to Non-Orthodox Judaism Can Declare Citizenship

Israeli Court Says Converts to Non-Orthodox Judaism Can Claim Citizenship

JERUSALEM – The question of who is Jewish and who is not has always been the subject of debate in Israel. Since the state’s inception, the government has largely turned to the Orthodox Jewish authorities, who do not consider converts to more liberal forms of Judaism to be Jewish.

But on Monday the Israeli Supreme Court struck a symbolic blow for a more pluralistic vision of Jewish identity: it granted foreigners converted to conservative, also known as Masorti or Reform Judaism, rights to automatic citizenship within the State of Israel.

The decision was mostly symbolic, as typically only 30 or 40 foreigners in Israel convert to Reform or Masorti Judaism each year, according to the Israel Religious Action Center, the rights group that led efforts to obtain the court verdict.

But the ruling has disregarded some of the monopoly Orthodox rabbis over issues of religious identity that are central to frictions in Israeli society. It also ignites a long-running debate about the relationship between the civil and religious authorities of Israel – and particularly the role of the Supreme Court.

Israeli law has presented the court as a bastion of the country’s secular and liberal elite, acting without democratic legitimacy. And although the court delayed the decision in this case for years in the hopes that parliament would vote on it instead, the court’s critics made political capital out of the decision as early as Monday evening.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, a regular opponent of the Israeli courts on charges of corruption, quickly cited the decision as a reason to vote for the party and “ensure a stable right-wing government that will restore the sovereignty of the people.” . “

Israel’s “Law of Return” gives foreign-born Jews or anyone with Jewish parents, grandparents, or spouses the automatic right to claim Israeli citizenship. Those who convert to non-Orthodox Judaism in another country have been able to obtain Israeli citizenship for decades.

Despite the small number, the court’s decision made a big difference to the activists and plaintiffs who first brought the case to the Supreme Court in 2005 and to the Orthodox authorities who opposed them.

“It’s a tremendous sense of relief, gratitude and satisfaction,” said Anat Hoffman, the executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center. “This judgment really opens the gates for Israel to have more than one way to be Jewish.”

One of Israel’s two chief rabbis, Yitzhak Yosef, called it a “deeply regrettable decision” and said conversions to reform and conservative communities were “nothing but fake Judaism”.

“Public officials are expected to work quickly to correct this legislation,” he said, “and the sooner they do so, the better.”

The news is particularly sensitive ahead of next month’s general election, Israel’s fourth in two years. The struggle between the secular and religious communities of Israel was a key feature of the pandemic and a source of debate in the election campaign, as was the role of the Supreme Court.

“It’s a big deal because there has been a dead end on this matter for 15 years,” said Ofer Zalzberg, director of the Middle East program at the Herbert C. Kelman Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group. “And it comes just a month before an election, so it’s dramatically politicized and touches people in visceral places: Who are we? What is our identity And what are our freedoms? “

Mr. Zalzberg said: “This has already sparked a backlash in a large constituency that denies the court’s right to make decisions about what the Jewish collective identity is about.”

There are still restrictions on the marriage of non-Orthodox converts to Judaism as this area is controlled by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which does not recognize Reformed or Conservative Judaism. There is no civil marriage in Israel.

For non-Orthodox Jews, however, the Supreme Court decision was a moment of qualified relief – both within Israel and within the Diaspora.

“It affirms that Israel is a home for all Jews,” said Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, the joint head of an international association of rabbis practicing Conservative Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. “The ruling is an important step in ensuring freedom of religion in Israel and recognizing the diversity of the Jewish people and practices in Israel and around the world.”

Within Israel, the vast majority of Jews are either Orthodox or secular, but liberal rabbis said the number of non-Jews seeking conversion to more liberal currents of Judaism had already increased.

Rabbi Gregory Kotler, a reformist rabbi in Haifa, northern Israel, said he had received around 20 new inquiries in a matter of hours.

“I almost didn’t want to answer your call,” he said with a laugh, “because I thought it was someone else asking for conversion.”

The Israel Religious Action Center stressed that any new potential convert would go through a rigorous conversion process that would take two or three years.

Orthodox critics “will say we are Jewish lite, they will say terrible things about our conversion,” said Ms. Hoffman. “But it’s not true. We demand that they become part of our communities. “

Gabby Sobelman and Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem and Elizabeth Dias from Washington.

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World News

Shamima Begum Loses Effort to Return to U.Okay. in Struggle for Citizenship

Shamima Begum Loses Effort to Return to U.K. in Fight for Citizenship

United Nations human rights experts this month urged 57 states, including the UK, to repatriate the families, citing the “unclear reasons” for which they were detained. About 10 French women detained in the Roj camp went on hunger strike this week to pressure their government to take them home.

“If some western nations like Britain have difficulty tracking their returnees, it will be just as difficult for the Kurdish authorities, who have limited evidence that these women have committed crimes,” said Thomas Renard, a researcher at the Egmont Institute. “So are we going to keep them illegally detained forever with no prospect of trial?”

In addition to humanitarian concerns, researchers have warned that the consequences of not bringing their citizens home could outweigh the risks of their repatriation. Some women have left the camps and are no longer registered, which could pose a risk of further radicalization. Lawyers have also argued that repentant women could share valuable information about Islamic State if they were interrogated at home.

Around 900 British nationals traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State. Hundreds of them died there. According to the human rights group Reprieve, around 450 people have now returned, but at least nine men and 16 women and around 35 children remain in Syria. This includes Ms. Begum, whose case has ricocheted from one UK court to another.

By revoking Ms. Begum’s citizenship in 2019, the authorities hoped to prevent her return, but this could possibly have had the opposite effect.

The appeals court ruled in July that Ms. Begum could only return to the UK if she could return to the UK. The UK government appealed the judgment and sent the case to the Supreme Court.

At a hearing in November, a lawyer for Ms. Begum argued that only in the UK could she properly set up her defense as it was difficult to communicate with her defense team while she was in Syria.

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World News

France Quick-Tracks Citizenship for Frontline Employees

France Fast-Tracks Citizenship for Frontline Workers

PARIS – Nine months after its president declared “war” on the coronavirus, France announced Tuesday that it had accelerated hundreds of citizenship applications from foreign frontline workers who excelled in battle.

“Foreign workers gave their time and acted for all of us during the Covid crisis,” said Marlène Schiappa, France’s junior minister for citizenship. “Now it is up to the republic to take a step towards them.”

The beneficiaries include not only healthcare workers, but also garbage collectors, housekeepers and cashiers, said Ms. Schiappa.

The fast-tracking measure is a notable departure from a country that has been introducing increasingly stricter immigration rules. Citizenship applications can take years to complete, and the number of naturalizations has decreased over the years.

According to statistics from the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies, around 48,000 people acquired French citizenship through naturalization last year, which is around 18 percent fewer than in 2015.

The government launched the measure in September as France prepared for a second wave of the pandemic. It was announced on Tuesday that around 700 foreigners who were exposed to possible coronavirus infection through their work have since been put on the fast lane of naturalization.

Aziz Youssef, a Tunisian-born physiotherapist who immigrated to France in 2014, said that obtaining citizenship through naturalization was “an obstacle course”. He remembered that he had submitted an application for the first time at the end of 2016 after completing his degree in physiotherapy – and received an appointment a year later.

Mr Youssef, who said he visited dozens of isolated patients during the first wave of the pandemic, had expected his application to be completed by 2022. However, after learning of the government’s new exemptions for frontline workers, he reported to the local authority authorities who hastened him. His penultimate interview took place in early December.

“Everything was accelerating very quickly,” said Youssef, adding that he saw the acceleration as “a form of recognition for a job well done”.

The first wave of coronavirus in France nearly destroyed the country’s health system – and frontline workers were at higher risk than most. Therefore, Ms. Schiappa asked regional officials to expedite citizenship applications for foreign workers among them.

Updated

Apr. 21, 2020, 6:49 am ET

“You have actively participated in the national efforts with commitment and courage,” wrote Ms. Schiappa in a letter to the regional authorities.

With more than 60,000 coronavirus-related deaths and nearly 2.5 million reported coronavirus infections, France has taken a heavy toll on the pandemic. With infection rates not falling as fast as predicted, the French government recently decided to delay easing some lockdown restrictions.

More than 70 applicants have been granted citizenship since September, and 693 more are in the final stages of the process, authorities said. Although their nationality has not been made public, the beneficiaries are mainly health and social workers, shop workers and civil servants.

There are several ways to obtain citizenship in France: through marriage; by birth in France or a French parent; and through naturalization. In this latter case, the applicant must have lived in the country for at least five years – or two years for immigrants with a qualification obtained in France – have stable resources and be considered integrated into French society.

In September, Ms. Schiappa also ordered officials to reduce the length of stay in France required to obtain citizenship through naturalization from the usual five years for “great service” to two years.

Didier Leschi, director of France’s Immigration and Integration Office, said the rapid action was part of a “long tradition dating back to the French Revolution of granting citizenship to the country’s benefactors”.

Mr Leschi added, however, that this was partly against this tradition, which generally only applied to individual and exceptional cases. “A joint effort has been rewarded here,” he said.

This was not the first time in recent years that France has deviated from its strict naturalization rules in order to reward laudable actions. In September 2018, Mamoudou Gassama, a migrant from Mali, was made a French citizen after heroically rescuing a 4-year-old boy who was hanging from a balcony.

Mr Youssef, the physiotherapist, said he is now waiting for his final interview, which will test his historical and cultural knowledge of France.

“This pandemic showed that France needs these people: doctors, surgeons, key workers,” said Youssef.