Following Great Britain’s 1983 legislation to eliminate birthright citizenship, in 1986 Australian significantly curtailed birthright citizenship by illegal immigrants. After 1986 to qualify for Australian citizenship at birth a newborn had to have at least one parent who was an Australian citizen. If neither were, a child born in Australia could still obtain citizenship on his 10th birthday if he spent the first 10 years of his life in Australia.
Ireland eliminated birthright citizenship in 2005 and New Zealand in 2006. Today few developed countries other than the United States automatically award birthright citizenship to children whose parents are both illegal immigrants.
On February 8th the Internet edition of the Wall Street Journal carried an article with an Associated Press byline entitled “Australia Tightens Immigration Rules.” The gist of the article is that the current administration in Australia is imposing new immigration rules to more favor immigrants whose skills are in short supply in Australia. The opening line of the article states: “Australia tightened its migration rules Monday in favor of English speakers and professionals [whose skills are needed], saying the country has been attracting too many hairdressers and cooks and too few doctors and engineers."
The present U.S. legal immigration system discourages the immigration of individuals with advanced educational backgrounds and skills that would benefit our country. Instead of giving preferences to the best and brightest immigrants whose talents are in short supply here, since 1965 our legal immigration system gives most preferences to the close relatives of citizens. Since it is the recently legalized citizens, including many millions of formerly illegal immigrants legalized by amnesties and other means, who have by far the largest number of close relatives living outside the United States, the typical characteristics of our legal immigrants are now mirroring that of our illegal immigrants – poor, low-skilled, and little educated. Moreover, the amount of permitted legal immigration, including the admission of refugees and asylum seekers who also tend to be poor and unskilled, has been trending up over time and is now running about twice the level it had been prior to the 1990s. The American born children of illegal immigrants, after they reach 21 years of age, also have the right to sponsor foreign relatives for legal immigration into the U.S.
When will the government of the U.S. wake up and largely restrict legal immigration to those having the skills we need, as well as shut off the illegal immigrant magnet of automatic birthright citizenship?
