Immigrants: Canadian Citizenship

Canadian citizenship: You can never go home again is a motto taken by many Canadians as one that immigrants to this country should live by, and that they harm Canada in violating. Media accounts often highlight risks posed by migrants who come to this country only to return home with the benefits of Canadian citizenship. Last month saw a spate of stories about the finding that many migrants from Hong Kong to Canada have gone back after acquiring Canadian citizenship in order to enable a possible return here for retirement or in case of political turmoil, according to The Star. Conversely, the notion that you can never leave home is one that is truer of immigrants than many Canadians might wish. Of course, some migrants to Canada do sever all ties with their homelands. But most of them stay connected, to varying degrees, through ethnic media and through communication technologies and The American writer Maya Angelou was referring to deep matters of the heart when she said, You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so its all right. The claim may resonate emotionally but in the realm of global affairs, each of its assertions raises deeply fraught issues. The potential for immigrants to go home again, and the ways in which they maintain ties with their home countries, are often seen by Canadian politicians and media as not all right in the least. And in turn, those views are deeply at odds with current thinking among global experts in the field of migration. Another recurrent story concerns birth tourists from China who come give birth in Canada in order to secure the benefits of citizenship for their children. Such accounts often reference the dangers of reverse migration shown in 2006, when more than 50,000 Lebanese-Canadians used their citizenship rights to be evacuated during Lebanons conflict with Israel. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.