Monday, June 07, 2004
Ireland and pulling up the ladder behind you
Ireland will be voting on a referendum this Thursday which will tighten citizenship rules. Previously, anyone born in Ireland had the automatic right to Irish citizenship, which is NOT unusually permissive. The Irish, though, are feeling a bit weird now that net emigration has turned to net immigration. Fianna Fail (the current ruling party) has decided to bolster its flagging support by pushing through some chest-thumping irish nationalist demagoguery (oddly enough, Sinn Fein of IRA fame does NOT back the change; go figure).
A recent Limerick Post articlde mentioned that pro-referendum proponents have used a certain rich Chinese national who flew to Ireland to have their baby and used that child's Irish citizenship to acquire residency rights in England. Apparently, rich chinese immigrants are a BIG PROBLEM in Ireland, just as they are a BIG PROBLEM in the United States (yes, that is sarcasm). Must stop all those RICH CHINESE from FLOODING our borders with babies.
Somewhere in the distant sands of time, my family went to the United States from Ireland. Had any of them been pregnant, would Irish proponents of the current changes think it a wonderful idea if my great, great grandfather had been denied citizenship on similar grounds?
Voltaire talked about the noble savage, and he was half right. There's a lot to be said for societies that don't tie themselves up in the layers of bureaucracy that we seem to think is acceptable in modern times.
Ireland needs to remember that it benefited tremendously from foreign countries keeping the doors open to irish immigrants. Allowing children born in Ireland to have citizenship is NOT a tremendously large hole in citizenship law. Most can't afford to dash to Ireland to give birth.
Ireland will be voting on a referendum this Thursday which will tighten citizenship rules. Previously, anyone born in Ireland had the automatic right to Irish citizenship, which is NOT unusually permissive. The Irish, though, are feeling a bit weird now that net emigration has turned to net immigration. Fianna Fail (the current ruling party) has decided to bolster its flagging support by pushing through some chest-thumping irish nationalist demagoguery (oddly enough, Sinn Fein of IRA fame does NOT back the change; go figure).
A recent Limerick Post articlde mentioned that pro-referendum proponents have used a certain rich Chinese national who flew to Ireland to have their baby and used that child's Irish citizenship to acquire residency rights in England. Apparently, rich chinese immigrants are a BIG PROBLEM in Ireland, just as they are a BIG PROBLEM in the United States (yes, that is sarcasm). Must stop all those RICH CHINESE from FLOODING our borders with babies.
Somewhere in the distant sands of time, my family went to the United States from Ireland. Had any of them been pregnant, would Irish proponents of the current changes think it a wonderful idea if my great, great grandfather had been denied citizenship on similar grounds?
Voltaire talked about the noble savage, and he was half right. There's a lot to be said for societies that don't tie themselves up in the layers of bureaucracy that we seem to think is acceptable in modern times.
Ireland needs to remember that it benefited tremendously from foreign countries keeping the doors open to irish immigrants. Allowing children born in Ireland to have citizenship is NOT a tremendously large hole in citizenship law. Most can't afford to dash to Ireland to give birth.
