The same year Donald Trump moved to deny citizenship to children born in the United States, Canada extended citizenship to children born across the globe.
On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order seeking to eliminate birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to temporary residents and undocumented immigrants.
Eleven months later, Canada passed a law removing the generational limit to inheriting Canadian citizenship.
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At the stroke of a pen, people born all over the world—including millions of Americans—could now apply for proof of Canadian citizenship, even if they and their parents have never set foot in Canada.
Two kinds of waiting
As the U.S. Supreme Court deliberates on whether to block Trump’s executive order, thousands of families sit beneath a Sword of Damocles.
Parents who came to the U.S. on temporary visas, who built lives and had children on U.S. soil, now face the possibility that those children could be stripped of the citizenship they were born with.
Meanwhile, a different group of Americans is waiting for something else entirely—not a court ruling, but a certificate in the mail.
Linda, a retired law firm CEO in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, had grown increasingly uneasy with U.S. politics. At the same time, she had long been interested in having greater freedom to live and work abroad.
When a cousin mentioned Canada’s new citizenship-by-descent law over dinner, Linda started looking into her family history that same week. She soon realized that through her Canadian-born grandparents, she qualified for Canadian citizenship, and so did her son James, a dive instructor living in Cebu, Philippines, whose British girlfriend had been trying for years to figure out how they could build a life in the same country.
Canadian citizenship would change the equation for both of them. For Linda, it opened seasonal work opportunities in New Zealand through Commonwealth mobility programs she hadn’t known existed. For James, it meant access to the UK’s Youth Mobility Scheme: a three-year open work permit, his ticket to a life in London with his girlfriend.
Linda submitted her proof of Canadian citizenship application on a Thursday afternoon in March, the day before flying out to Cebu to visit James. She expects to receive her certificate by early next year.
Rick, a semi-retired marketing consultant in Lexington, Kentucky, had been at a crossroads. A widower of a 30-year marriage, he’d recently tied the knot with his second wife, and they’d been travelling across the Pacific Northwest, working their way through his bucket list.
He had always known that his great-grandfather had been a Canadian citizen. After Canada changed its citizenship-by-descent law, that piece of family history took on new significance.
Canadian citizenship would allow him to stay as long as he wanted in the province of British Columbia, a place he’d felt drawn to since his twenties.
But more importantly, it would open doors for his daughter Emily. For years, she’d had her sights set on a teaching career in Toronto, but had been stymied by the bureaucracy of Canada’s immigration system. Citizenship was her golden ticket.
After submitting their applications, Rick and Emily began planning their moves together. A father and daughter reconnecting, with Canada’s new law at the start of their lives’ next chapters.
While the U.S. Supreme Court considers the birthright citizenship case, processing times for Canadian citizenship certificates have doubled, and Quebec’s national archives have seen a 3,000% increase in requests for proof of citizenship documents—the vast majority from Americans.
Across the United States, thousands of families are waiting to find out whether their children will remain U.S. citizens. Thousands of others are learning they’ve been Canadian citizens all along.
If you have a Canadian ancestor—a parent, grandparent, great-grandparent, or further back—then you’re already a Canadian citizen. You don’t need to take a test, establish residency, or swear an oath. As a citizen by descent, you apply for the certificate that proves what you already are.
To check whether you may qualify, visit CanadaVisa’s citizenship by descent calculator.
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*Each pseudonym in this article reflects the story of a real-life American-Canadian citizen by descent. Minor details have been changed to maintain client confidentiality and to provide narrative continuity.