Birthright citizenship is topical in both New Zealand and the United States and the case of the 18-year-old Daman Kumar - born and raised in New Zealand, who was saved from deportation at the last minute - has highlighted the issue.
Birthright citizenship is quite simply the automatic entitlement a child born in New Zealand has to New Zealand citizenship. New Zealand removed this right in 2006 under the Labour Government of Helen Clark.
Most European countries don’t provide birthright citizenship, Canada does and Australia has a modified version. So, should New Zealand reconsider its birthright citizenship rights in light of the Kumar case? I would argue that it is time for a reconsideration of our 2006 amendment to the citizenship laws.
Opponents argue that birthright citizenship encourages “anchoring”, being the idea that temporary migrants will seek to give birth in New Zealand solely to anchor themselves in this country.
This argument, however, assumes that having a New Zealand citizen child gives the parents an avenue for residency, but this is simply not the case. While there is a parent residency category, the sponsoring child must have earned much more than $100,000 a year for at least two of the last three years, something which of course is simply impossible for a young child and highly unlikely for that child until they are well into their late 20s if they are lucky.
Secondly, New Zealand has one of the best natural border protections in the world: thousands of kilometres of open ocean.
We simply don’t face the same challenges of mass migration that Europe and the United States does. So even if some migrants attempted to come here solely to give birth, the numbers are likely to be minuscule.
Sister Radhika Kumar (left) and Daman Kumar (right), were both born in New Zealand. She was not facing deportation because she was born before changes to the Citizenship Act in 2006.
On the other hand, children born and raised here for many years, like Kumar, are quite simply “Kiwi kids” and to deport them, which Associate Immigration Minister Chris Penk attempted to do before the intense media coverage of the case is quite abhorrent to the vast majority of New Zealanders.
Our immigration system is not just about numbers in and out of the country and finding the right immigration policy settings - it’s about human lives, dreams and aspirations.
There are likely to be more kids out there just like Kumar and if New Zealand is to resist the creeping tide of xenophobia seeping out of the United States then we need to protect the vulnerable, innocent and voiceless children who become political scapegoats in highly-polarised immigration debates.
A system where children born in New Zealand are not automatically granted citizenship at birth but do become eligible for residency after 10 years, would be a sensible compromise and something that Immigration Minister Erica Stanford could introduce without needing an amendment to our citizenship laws.
This would of course enable the children born to lawful temporary workers to also qualify for residency here.
The benefit is that the children are not deprived of their fundamental human right to health and education services, but they have already been raised and educated as Kiwis and therefore likely to contribute much more as adults than a more recent migrant with no familiarity with New Zealand.
All that is required now is for Stanford to remember that her department is dealing with actual human beings - and not just numbers on a spreadsheet.
