It is getting harder to become a permanent resident or naturalized citizen of many leading immigration countries, as multiple leaders in Europe and North America have tightened or proposed to limit access. Most recently, Germany last month repealed a fast-track citizenship program it implemented a year ago, which permitted naturalization in as little as three years, which critics said was a pull factor for immigrants who might not have integrated into German society. With the program’s end, all applicants will now need to be resident for least five years to gain German citizenship. Earlier this year, Portugal doubled the amount of time that most immigrants must be residents before naturalizing, to ten years (with shorter periods for those from Lusophone countries), while also tightening eligibility for family reunification-based residence permits and allowing some naturalized immigrants to be stripped of their citizenship. The Netherlands has also sought to require immigrants wait ten years before being able to naturalize, rather than five. Sweden will soon move from a five- to eight-year residency requirement, as well as imposing new tests. And Italy recently restricted the ability to obtain citizenship through descent, limiting the offer to people with Italian parents or grandparents. The UK government has raised barriers to legal permanent residence, including a tougher language screening. More dramatically, prominent opposition figure Katie Lam has said large numbers of current immigrants with legal permanent residence should lose the status and be deported to create “a mostly but not entirely culturally coherent group of people.” In North America, the United States has updated its 17-year-old naturalization test to one that is twice as long and believed to be harder. North of the border, the Canadian government has been ordered by a court to revisit rules for citizenship by descent, and is trying to fulfil the requirement by making new applicants pass a language test and meet other requirements similar to the naturalization process. The country also recently reduced its targets for new permanent residents, amid public concern about impacts on the housing market and services. Many of these moves are in response to the rising political power of the far right. In the Netherlands, for instance, the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) gained remarkable ground in recent years largely on its calls for immigration restrictions, although its second-place finish in elections last week was seen as a moment of recalibration. Still, populist voices continue to have significant sway. The changes underscore that resistance to easy legal immigration has now become a widely acceptable position across the political spectrum, as governments worry about cultural issues and resource allocation. While previous anxieties had largely been limited to irregular immigration, the scope has expanded. All the best, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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