General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I just realized that Trump means me. He wants to strip my U.S. citizenship. [View all]George II
(67,782 posts)....the last time in 2009.
Initially it applied to anyone born after 1947, granting citizenship to people born outside the country with at least one Canadian parent.
I was born in in NYC in 1948. I never bothered to look into all the changes over the years since they didn't affect me. The curious thing is that I'm one of six, two were born before 1947 so they are not Canadian citizens, four of us were born after 1947 and are Canadian citizens.
Now here's an interesting family twist - my mother was born in Ontario, my grandparents moved to NYC when she was a little girl. While in NYC my grandparents had another son and daughter, who were "birthright" immigrants. Years later they all moved back to Toronto to settle for good, but my mother, being 18 and settled in, stayed in NYC. So she was living in the US and was Canadian, her two younger siblings wound up living in Canada the rest of their lives (one is still alive) and are US citizens. My mother became a naturalized US citizen in the 1960s.
I only heard about the law a few years ago, looked into applying for my Certificate of Citizenship, but at the time being in my late 60s it was too involved for what little benefit it was, so didn't bother. Had I known about this when I was in my 40s or younger I would have followed through. Who knows, there would have been a good chance of moving up there decades ago!
Here's a good summary of the law and it's changes over the years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_nationality_law