Immigrant Integration Essay

872 Words2 Pages

INTRODUCTION
In the era of cultural diversity and unprecedented levels of migration, the role of citizenship is gradually becoming somewhat contentious. In the face of increasing migration flows, neither can it remain excessively tied to individual’s nationality, nor to the place of birth. Nowadays, citizens are the ones who ‘should be treated justly by the courts, they should be able to participate as fully as they wish in the political process; they should be able to take advantage of the educational, employment, welfare and health opportunities and provisions of their state’ (Heater). In the context of immigrant integration, the essence of citizenship lies in the principle of equality and commitment. Hence, my discussion regarding the importance of citizenship will concentrate on the economic, political and psychological aspects of citizenship acquisition that strengthen immigrant integration, …show more content…

Given that these approaches are different in their very nature, the policy implications also vary significantly depending on a chosen ‘path’. In the first model, where naturalization is seen as a part of a wider and multi-dimensional process that facilitates cohesion, it is obvious that the access to citizenship is supposed to be broad and flexible (Pastor and Scoggins, 2012). A good empirical example of this approach can be found in the Canadian context primarily because the naturalization rates in this country are incredibly high and policies based on multicultural model are already in place. For instance, the residence criteria in Canada, which is only 3 years during 4 continuous years, is relatively easy to fulfill as compared to Austria’s requirement to reside in a state for at least 10 years usually without any possibility to gain dual citizenship which, conversely, is being fairly smoothly recognized in the Canadian citizenship regulations.

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