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(QUITO, Ecuador) — Ecuador has granted citizenship to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been living in asylum at the nation’s embassy in London for more than five years. The nation’s foreign minister announced Thursday that officials had decided to permit Assange’s naturalization while they look for ways to resolve his situation. Ecuador gave Assange political asylum after he sought refuge in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for investigation of sex-related claims. Sweden dropped the case, though Assange has remained in the embassy because he is still subject to arrest in Britain for jumping bail. Britain’s...

A simple request from the Trump Justice Department to the Census Bureau to add a single question to the 2020 federal census is causing a huge uproar among liberal and Democratic groups because it could have a devastating political impact for Democrats in the next decade. This is the “C” question: are you a citizen or not.

The number of United States-born children who were given birthright citizenship despite at least one of their parents being an illegal alien living in the country now outnumbers one year of all American births. A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report the booming number of U.S.-born children to illegal aliens who are given automatic citizenship, forever anchoring their families in the U.S. These children are commonly known as “anchor babies,” as they are able to eventually bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. through the process known as “chain migration.” Every two new immigrants to the U.S....

“This is a recipe for sabotaging the census.” The Justice Department is pushing for a question on citizenship to be added to the 2020 census, a move that observers say could depress participation by immigrants who fear that the government could use the information against them. That, in turn, could have potentially large ripple effects for everything the once-a-decade census determines — from how congressional seats are distributed around the country to where hundreds of billions of federal dollars are spent. The DOJ made the request in a previously unreported letter, dated Dec. 12 and obtained by ProPublica, from DOJ...

his U.S. territory in the western Pacific is known for its epic World War II battle, white-sand beaches and the enduring culture of its indigenous Chamorro people. But for a certain class of Chinese parents, Saipan has become known as the latest hot spot for birth tourism, a place where women can give birth to babies who will automatically acquire U.S. citizenship.

An atheist woman seeking citizenship in Massachusetts is suing to remove the phrase “so help me God” from the United States citizenship oath. Olga Paule Perrier-Bilbo, a French national who has lived in the U.S. since 2000 with a green card, says that the inclusion of the phrase is an unconstitutional violation of her religious freedom. Her lawyer, Michael Newdow, drew attention for a similar Supreme Court case in 2004, when he argued that the Pledge of Allegiance should be rewritten to omit “under God.”

Here is a news story that will make no sense whatsoever to anyone who is not Australian - and, indeed, shouldn't really make any sense even if you are Australian. From The Sunday Times of Perth: Senator Parry has released a statement confirming he will step down as President of the Senate and resign his seat if British authorities say that he is a British citizen. The senator is still awaiting confirmation from the authorities... "As a result of this I have had cause to examine my citizenship status in relation to my late father having being born in the...

The Turnbull Government has lost its one-seat majority after the High Court ruled Barnaby Joyce's election invalid because of his New Zealand citizenship. Mr Joyce will now face a by-election. The court also found former Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters were not validly elected, along with One Nation's Malcolm Roberts and the National Party's Fiona Nash.

Ultra high-net worth individuals are turning their attention away from sports cars, yachts and designer clobber, and are instead focusing on acquiring the latest status symbol among the super wealthy: passports. Today it is entirely possible to buy and sell citizenship, and for the ultra rich, the more passports they can get their hands on, the better. Citizenship by investment programmes (CIPs) is a concept that began in 1984, when the two-island Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis came up with the idea to encourage wealthy individuals to pump money into its economy in exchange for a passport, which...

The Australian government said Thursday it was prepared to relax its proposed English language test for new citizens as a compromise to get other tough new restrictions on attaining citizenship through Parliament. Immigration and Borden Protection Minister Peter Dutton said his conservative government was prepared to reduce its proposed English-language skill threshold from “competent” to “modest:” a level of basic communication with many mistakes. The change would be from level six to five on the nine-level International English Language Testing System scale. Language skills are not currently tested in the Australian citizenship process although some English is required. ”We believe...

Sweden’s main opposition party, the Moderates, want to tighten the rules for people seeking Swedish citizenship, suggesting a string of new measures they say will encourage integration and better correspond to the rules of other Nordic countries and Germany. In an opinion piece published in daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter on Thursday, Moderate party members Tomas Tobé and Gunnar Strömmer said that the rules to become Swedish aren’t strict enough, and in some cases even hamper the integration of the country’s new citizens. “Sweden should be an open country (…) But at the same time we have to make demands: Everyone...

If Trump does turn the matter over to his wobbly Republican colleagues, he must demand they cut a deal: agree to grant the “Dreamers” permanent status in the U.S. in exchange for abolishing birthright citizenship. That single change could forever reduce the allure of sneaking into the U.S.

I am very pleased to sign Senate Joint Resolution 23, restoring posthumously the long overdue, full rights of citizenship to General Robert E. Lee. This legislation corrects a 110-year oversight of American history. It is significant that it is signed at this place. -- Gerald R. Ford, President

The formal observances of Canada's 150th birthday have included a sesquicentennial viceregal gaffe and a pair of commemorative prime ministerial socks. But of course what most Canadians like to do when we're not trapping beaver and huffing poutine is celebrate diversity. And so it was that at the Canadian Tire store in Scarborough a "Scarborough woman" went full Allahu Akbar in the paint aisle, but, touchingly, instead of just slashing at her "fellow Canadians" with the traditional machete of her own cultural inheritance, she also embraced Canadian values by clobbering her victims with a golf club as if berating the...

If any US citizen becomes, say, a British Subject, do they lose any US benefits? Social Security? Medicare? Since the other country does not notify the US, the individual can maintain two passports, and does continue to own property in both countries. Is there any downside to taking on another citizenship?

Escaped Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman ordered his young wife, Emma Coronel, herself a U.S. citizen and daughter of another Mexican drug lord, to give birth in California to secure U.S. citizenship for his children. The Daily Mail reports that the feds didn’t thwart the Mexican drug cartel anchor baby scheme: “Federal agents wanted to stop her, but had no formal charges to file so had to let her go free.” Another immigration success story — despite the $5 million bounty placed on El Chapo’s head in Mexico, Coronel gave birth to twin daughters on August 15, 2012....

TIJUANA, MEXICO — Rep. Juan Vargas, a California Democrat whose district runs the length of the state’s border with Mexico, introduced a set of bills last fall aimed at helping U.S. military veterans who were deported after they were convicted of crimes. The bills stalled, casualties of what he called bad timing during the presidential campaign. Vargas reintroduced the bills last week, because now he sees “a real opportunity.” He and six other Democratic members of Congress spent Saturday in this Mexican border town visiting deported veterans to press the issue, thinking that President Trump might be receptive to the...

The blogger behind incredible claims that the FBI had a warrant to examine the Trump campaign's communications is facing serious questions about her legitimacy after making a series of conspiracy-theory claims about elaborate Russian plots that appear to have little basis in reality. Louise Mensch is a British politician turned New York blogger who reported on the website Heat Street that the FBI was granted a FISA court warrant to access communications made by Trump's team during the presidential campaign.

So far this year, almost 10,000 people have become U.S. citizens in Maryland. One of the newest citizens is a Baltimore Oriole who gave the city nine memorable years. he special ceremony, which happens twice a day in Baltimore, was a little more nerve-wracking than stepping onto the field at Camden Yards. Orioles Hall of Famer Melvin Mora has become a U.S. citizen after 17 years in the country. "I was trying not to cry," Mora said. "I said, 'What am I doing?' You know, I've been hitting with 40,000 people and now my hands are shaking so you know...

Trump Declared May 1 “Loyalty Day,” But You Shouldn’t Freak Out About It By Morgan Brinlee 19 hours ago President Donald Trump asked Americans to reaffirm their allegiance to the United States' founding principals in a proclamation that caused a number of people on social media to flip out. In his proclamation, Trump called on Americans to "observe this day with appropriate ceremonies," including reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and asked government officials to display the American flag on all government buildings and grounds. But while Trump's request may sound a bit Orwellian, the truth is there's no reason to...