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When you're born in a country you're not an illegal alien, so don't try to change the subject.

That is true in the United States, but is not true everywhere in the world. In most countries (at least, those where I know the laws) the child has the same status as the parent. So, an illegal alien parent has an illegal immigrant child, and so on.

The specific case of Latvia is not an easy one. Sure, you can say it's racism to deny citizenship to ethnic Russians - and there may be an element of that. But it's also true that they were an occupied nation for 50 years, and Soviet Russia promoted migration to Latvia as part of a strategy to destroy Latvian nationalism. It is not really unreasonable for the now free country to take countervailing steps.

Honestly, I thought their solution seemed fairly moderate. They don't ban Russians from being citizens - but they insist they apply, learn Latvian, and demonstrate a knowledge of Latvian history. In short, they allow them to become citizens, as long as they show they intend to be Latvian, not Russian, citizens.

Now, you'd made reference to a different policy for Europeans. That wasn't mentioned in the article. Can you provide more details?

Drew Garrett

Well, in different countries there are differet attitudes relating to getting citizenship.

In U.S. - as far as I know - if you're born on American soil, you're also automatically a U.S. citizen, even if your parents are illegal immigrants (am I right?). It's called "law of land".

But it's not like that everywhere. Other rule is based on so called "law of blood", and relates to ethnicity. It's like in Germany or Israel. If you proof that you're an ethnic German (or Jewish) you'll get citizenship - no matter where you lived before, or where you were born.
In countries having such a system the fact, that someone was born in that country doesn't mean, that he'll get the citizenship.

Like me for example - if one day I (being a Pole) decided with my wife to move to Israel, lived there - let's say for 5 years - and our kid was born there, so the kid wouldn't be an Israeli citizen. There would be some other legal status for him, but not citizeship.

The same is in Germany and it is getting bigger and bigger problem - relating to the Turkish community. There are many, many Turks there, who were born in Germany, speak fluent German, have never been to Turkey and have no chances to get Geramn citizenship.
On the other hand - there were (and still are) quite many Poles, who were born on territories, that used to be German before WW2, and now belong to Poland. And - as far as I know - it's quite easy for them to get a German passport.
I've seen on TV a programme about Polish people, who got German citizenship, and now receive German welfare pensions as unemployed ones, living in Poland.

"When you're born in a country you're not an illegal alien, so don't try to change the subject."

It's called payback. People (and countries) have long memories. I think it was very ingeneous of the Latvian people to come up with you can be a citizen but must speak Latvian and know Latvian history. LOL. A brilliant move. You can still live here (even though Stalin opened the spigots of migration of Russians and others into Latvia and tried to destroy Latvian culture), but you must know your bread is now buttered by being a Latvian, not a Russian in Latvia. Time to show your true colors and allegiances, Russians in Latvia.