A new federal law that removed the "first-generation-only" limit on citizenship by descent has triggered an unexpected mobility story: roughly 150,000 Rhode Islanders—about one in seven residents—now qualify as dual U.S.–Canadian citizens. CIC News reports that the change has sparked a surge in requests for proof-of-citizenship certificates, the prerequisite for a Canadian passport. The demographic quirk stems from 19th- and early-20th-century migration of French-Canadian mill workers to New England. Descendants can now claim Canadian nationality even if several generations removed, provided they document an unbroken lineage to a Canadian-born ancestor. For employers, the development creates a fresh talent pool of North-Americans who can live and work in Canada without visas—useful for cross-border projects that need quick deployments. Immigration lawyers in Quebec and Atlantic Canada report a sharp uptick in U.S. enquiries, and Quebec’s archives (BAnQ) says genealogy record requests are up 3,000 %. Processing times for proof-of-citizenship certificates sit at about 10 months, but new passport applications benefit from Canada’s recently introduced 30-day money-back guarantee. HR teams should verify dual-citizen tax and health-coverage implications before relocating newly eligible hires north of the border. Analysts note that other New England states with large Franco-Canadian populations—Vermont and Massachusetts—could see similar waves, potentially adding hundreds of thousands of dual citizens to the Canada–U.S. labour market over the next few years.
Source: CIC News
