When Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, New York State resident Ellen Robillard briefly appeared into getting Canadian citizenship. Her mom, in spite of everything, was born in Nova Scotia.
As a Democrat, Robillard was despondent on the election outcomes, however she deserted the thought after realizing that her younger son wouldn’t be eligible for citizenship underneath a regulation that barred Canadians born overseas from passing their citizenship to youngsters in the event that they have been additionally born outdoors Canada.
In 2023, nevertheless, the Canadian courts dominated that regulation unconstitutional and the modifications to eligibility got here into impact in December, out of the blue opening up a pathway to Canadian citizenship for many Americans at a time of political upheaval, violence and uncertainty in the US.
Robillard, 52, is applying for citizenship together with her son now that the first-generation rule has been scrapped.
Since standards for citizenship expanded with the passage of Bill C-3 of Canada’s Citizenship Act, hundreds of thousands of Americans have change into eligible to say Canadian citizenship. The modification reverses a “first-generation” restrict imposed by Canada’s Conservative authorities in 2009.
As the chief of her native Democratic Committee in a suburb of Rochester, New York, Robillard fears that if the political violence escalates, she might have a goal on her again.
Robillard is an outspoken activist in her city of 3,000, has obtained veiled threats on social media, and was as soon as adopted dwelling after a protest.
She’s suffered from burnout, melancholy and insomnia over political disagreements and has fallen out with associates and household. She’s change into more and more disillusioned together with her life in the US.
“I really don’t recognize my world anymore,” Robillard says.
A spring journey to her mom’s birthplace of Nova Scotia final yr helped her reconnect together with her Canadian heritage and cemented the thought.
“The experience of being there was so interesting. I felt like a different person there. It was so much less stressful. Everyone was nicer,” she says. “I observed so many positive interactions between people and it just made my heart so full to be there.”
The revised regulation will enable her to cross on her citizenship to her son, who’s now 19. In mild of the political local weather in the US, each are gathering the required paperwork in preparation for her Plan B.
“If things start deteriorating here with our economy, I know that I can just get in the car and go. It’s an option anyway.”
Since the brand new invoice was handed, Ottawa-based regulated immigration advisor Cassandra Fultz says her American caseload has soared tenfold, from a median of 10 to 100 purposes a month. As lengthy as candidates can present proof of direct lineage from a Canadian citizen, they will make claims going again generations, be it a grandparent or great-great-grandparent. Should the chain of citizenship break someplace alongside the road, nevertheless, the place an ancestor renounced their citizenship, rights to Canadian citizenship finish there.
Fultz, who’s a twin American-Canadian citizen herself, additionally factors out that she’s dealt with queries from disgruntled Americans after each US election cycle — regardless of political occasion. But the demand has all the time been short-lived, she says, peaking in November and waning by January. This wave has been markedly totally different.
“There’s been a very steady increase in interest in moving to Canada since November 2024, which is unprecedented. I’ve never seen this in my 17 years in the industry,” says Fultz.
“Usually people just get over it. But it’s already nearing the mid-terms and people are very interested, even two years later.”
It’s the same story on the National Library and Archives of Québec (BAnQ). In February 2025, the archive providers obtained 100 requests from the US for marriage, dying and baptismal information. In February of this yr, that determine ballooned to 1,500, a spokesperson tells CNN.
At the time of writing, the processing time for citizenship certificates from the US is 10 months, with about 50,900 folks at present ready for a choice, in line with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
When Rachel Rabb left the US in 2018, she thought she was escaping the anti-immigrant insurance policies and threats of racial violence she feared underneath the primary Trump administration. The American citizen assumed that she’d left all of it behind as she settled into her new life in Latin America.
At least there, Rabb, who’s biracial with an African-American father and Irish-German mom, felt that she wouldn’t have to fret about being assaulted or harassed for her pores and skin colour. She thought she was protected.
But Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024 reawakened outdated fears and adopted her to Costa Rica and Mexico the place she now divides her time — and the place she finds herself, as soon as once more, in the crosshairs of Trump’s hardline politics.
In February, a US-backed navy strike in opposition to a strong cartel chief in Mexico led to a retaliatory violence throughout the nation and the dying of more than 60 people.
This month, Trump signed a proclamation that guarantees extra navy strikes throughout Latin America, operations she fears might convey extra destabilization, chaos and violence to the region.
So when Rabb realized that Canada had just lately revised its citizenship legal guidelines and widened the pool of eligibility, she took a shot and began trying up her ancestry on-line. She had nothing to lose, and every part to achieve.
Her gamble paid off: on the age of 34, she belatedly realized that she has distant Canadian ancestry via her great-great-grandmother, who was born in Peterborough, Ontario.
“It was heaven-sent to discover that I have this Canadian ancestry, given the current political climate,” Rabb tells CNN Travel.
Rabb, who has been mistaken for being Latina over her biracial options, mentioned she wouldn’t really feel protected returning to the US.
“I don’t plan to return to the US at the moment. It’s just too dangerous,” she says. “So many people are targeted, even if you just look Latino, or if you look like you might be an immigrant. They’re even arresting US citizens, and allies. It’s a very scary time right now because anyone can be targeted.”
Should the state of affairs in Latin America escalate, Canada will change into her exit plan.
Seeking citizenship for historical past, tradition and ‘just in case’
Fultz factors out that, like Rabb and Robillard, many American candidates aren’t trying to make the transfer to Canada instantly, however are requesting proof of citizenship “just in case.”
Nor are all purposes politically motivated. Some of the commonest causes for requesting citizenship embrace household reunification, job affords, worldwide research, and the extra primary want to reconnect with their ancestry.
“It could be the best president ever in office in the US and I would still apply with as much passion,” says Timothy Beaulieu.
It wasn’t till his early 20s when Beaulieu began spending extra time together with his US-born grandfather, that he started to listen to about his household’s French-Canadian heritage, which was handed on via his great-grandfather.
“It was like a new world was open,” says Beaulieu, now 45, of New Hampshire.
He grew to become energetic in Franco-American associations and traveled to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Montreal, the place he found the native dish poutine — fries, cheese curds and gravy. It was there {that a} lightbulb went off and in 2016, he based PoutineFest, which hosts outside poutine festivals round New England, dwelling to an estimated two million French-Canadian descendants at the moment.
The presence of Franco-Americans in the world may be traced again to 1840-1930, when practically a million Francophone folks emigrated from Quebec the place farmlands have been depleted and jobs scarce, to work in textile mills in New England.
“I feel like Quebec and Canada are part of our family, it’s the motherland now,” Beaulieu says. “It really means a lot to me to be able to feel more connected to the place where our family came from.”
Rabb additionally expresses a eager curiosity in studying extra concerning the historical past and tradition of Canada’s indigenous tradition, and salutes Canada for attempting to place proper previous wrongs.
Aaron Lowry, who created the fast-growing Facebook web page “Canadian Citizenship by Descent,” was one of the primary Americans to get his citizenship via a short-lived interim invoice that was launched following the courtroom ruling and was ultimately changed by Bill C-3.
Since turning into a Canadian citizen in 2024, the Ann Arbor, Michigan, resident has traveled round Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes and has taken deep dives into Canadian politics: he can rattle off dates and factoids about Canadian historical past with ease.
“I really enjoy learning about Canadian civics and how the parliamentary system works. I find the relationship between the British monarch and Canada very interesting.”
Not everyone seems to be pleased with the relaxed citizenship rule: on on-line dialogue boards, some Canadians complain it favors Americans with few ties or contributions to the nation on the expense of tax-paying, working immigrant households who can face prolonged, sophisticated citizenship procedures.
Some additionally take umbrage at the truth that Americans are utilizing Canada as a “Plan B” choice in any respect.
But Fultz underscores that the invoice was launched as a result of the earlier laws was deemed unconstitutional and discriminatory by Canadian courts. The modification additionally restores standing to “Lost Canadians,” individuals who misplaced or by no means obtained their citizenship as a result of of the outdated and unconstitutional guidelines.
“Basically, the outcome of this case is that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” she says. “We don’t have multiple tiers of citizenship here, where if you’re naturalized you can do X, but if you’re born in Canada, you can’t. This is about fostering and enhancing equitability.”
She additionally emphasizes that the American candidates she’s labored with embrace docs, attorneys, and Harvard and MIT grads — “the best and the brightest.”
“This is a good thing for Canada, and a good thing for Canadians. These are quite literally our cousins. I just don’t see a downside.”
