How selling citizenship is now big business

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Buying and selling citizenship is now a global industry worth an estimated $25bn a year

You can be born into it, you can earn it, and you can lose it. Increasingly, you can also invest your way into it.

The “it” is citizenship of a particular country, and it is a more fluid concept than ever before. Go back 50 years, and it was uncommon for countries to allow dual citizenship, but it is now almost universal.

More than half of the world’s nations now have citizenship-through-investment programmes. According to one expert, Swiss lawyer Christian Kalin, it is now a global industry worth $25bn (£20bn) a year.

Mr Kalin, who has been dubbed “Mr Passport”, is the chairman of Henley & Partners, one of the world’s biggest players in this rapidly growing market. His global business helps wealthy individuals and their families acquire residency or citizenship in other countries.

He says that our traditional notions of citizenship are “outdated”. “This is one of the few things left in the world that is tied to blood lines, or where you are born,” he says. He argues that a rethink is very much due.

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Giving citizenship to bots

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The crypto friendly island of Malta wants to give civil liberties to bots and other forms of artificial intelligence. Some experts say this is a profoundly bad idea.

Six years ago, when Amazon started talking about using delivery drones, many people thought they must be joking. Far from it—drones are now very much a reality: in April, Google offshoot, Wing Aviation, won certification from the US Federal Aviation Administration to begin commercial drone deliveries. If you live in Blacksburg, Virginia, drones could be landing on your porch by the end of the year.

In a similar vein, it’s tempting to scoff at Malta’s plans, announced in November, to give citizenship to bots. Voting rights, healthcare, civil liberties—everything is on the table. In fact, states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have already granted robots citizens rights.

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One of Estonia’s first “e-residents” explains what it means to have digital citizenship

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An online community survey recently asked me where I’m based. Without hesitation, I answered “Estonia.” You might ask: as a US citizen, why in the world did I do that? But as crazy as it may sound, Estonia is the country to which I feel most loyal today. I am one of the country’s first “e-Residents,” and I feel more welcome there than pretty much anywhere else in the world.

Hold on: an e-what?

I’m an Estonian e-Resident. A virtual resident, sort of. Let me explain.

In 2014, Estonia, a country previously known as much for its national singing revolution as anything else, became the first country in the world to launch an e-Residency program. Once admitted, e-Residents can conduct business worldwide as if they were from Estonia, which is a member of the EU. They are given government-issued digital IDs, can open Estonian bank and securities accounts, form and register Estonian companies, and have a front-row seat as nascent concepts of digital and virtual citizenship evolve. There is no requirement to have a physical presence in Estonia.

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‘Born in the USA’ – More chinese women traveling to U.S. to give birth

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When Chinese children are born in America, they automatically become U.S. citizens.

An increasing number of  well-off Chinese women are going to the United States to give birth to their children. Having an American passport can certainly be beneficial, it can also be more of a hassle than one might expect.

 

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