September 2020 SUPPORTING INTEGRATION? INTERNATIONAL PRACTICES ON CIVICS AND LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS LINKED TO NATURALISATION: POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR IRELAND Sarah Groarke, Michal Polakowski, Emma Quinn, Frances McGinnity Migrant Integration Strategy 2017-2020 Supporting integration? International practices on civics and language requirements linked to naturalisation: policy implications for Ireland Sarah Groarke Michal Polakowski Emma Quinn Frances McGinnity September 2020 Economic and Social Research Institute; Department of Justice and Equality Available to download from www.esri.ie © 2020 Economic and Social Research Institute Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2 https://doi.org/10.26504/bkmnext398 ISBN: 978-0-7070-0535-5 This Open Access work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. ABOUT THE ESRI The mission of the Economic and Social Research Institute is to advance evidence- based policymaking that supports economic sustainability and social progress in Ireland. ESRI researchers apply the highest standards of academic excellence to challenges facing policymakers, focusing on 12 areas of critical importance to 21st Century Ireland. The Institute was founded in 1960 by a group of senior civil servants led by Dr T.K. Whitaker, who identified the need for independent and in-depth research analysis to provide a robust evidence base for policymaking in Ireland. Since then, the Institute has remained committed to independent research and its work is free of any expressed ideology or political position. The Institute publishes all research reaching the appropriate academic standard, irrespective of its findings or who funds the research. The quality of its research output is guaranteed by a rigorous peer review process. ESRI researchers are experts in their fields and are committed to producing work that meets the highest academic standards and practices. The work of the Institute is disseminated widely in books, journal articles and reports. 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Further information is available at www.esri.ie THE AUTHORS Sarah Groarke and Michal Polakowski are Policy Officers at the Irish National Contact Point of the European Migration Network (EMN Ireland), within the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). Emma Quinn is the Head of EMN Ireland. Frances McGinnity is an Associate Research Professor at the ESRI and Adjunct Professor at TCD. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report was completed as part of a programme of research on Equality and Integration funded by the Department of Justice and Equality (DJE). We would like to thank our colleagues within the European Migration Network (EMN) national contact points of Belgium, Finland, Portugal and the UK, who provided valuable assistance in making contact with national officials responsible for policy on citizenship. We are very grateful to the following national officials who provided input to, and reviewed drafts of, the case studies: representatives of the Nationality Division of the Belgian Federal Public Service for Justice’s Directorate General on Legislation, Fundamental Rights and Freedoms; the Nationality Unit of the Legal and Support Services within the Finnish Immigration Service; and the Passport and Nationality Policy Unit of the Borders, Immigration, Citizenship System, Policy and International Division of the UK Home Office. We would like to thank the Centre of Linguistics of the University of Lisbon (CLUL). We are also very grateful to Patrícia Jerónimo, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Minho, Portugal, for providing input and comments on the case study on Portugal. We would like to thank the members of the steering group for the research programme: Úna Ní Dhubhghaill (DJE), Alice Wainwright (DJE) and Philip O’Connell (University College Dublin). We thank our ESRI colleagues and the external reviewer who reviewed the draft report. We would also like to thank Anna de Courcy, who copy-edited the report, and Sarah Burns, who managed its publication. Disclaimer: This report has been peer reviewed prior to publication. The authors are solely responsible for the content and the views expressed. Foreword | i FOREWORD Citizenship, acquired through naturalisation, is widely acknowledged as a key measure of integration and therefore an important element of integration policy. As this report Supporting integration? International practices on civics and language requirements linked to naturalisation: policy implications for Ireland puts it: citizenship may be viewed as the highest level of ‘membership’ available to migrants in their host country. Over 153,000 non-Irish nationals acquired Irish citizenship through naturalisation between 2005 and 2019. With almost 12 per cent of people living here having a nationality other than Irish, and a growing second and third-generation of Irish-born children of migrants, the question of citizenship and the benefits it brings is coming ever more sharply into focus. Naturalised migrants may participate fully in the democratic process and are entitled to equal access to the institutions, employment, goods and services of the State. Acknowledging the importance of citizenship, its role and meaning in the integration journey, in turn stimulates discussion of the benefits and limitations of language and civic requirements for naturalisation. This study has been produced under the ESRI’s Equality and Integration Research Programme. This Programme is funded by the Department of Justice and Equality in line with the objective of the Migrant Integration Strategy to support research that provides independent evidence for policy on equality and integration matters. The Migrant Integration Strategy is underpinned by the vision that migrants are facilitated to play a full role in Irish society, that integration is a core principle of Irish life and that Irish society and institutions work together to promote social inclusion. Under Action 12 of the Strategy, the Immigration and Naturalisation Service of the Department of Justice and Equality committed to examine the introduction of civics and language tests for those seeking citizenship. This study will inform this work by giving a clear picture of international practices in this area and drawing attention to issues that Ireland would need to consider in the design of any new policy on citizenship requirements. This is a complex area, as evidenced in the study, and the design and implementation of policy in respect of civic and language requirements for citizenship can be challenging. It prompts important questions about states’ understandings of citizenship, the rights and responsibilities it confers and the expectations states may have of their citizens. As such, the study represents a ii | International practices on civics and language requirements linked to naturalisation valuable contribution to informed policy debate on the issue and will be of value to all with an interest in this area. This is timely research, that will guide our policy formulation at this critical moment in Irish society in supporting the journey to citizenship that many of our migrants will take. Department of Justice and Equality September 2020 Table of contents | iii TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................... VII CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Civics and language tests for naturalisation.................................................................. 1 1.2 Acquiring Irish citizenship ............................................................................................. 2 1.3 Study aims ..................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Methodology and case study selection ......................................................................... 5 1.5 Report structure ............................................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 2 APPROACHES TO CITIZENSHIP, NATURALISATION REQUIREMENTS AND MIGRANT POPULATIONS IN EUROPE – AN OVERVIEW ................................................................. 9 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 9 2.2 Naturalisation requirements and the