‘Trump bump’ citizenship bids were just a blip

NEW CANADIANS

Canada became a popular tongue-in-cheek reaction to the prospect of either electoral outcome — with Americans deeply divided between supporting Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, and many apparently voting against one or the other rather than for them. It appeared some were taking it more seriously when the immigration website crashed.

All of the traffic was not necessarily election-related, however. The first day of a new system requiring visafree travellers to apply for Electronic Travel Authorizations was Nov. 10, and had visitors heading to the site to fill out forms and pay $7 fees.

Canadian tourism had benefitted from an apparent surge in interest. A “Cape Breton if Donald Trump Wins” website sprang up early last year — attracting a Washington Post feature — and in the fall, Cape Breton’s tourism industry association reported a 14 per cent increase in tourism over the previous year.

The “Trump bump” wasn’t a major anomaly in numbers of new U.S.-born citizenship applications, however, the data show, although there could be a delay in seeing the “bump” in the data if people moved to Canada in the past six months intending to apply for citizenship later.

Either way, it appears the number of Americans opting to become citizens has significantly decreased. In the past 10 years’ worth of data, 2016 and 2015 saw the lowest numbers of applicants, with 3,168 and 3,623 applicants, respectively. In each of the seven preceding years, there was an average of 5,712.

About 88 per cent of U.S.born applicants end up being granted citizenship, based on the years 2008 through 2015. More than 42,000 applicants between March 2007 and April 2017 have become Canadian citizens (with many applications from the past few months yet to be processed).