RIGA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th November, 2019) Latvian President Egils Levits on Tuesday signed a law that would terminate the practice of assigning non-citizen status by default to children who are born to the country's permanent residents without citizenship.
"Latvian President Egils Levits has proclaimed the law 'On the termination of assigning non-citizen status to newborn children from January 1, 2020,'" the pretext to the new law, as published at the Latvijas Vestnesis website, reads.
On October 17, the bill, initially proposed by the former president of Latvia, Raimonds Vejonis, was adopted by the majority of votes in the Latvian parliament.
Of Latvia's population of 2 million, more than 220,000 are non-citizens. These are permanent residents whose ancestors moved to Latvia after 1940 when the country became part of the Soviet Union. A total of 47 children were documented in Latvia as non-citizens in 2016, 51 children in 2017, and 33 in 2018. Non-citizens are limited in their right to vote in elections and referendums, as well as work in certain positions.
