A newly adopted law means millions of Americans may now also hold Canadian citizenship, according to a report by The Associated Press. The change targets people who already have a family connection to Canada but who, until now, fell outside the country's citizenship rules.

The law addresses a long-running gap in Canada's citizenship legislation. For years, people born outside Canada to Canadian parents — and their own children born abroad — could lose the ability to pass citizenship down through the generations, depending on where and when they were born. Because of those rules, many people with Canadian parents or grandparents living in the United States never qualified for Canadian citizenship, even though their families had deep roots in the country.

The new law changes that. Under the amended framework, individuals born abroad to Canadian parents can now transmit citizenship to their own foreign-born children, restoring or granting status to descendants who were previously excluded. According to the AP report, the pool of potentially eligible people is enormous: millions of U.S. citizens may now qualify for Canadian citizenship because of this single legislative change.

Canada and the United States share one of the longest undefended borders in the world, along with extensive cross-border family ties, marriage patterns, and labor migration stretching back more than a century. Those historical links explain the scale of the affected population. Many Americans with one Canadian parent or grandparent may not have realized that earlier rules cut off their claim to citizenship — and may now find that the door has reopened.

Who may be affected

The change most directly concerns two groups. The first is people born in the United States to a Canadian parent, whose citizenship status was uncertain or denied under the previous rules. The second is the children of Canadians born abroad — the second and, in some cases, third generation — who previously could not inherit citizenship simply because their parent had also been born outside Canada.

For Americans in these categories, the practical effect is significant. Canadian citizenship would give them the right to live and work anywhere in Canada, access to Canadian public services, the ability to obtain a Canadian passport, and protection from losing status in either country, since both Canada and the United States permit dual citizenship.

What affected individuals should do

The law does not automatically hand every eligible person a passport. Citizenship through this route still runs through the formal application process administered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Applicants typically need to document their family connection — through birth certificates proving the lineage to a Canadian citizen parent or grandparent — and submit a citizenship application or a request for a proof of citizenship certificate, depending on their situation.

Anyone who believes the new law covers them should verify their status directly with IRCC before making travel, work, or residency plans based on an assumption of citizenship. Processing times, required documents, and application fees are set by the department and can change as it adjusts its procedures to the new law. The Government of Canada's official website remains the authoritative source for eligibility criteria and application steps.

Why the change happened

Legislators pushed the amendment to correct what advocates had long described as an unfair outcome: people with a Canadian parent being treated differently under citizenship law purely because of their place of birth. Courts had also pressed the issue, and lawmakers ultimately moved to align the statute with the principle that citizenship should pass through genuine family connection rather than stop at an arbitrary generational line.

The AP report does not specify exact application volumes or a deadline, and no retroactive cut-off has been announced. What is clear is the scale: with millions of Americans potentially covered, Canadian authorities could see a substantial rise in citizenship applications and proof-of-citizenship requests from the United States in the coming months.

For now, affected U.S. residents should treat this as an opportunity requiring action, not an automatic grant. Checking eligibility with IRCC and gathering family documentation are the first concrete steps.