Teenage surfing star Erin Brooks granted Canadian citizenship, now sets sights on Olympics

Teenage browsing prodigy Erin Brooks has received her battle for Canadian citizenship, opening the door for her to compete for Canada on the Paris Olympics.

The 16-year-old Brooks was born in Texas and grew up in Hawaii however has Canadian ties by her American-born father Jeff, who’s a twin American-Canadian citizen, and her grandfather who was born and raised in Montreal.

Brooks’s citizenship bid was initially turned down. However Immigration Minister Marc Miller had a change of coronary heart after a December ruling by Ontario’s Superior Court docket of Justice that it’s unconstitutional for Canada to disclaim automated citizenship to the youngsters of foreign-born Canadians who grew up overseas.

The Brooks household then refiled its utility beneath a hardship standing, primarily based on the advice of the Immigration Division, to speed up the method.

“I really like Canada. I’ve by no means been prouder to put on the Maple Leaf,” Erin Brooks mentioned in a press release launched by the household. “To Minister Marc Miller and MP Jenny Kwan, you will have modified my life. I consider that I’ll do one thing actually particular for my nation because of your present of citizenship.”

Kwan, the NDP’s immigration critic, helped advocate for Brooks.

Lawyer Don Chapman, who has spent years working to alter the prevailing citizenship legal guidelines, broke the information to the younger surfer by cellphone.

“She simply broke down in tears She was simply so excited ” Jeff Brooks mentioned from California the place his daughter had been competing. “It was a very particular second.”

The final alternative to qualify for the Olympics is on the ISA World Championships in Puerto Rico in February.

She received a silver medal on the ISA World Browsing Video games in El Salvador in June and gold on the ISA World Junior Championships in June 2022.

Dom Domic, Surf Canada’s government director, welcomed the citizenship information.

“After over 4 years, it seems to be just like the Brooks’s lastly have their blissful ending,” he mentioned in an e-mail. “I’m personally over the moon that Minister Miller will make proper the previous wrongs and at last our misplaced Canadians will formally be welcomed house to the place they’ve all the time belonged.”

Brooks’s lengthy street to Canadian citizenship

Canada’s citizenship legal guidelines are complicated, with amendments altering the principles in 2009 and 2015. However primarily Invoice C-37 in 2009 ended the extension of citizenship to second-generations born overseas.

In an October letter explaining its choice to not grant a “discretionary grant of citizenship,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says Brooks didn’t meet the necessities.

It was the most recent in a collection of setbacks for the Brooks household.

Their house in Lahaina on Maui burned down through the current wildfires and Brooks’ mom is battling most cancers. The household now calls Tofino, B.C., house when not on the street 9 to 10 months a yr with their daughter.

The Canadian Olympic Committee additionally backed Brooks’ bid for citizenship with CEO David Shoemaker saying {the teenager} has demonstrated “her honest dedication to compete for Canada and to be Canadian.”

In March 2022, Browsing Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee petitioned the Worldwide Browsing Affiliation (ISA) to permit Brooks to compete for Canada as her citizenship utility had been filed, however not accomplished.

The ISA suspended Brooks’s eligibility to compete for Canada, saying it could re-evaluate the choice if “proof of citizenship with a verified doc from the Canadian authorities, was supplied.

That prevented Brooks from competing on the Pan Am Video games and the ISA World Championships. She has continued to compete within the World Surf League’s Qualifying Collection.

Brooks’s abilities in demand

Brooks has been contacted by different nations occupied with her abilities.

Her grandmother, on her mom’s facet, is a German citizen and there are additionally Italian ties. Her father’s facet of the household additionally has Irish bloodlines.

Canada did not qualify a surfer for the Tokyo Olympics, the place browsing made its debut on the video games.

Canadian Cody Younger did get a last-minute call-up to the Tokyo video games on account of a COVID 19-related opening. However the Hawaii-based athlete wasn’t in a position to get there in time on account of pandemic-related journey logistics.

The Brooks household leaves Monday for Hawaii to proceed Brooks’ coaching. After subsequent month’s competitors in Puerto Rico, she is because of journey to Australia and Fiji.