To guard against the sudden influx of new Bermudians, Government is seeking to restore a discretionary power to the Minister of Immigration.

The Bermuda Immigration and Protection Amendment Act 2003 was tabled in the House of Assembly last week allowing the Immigration Minister to reject as Bermudian any offspring who have not had a familial relationship with their Bermudian parent.

The Bill was necessary to guard against a surge of individuals who could have been deemed Bermudian or to have Bermudian status via the passage of the Children Amendment Act 2002. This Act - which has yet to come into effect - eliminates the distinction between children born in or out of wedlock for all existing laws and it repealed certain provisions within the Immigration and Protection Act which gave the Minister power to test the parent-child relationship in certain cases.

But according to Chief Immigration Officer Martin Brewer, the problem this may have caused is that suddenly all the offspring of Bermudians, including status Bermudians, may have automatically become Bermudian.

The Bill stipulates that the Minister must be satisfied that before the child's 15th birthday there was a familial relationship with the parent.

It also lays out that this may have happened either by "receiving the child into his or her home and bringing up the child as a member of his or her family" or by providing maintenance or taking some other active role in the overall development of the child.