Under the proposed changes to Australian citizenship laws, children of illegal migrants could become stateless, National Children’s Commissioner Megan Mitchell has told The Australian.

Currently, children born in Australia are automatically entitled to Australian citizenship on their 10th birthday if they have lived here for all 10 years — even if their parents arrived or lived in Australia illegally. But under planned changes to the Citizenship Act, children will lose the right to citizenship if their parents were “unlawful non-citizens’’ at the time of birth. Children will also miss out on citizenship if they were “unlawful non-citizens’’ at any time before their 10th birthday, or if they left Australia during that time without a return visa.

“Through no fault of their own, they would find themselves growing up in Australia but potentially not being able to stay in Australia, even though they don’t know anywhere else, and their friends and schooling are here,’’ Ms Mitchell told The Australian yesterday.

Megan Mitchell is Australia’s first dedicated National Children’s Commissioner. The National Children's Commissioner’s office was setup in 2013 to protect children’s rights by promoting public discussion and awareness of issues affecting children, conducting research and education programs and consulting directly with children and representative organisations. The role also examines relevant existing and proposed Commonwealth legislation to determine if they recognise and protect children's human rights in Australia.

The Coalition Government says that changes are designed to stop asylum seekers and illegal immigrants using children as ­“anchors’’ to gain citizenship and sponsor other family members to live in Australia.

But Ms Mitchell warned the legislative amendments would punish children for their parents’ actions.

 “The implications are pretty dramatic and I don’t think they’re warranted.’’ Adding that she did not think the changes would “have the deterrent effect that’s intended’’.

“I always worry when we apply laws that disadvantage children in order to influence parents’ behaviour,’’ she said. “This is about the rights of children to grow up with certainty and a sense of belonging, and citizenship is a really important aspect of that.’’

Ms Mitchell said the danger was that children could be rendered stateless, if they were born in Australia and did not qualify for another country’s citizenship.

“It’s not clear to me, if a child is stateless, what would happen to that child if they didn’t have an ­alternative citizenship option,’’ she said.

“There may be a number of implications for children that haven’t been thought through.’’