Douglas Todd: Would-be immigrants to Canada being sold ‘false dreams’

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

Yet another story on immigration fraud with some examples of more reputable consultants:

The migration agents confronted Vancouver’s Laleh Sahba as she walked on the sidewalk last month near the Canadian embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

The street hawkers told her that, for $25,000 or more, they would get her to an immigration professional who would be sure to hand her a visitor or student visa so she could be well on her way to obtaining a Canada passport.

The sidewalk agents mistook Sahba for another near-desperate Middle Eastern person who would spend almost everything she had for the dream of becoming a permanent resident in Canada, land of promise.

But Sahba — an Iranian-Canadian and a regulated Canadian immigration consultant — says her encounter with Turkey’s street agents was just another reminder how easy it is for people abroad and in Canada to claim to be immigration experts to take vulnerable people for a nasty ride.

“They are selling wrong information. They are making up false dreams,” Sahba said at her downtown Vancouver office. “This is a huge business. And what disturbs me is that many are in it for the money in Canada. They’re playing with people’s lives.”

Sahba, who works with professional immigration partners in the Middle East, is among a small number of Canadian immigration consultants and lawyers who are coming forward to describe the wide range of misinformation, misdeeds and scams being foisted on would-be immigrants.

Some of those posing as immigration specialists are telling anxious people they will eventually get a Canadian passport if they pay large sums, in the tens of thousands of dollars, just to obtain a study or visitor’s visa, which have limited use. Some are also falsely telling clients they can finagle them status as a refugee.

The immigration fantasies of foreign nationals often end in tatters, says Sahba, 40, who came to Canada from Iran two decades ago and has been a consultant for 15 years. Many immigration specialists are making promises they can’t deliver on. By the time most would-be immigrants come to her to find a way out of their migration problems “they are absolutely screwed. We can’t help them.”

Much more must be done, Sahba says, to clean up the fast-growing immigration-advice industry, which in Canada includes 5,400 regulated immigration consultants and 1,000 immigration lawyers, but also an untold number of unlicensed agents.

Marina Sedai, a Surrey immigration lawyer, tends to agree. She told a Conference Board of Canada workshop in Vancouver last month that there is “rampant immigration fraud” being perpetrated by some consultants and agents.

Sedai said she is constantly hearing from troubled clients about how they’ve being misled or defrauded by self-professed experts who demand large fees to guide foreign nationals through Canada’s intricate immigration system.

As national chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration section, Sedai highlighted how her organization has told federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen the system Ottawa has set up to regulate immigration consultants, who have less formal training than lawyers, is not working.  “There are good reasons,” the society said in 2017, “to limit the practice of immigration law to lawyers and Quebec notaries,” with immigration consultants working under the supervision of lawyers.

Many wives are being advised by immigration specialists to get a study visa so their husbands can come to Canada and work and their children can attend school, says Laleh Sahba. The trouble is many wives “don’t really want to study” and end up failing. It leads to big problems for the family.

Sahba, however, believes the majority of regulated immigration consultants do excellent work. Still, she hears at least five times a month from foreign nationals who have become embroiled in shady agreements that involve both Canadian immigration advisers and lawyers.

While Sahba generally supports Ottawa’s aim to make it simpler for some of the more than 500,000 foreign students in Canada to become permanent residents, for instance, she said some advisers are increasingly misrepresenting the study visa program as the backdoor immigration ticket for entire families.

Many wives in their 40s and 50s are being advised, she said, to apply for a study visa so that their husband can come to Canada on a spousal work visa and their children can attend schools in Toronto, Metro Vancouver and elsewhere.

The trouble, Sahba said, is many of the wives are unable to pass English-language exams and “don’t really want to study in the first place.” They begin failing courses and can’t get into postgraduate school, which means they and their husbands and children are expected to return home.

“It’s all over for them. They’ve wasted their time and huge amounts of money. And their kids have in the meantime become used to Canadian society. This is where my heart bleeds.”

In addition to describing scams in which so-called immigration specialists have charged clients many thousands of dollars just for a visitor’s visa, Sahba said other illicit schemes involve provincial immigrant entrepreneur programs, including those operated by Quebec, B.C. and Manitoba.

Since a large number of so-called immigration specialists also have real-estate licences, Sahba says, some become embroiled in housing deals with rich prospective newcomers.

Other advisers direct so-called entrepreneurs to make “passive investments” in Canadian properties or businesses, which often involve nothing more than appearing to transfer money between relatives’ bank accounts.

In one extreme case, Sahba worked with two sisters from Pakistan who transferred more than $170,000 to immigration agents in Canada who said they were arranging the purchases of a gift shop and pet store in Vancouver. The entire process, which involved transferring photos and signatures via Skype, was fake. The culprits couldn’t be tracked.

The Canadian Bar Association, in its attempts to target “incompetent and unscrupulous” immigration advisers, told Canada’s immigration minister in 2017 there had been an “astonishing” 1,470 complaints against the regulated members of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) since it began in 2011, plus 1,115 more against non-members.

That regulatory council posts some of the online allegations against its licensed Canadian immigration consultants, with one ICCRC page describing disciplinary investigations against almost 50 named members, who regularly charged clients $10,000 to $30,000 for relatively small tasks. Many of the consultants are accused of misdeeds such as: “Deceiving client,” “misleading client,” “falsely advising client,” “failing to notify client,” “charging client exorbitant fee” and of “misrepresenting” themselves in a variety of ways, including as border officials.

Sedai said some immigration advisers have even become involved in presenting false job offers to would-be immigrants — an activity she says she has run into in Surrey. Burnaby immigration lawyer George Lee is among those who has tried to expose the widespread jobs deception.  

Although the clients of people who make a living in the immigration industry continue to take part in illicit schemes based on bad advice, Sabha wants to make clear some clients have not been innocent in the process. “They’ve got dirty hands, too.”

And the chances for all concerned of getting caught are increasing.

“The immigration officers are also not stupid anymore, not like in the old days,” Sahba says, chuckling. “They’re smart. And they’re looking at all aspects of every immigration application.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Would-be immigrants to Canada being sold ‘false dreams’

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

‘He was supposed to help us’: Chinese immigrants out thousands after immigration agent disappears

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

It would be a lot simpler just to ban consultants and only advise applicants to use lawyers. And hard to understand why people would trust a 24-year-old with that kind of money (no, lawyers have a few bad apples too, but there are meaningful codes of conduct and enforcement):

A Winnipeg immigration agent has allegedly skipped town, leaving a group of Chinese immigrants in the lurch and out thousands of dollars.

Jiatoo Immigration Consulting Inc., run by 24-year-old Zhihao Jia, quietly shut the doors at its Pembina Highway office in early March, clearing out furniture in a seemingly overnight move with no notice given to its landlord or clients.

“He was supposed to help us — but he didn’t help, but hurt us,” said Julie, a client of Jia’s, who the CBC has agreed not to identify.

Julie said she gave Jia $10,000 on March 1, 2019, to help her apply for a post-graduate work permit and eventually help her get permanent residency in Canada.

Instead, less than two weeks later, she was left scrambling to find Jia after he stopped returning her calls or texts.

‘No people, no furniture, nothing’

When Julie went to Jia’s office on March 11, she knew there was a problem.

“We found his office was totally vacant. Nobody was there. They were all gone. No people, no furniture, nothing,” she said.

The CBC has agreed not to name the woman we are calling Julie, as she is afraid that speaking out could impact her future immigration applications.

She is one of at least 13 Chinese immigrants who claim they were affected by Jia’s disappearance, according to licensed immigration consultant Yu Xiang, who is working with Julie and a few other clients left in the lurch.

One person gave Jia over $20,000 and only received partial services before the immigration agent packed up and left, Xiang said.

“The severity of harm done to them [varies],” person to person, he said.

Some clients paid and got nothing, he said, while others got partial help and some received full service. But Xiang questions the legitimacy of their applications, because Jia was not licensed to fill them out.

CBC has not been able to speak with Xiang’s clients to independently verify this claim.

Julie said she felt she could trust Jia after seeing online advertisements for his company, and a website saying it was nominated for a 2017 “new emerging Chinese company” award at the Manitoba Chinese Business Gala.

When she went to the company, Julie had just graduated college and needed to get a job in order to obtain a work permit and stay in Canada.

She agreed to pay Jiatoo Immigration Consulting $15,000 for help to find a job and eventually receive assistance with her application for permanent residency in Canada, according to the retainer agreement signed by the client and the company.

Julie paid Jia $10,000 up front, and was to pay the remaining $5,000 at a later date.

“We are newcomers. We are not familiar with the immigration service or the working environment here in Canada,” she said when asked why people pay for immigration services.

“We need help. We need guidance and instruction. We need to consult people who know how to help us.”

Jiatoo owed 2 months’ rent

The landlord at 675 Pembina Highway got a call from an employee of Jiatoo Immigration on March 5, saying the office was empty.

“She said the place was cleaned out,” said property manager Eileen Gaynor.

CBC has not been able to reach Jia for comment. Texts and phone calls to the cellphone number he provided to clients, and which is listed on Jiatoo’s website, went unanswered.

CBC reporters also visited two properties associated with Jia through land titles. Both were abandoned. Stacks of newspapers were piled up outside the front door of one of the properties.

Gaynor said Jia still owed rent for February when he vanished. He had given her a cheque but it bounced. By March, he had closed his bank account so she could no longer collect on his debt.

Jia moved into the strip mall in April 2018, according to Gaynor. Company records show he is the director of Jiatoo Education Service Inc and also the president of Club Royale Immigration Inc.

Winnipeg police investigating

Julie said despite paying Jia, she got nothing in return. At first she wasn’t sure what to think, but after telling police what happened, the woman is confident she’s been duped.

“It’s official now, so we aren’t suspicious anymore. We are pretty sure that he’s a fraud,” she said.

For weeks, the woman kept trying to get ahold of Jia. He eventually phoned her husband, telling the couple to stop looking for him — or else.

“He said he knew us. He has got our information, and he [said] if we called police, it will have a bad influence on our immigration process,” Julie said.

After reporting Jia to police, Julie called the Canada Border Services Agency and Winnipeg-based immigration consultant Yu Wang — the licensed immigration consultant Jia worked under as an agent. Company records show that Wang is the director of Internationalized View Investments Consulting Ld.

In Canada, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, advice or representation for immigration applications can only be provided by either a person licensed through the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) — the regulatory body for immigration consultants — or a lawyer in good standing (or in Quebec, a member in good standing with the Chambredesnotaires du Québec).

Winnipeg police confirmed that they received a report from the client and are investigating. The CBSA said it is not their practice to confirm or deny whether they have launched an investigation.

At this time no charges have been laid.

Not allowed to give immigration advice: ICCRC

Jia was not licensed to do immigration work, but had been hired to recruit clients for Wang.

Jia is not a member of the ICCRC, but was registered as an agent of Wang’s.

Agents are not allowed to provide any advice for immigration under the current ICCRC regulations, but those rules are frequently skirted, explained Xiang, who is a licensed consultant under the regulatory council.

Wang told CBC News he had no idea Jia was taking money from clients until a woman called him mid-March to allege the agent stole her money.

“He’s supposed to [be] recruiting clients for me,” Wang said. “I prepare the application to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.”

Wang said Jia informed him earlier this month he was moving to Vancouver, so Wang cancelled his agency agreement with him. The ICCRC confirmed the agreement was cancelled on March 15.

He says he has no idea where any money Jia collected would be and he does not have access to a client list. He said repeated messages to Jia about the money have gone unanswered.

“I didn’t see the money at all,” he told CBC.

Xiang said the likely reason more people have not reached out to Wang is because they do not understand that he is the consultant Jia worked under.

Julie said at first, she was afraid to speak out, but decided she couldn’t stay quiet and allow other people to be victimized.

“We trusted him,” she said.

“We want people [to know] what kind of a company Jiatoo is, and we want people to know what kind of person Zhihao Jia is — and to me personally, I want my money back.”

Julie said Jia came to Canada as a student in 2012, and took the same path as she did which makes his actions even more egregious.

“He studied here and graduated and [worked] here. So I think he should know what we think. He should know what we feel — what we feel as a newcomer here.”

200 cases reported each year: CBSA

The Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council cannot legally prosecute or investigate allegations of fraud. It can discipline a consultant if an agent of a member acts unethically.

On first offence, the council member receives a written warning.

On second offence, the member is fined $100.

The CBC requested an interview with the ICCRC, which could not be accommodated in the time frame requested.

In a prepared statement, the regulatory council said it could not disclose information on any investigations that are currently underway.

But Xiang says he’s heard stories like Julie’s too many times.

“It has a very huge impact on the reputation of Canada’s immigration system,” he said.

“And there’s lack of trust between these newcomers and the various service providers in Canada.”

Almost 180 cases of suspected immigration-consultant offences are brought to the attention of the Canada Border Services Agency each year, according to data provided by the agency.

About 120 of those complaints involve unlicensed consultants.

Xiang says those cases aren’t just about money. A late application form or forms with missing errors can mean the applicant is denied a work permit or permanent residency, and the consequences can be deportation.

“We’re talking about people’s lives here,” he said.

Source: ‘He was supposed to help us’: Chinese immigrants out thousands after immigration agent disappears

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Canada must bring home its own from the ruins of Islamic State

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

Almost completely silent on the challenges of successful prosecution. And there is a different in terms of letting them return to Canada and actively facilitating their return:

I despise Daesh (the Islamic State group) and its ilk. In fact, I have spent a better part of my life challenging their religious  interpretations and practices.

Yet, I believe that Ottawa must repatriate Canadians who answered the Daesh call, because this is the right thing to do if we truly believe in human rights and constitutional principles.

For children’s sake

We must learn from the recent death of Jarrar, the newborn son of British-born Shamima Begum, who left the UK as a 15-year-old. The baby died after London revoked Shamima’s citizenship and left them both to ostensibly stew in her hate.

Under British law, Shamima Begum was a child when she left. Now, a British baby is dead for his parents’ sins. As British MP Anna Soubry wrote, the UK breached its duty to Jarrar.

There are at least 32 Canadians being held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces

The former Conservative MP rightfully argued that Shamima should have been brought to the UK, questioned, and had the law books thrown at her while her son should have been given the “protection and the support that a civilised country provides for all its children.”

Kurdish authorities say that 5,000 former alleged IS fighters and their families are being held in makeshift prisons in Iraq.

This includes 1,300 children. Russia repatriated 27 children in February. France has agreed to repatriate around 130 fighters and their families.

Belgians, who composed the largest number of Caliphate fighters per capita, are not feeling particularly welcome. Late last year, going against public opinion, a Belgian court ruled that the government must repatriate its citizens.

In a principled and courageous decision, the Solomonic judge ruled that bringing the children without their mothers – who were convicted in absentia – would violate their human rights. The judge also imposed a daily penalty of 5,000 euros per child against the government until they were returned.

Belgium’s migration secretary said: “We won’t punish young children for their parents’ misdeeds. They have not chosen the Islamic State.”

Unfortunately, an appellate court overturned the decision a few weeks ago and now 160 Belgian children are in limbo.

A mature debate

Canadian Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale says the government has not decided what to do.

Canada needs to act before we read about Canadian children dying in Syrian camps.

Rather than having a mature  debate about bringing IS members to justice, our politicians appear to be gauging the public mood rather than stepping up

According to CBC, there are at least 32 Canadians being held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Dr Alexandra Bain of the Canadian group Families Against Violent Extremism (FAVE) claims that more than half of those held in Syria are under the age of five.

Rather than having a mature and constitutionally rooted debate about bringing Daesh members to justice and dealing with non-combatants as well as women and children, our politicians appear to be guaging the public mood rather than stepping up.

Leadership may require that you sometimes stand up to mobocracy (the whims of the majority) and it always means standing up for constitutionally entrenched rights – even for the detested.

Why bring them back?

Rather than following the examples set by Macedonia, Russia, France, etc, Canada caved into British “arm-twisting” and breached a deal with Kurdish authorities to repatriate Canadian citizens, according to a report by the Guardian.

These individuals went there for reasons ranging from ideological affinity, out of a sense of religious obligation, due to being brainwashed, the promise of adventure, the opportunity to create an Islamic utopia, out of empathy to relieve the suffering of others, while others were duped, forced or taken against their will.

Why should we bring them back?

First, as citizens, they have a right to come back to Canada. Though this does not impose an obligation on Ottawa to take proactive steps to bring back adults, a strong argument can be made that there is a mandatory duty owed to Canadian children.

Indeed, under the common law, our government through the courts have the parens patraie jurisdiction to look out for the best interest and welfare of our children. This is reason alone.

Setting a precedent

Second, contrary to what many people want, under international law we can’t just watch as these people are executed without due process, or held to rot even as evil as they are. Otherwise, as President Trump said correctly, if they are left alone they may continue to create havoc elsewhere.

We must set a precedent and send out a message to any of our citizens who may contemplate such actions in the future that there are consequences for such actions. This is best done by putting those who are culpable on trial.

Leaving Canada to participate in a terror group is an offence under the criminal code punishable to a term of up to 10 years. Indeed, as General Lord Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British army, told the Guardian about British fighters:

“They have to be put through due process and imprisoned if that is the right thing to do,” he said. “But I think it is also important that we treat them fairly with justice and tempered with a bit of mercy as well because I think the way we treat them may well have important significance for the way other people view our society.

“We don’t want to see others radicalised and going off overseas in the future. How we treat these people coming back – fairly but firmly – we’ve got to get it right.”

We have failed

Third, most of these individuals were born “here” and more importantly were radicalised “here” not “there”. We bear part of the responsibility because we – as a society – and our institutions failed in not preventing them from being radicalised and in the case of many women from being groomed as brides.

It is tempting to dehumanise them and easy to “other” them, but let us not forget that we extend full due process rights even to paedophiles, mass murderers and serial killers.

Fourth, some of these individuals may serve as resources to fight radicalisation after they have been de-radicalised, after serving time, if deserved.

As argued in a New York Times op-ed by Bryant Neal Vinas, America’s first Al-Qaeda fighter, these returning fighters “can be a strategic asset” to fight radicalisation if we play it right.

Fifth, western nations, including Canada, pursue criminals to the far corners of the world using extradition treaties and other means. Indeed, we have even engaged in extraordinary rendition and participated in torture of our own citizens when we thought it was necessary. Yet, now it’s too difficult to pursue these people?

Of course, it would be disingenuous to argue that traitors who engage in terrorism should be treated the same as other criminals, because the state interests are especially compelling. At the same time, the values engaged in this context – equality, freedom of speech, religion, and association – make it important that we tread in a firm but cautious manner.

It is high time that we engage in reasoned, nuanced and considered debate in a manner consistent with our well-established values, including justice, fairness and compassion.

We cannot base our decisions on emotion, populist fear, hatred or our whims, because then we are no better than them.

Source: Canada must bring home its own from the ruins of Islamic State

Filed under Citizenship, Radicalization Tagged with , , ,

ICYMI: This English same-sex couple fathered twins who are half-siblings — and a Canadian surrogate helped them

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

A different wrinkle to birthright citizenship (see earlier How Canada became an international surrogacy destination [another form of birth tourism]) as well as U.S. example below:

With two kids under two, the Berney-Edwards household in southeast England is a busy one. There are toddlers running all over the place. One pokes his dad in the eye and laughs before accidentally hitting his sister with a toy vacuum cleaner, causing her to wail. It can be a bit chaotic.

But Graeme and Simon Berney-Edwards wouldn’t have it any other way. As gay men, there was a time when they thought they could never have any of that.

Now, however, they have their twins, the result of an arrangement involving a Canadian surrogate and Canadian surrogacy laws they feel are more progressive than those on the books in the United Kingdom.

“You see them tearing around and they’re having fun, and just for a moment, you just sort of step back and go ‘Wow, this is it. They’re here,’ ” Simon Berney-Edwards said in an interview at their home in Redhill, south of London.

“It can be very surreal,” his husband Graeme Berney-Edwards chimed in.

When they decided surrogacy was the way they would have a family, they reached out to a surrogacy organization that helped them understand their options.

That organization connected them with a clinic in Las Vegas where in vitro fertilization took place. That’s also where they learned they could have twins and each be a biological father to one child by fertilizing half of their American donor’s eggs with Simon’s sperm, the other half with Graeme’s sperm, and then implanting the embryos in the same surrogate.

It means Alexandra and Calder, now 21 months old, are twins but only half-siblings. Born just minutes apart, they have the same biological mother, but different fathers.

They quickly chose to have the birth take place in Canada rather the U.K. That was because, they say, the surrogacy laws in their country are dated, primarily as a result of the U.K. considering the surrogate, and her partner, if she has one, to be the legal parents for the first six weeks of the child’s life.

“And in that time, if the surrogate decides to change their mind, you have no recourse,” said Simon Berney-Edwards. “Basically, that’s it. Your child is gone.”

Andrew Spearman, a British fertility and surrogacy lawyer, said the U.K. laws are “archaic” and that many of his clients turn to Canada for surrogacy.

“I think it gives an element of certainty. It gives the transparency, which we can’t offer always, and it gives a very clear structure,” he said in his London office.

Spearman said while U.K. surrogates and intended parents do draw up contracts outlining their agreement, the contracts aren’t legally binding as they are in Canada.

Neither country allows surrogates to be paid, other than to cover their expenses, which Spearman said helps British parents explain the process to English courts when they return home. They still need to get a “parental order” in the U.K. that makes them legal parents and gives their children U.K. citizenship.

The Berney-Edwards say they were also drawn to the altruistic nature of Canadian surrogacy because they wanted more than a “transactional” experience.

“We wanted someone that was prepared to be part of a family throughout the children growing up,” said Graeme Berney-Edwards.

After consulting a website that has profiles of women wanting to be surrogates, they found that in Meg Stone of Hamilton, Ont. Stone said that’s also what drew her to them.

“They mentioned that they wanted twins and I’m always up for a challenge,” she said. “And they also said they wanted lifelong friendship, which was also something I wanted.”

After a couple of false alarms that saw the dads dashing off to Canada early, Alexandra and Calder were born on June 25, 2017, in Hamilton, where they stayed for the first seven weeks of their lives.

Stone, who has two of her own children, has continued to watch the twins grow from afar, swapping messages and photos and even making the trip to England for the twins’ first birthday.

Her 12-year-old son, Jeffrey Seroski-Stone, said he’s proud of his mom for helping to create a family.

“I think it’s exciting how my mom ended up helping them out by giving them children, and I think we usually have a really good time, so I consider them to be like family to me,” he said.

Stone is pregnant with twins again, helping another same-sex family have children.

“I love being a mom and why wouldn’t I want to help somebody else do that, too?” she said.

She maintains she wouldn’t want to be paid for helping others have children, but there is a debate in Canada about whether paying surrogates should be decriminalized.

The current Canadian law came into force in 2004 and prohibits paying surrogates other than to reimburse them for certain medical and maternity costs.

The federal government is reviewing the legislation, including identifying categories for reimbursement and making them more clear. A Liberal MP tabled a private member’s bill that would decriminalize payments to surrogates but opponents say it amounts to commercializing a woman’s body.

Stone disagrees with the idea that a surrogate be given the chance to change her mind, as is set out in the current U.K. law.

“I never felt like they were mine to give away,” she said. “They were [with] me to watch and nurture until Simon and Graeme were able to.”

The Berney-Edwards say when it comes to surrogacy law, Canada has it right, but that doesn’t mean it was easy or cheap.

They won’t put a figure on it, but experts say they would have spent tens of thousands of dollars on Stone’s expenses, agency and legal fees, not to mention three trips back and forth to Canada.

“But it was worth it,” said Simon.

“Every single penny, cent, was worth it,” said Graeme.

Although none of their biological parents is Canadian, Alexandra and Calder are Canadian citizens because they were born in the country, and their fathers say it’s an important part of their heritage.

They look forward to the day they can explain to their children how they came into the world, how badly they were wanted and how much love was around them.

In fact, they’ve already started to do just that.

As the children begin to get ready for bed, the entire family sits on the living room floor sharing a story.

Simon reads aloud, “Before I settle down to sleep, I’ll blow a kiss goodnight, to make sure all of Canada will have sweet dreams tonight.”

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-k-canada-same-sex-surrogacy-twins-half-siblings-1.5069654

In 2016, a married gay couple in Canada became parents of twins using a surrogate mother. One father is a U.S. citizen, the other an Israeli citizen. The two fathers made a decision to contribute one embryo each to the surrogate mother so the twins would be biologically related to each of them. However, that turned out to be a determinative factor when the parents went to the U.S. Consulate in Toronto to register the twins for U.S. citizenship. Only one of the twins, Aidan, who was biologically related to his U.S. citizen father, was granted a U.S. passport. The family was devastated by this decision. When the Dvash-Banks family decided to move to California, the other twin, Ethan, had to enter as a visitor on a B visa. His B visa eventually expired, leaving him “undocumented.” [both are Canadian given  birthright citizenship]

With regard to children born in wedlock, section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act states that a “child born outside of the United States . . . acquires citizenship at birth if at the time of birth one parent is a foreign national and the other parent is a U.S. citizen; and the U.S. citizen parent was physically present in the United States for at least 5 years, including at least 2 years after 14 years of age.” Section 309, which applies to children born out of wedlock, requires, among other things, that “blood relationship between the child and the father is established by clear and convincing evidence.” The State Department, in its published policy, apparently reads the “blood relationship” clause into section 301 and would not budge on that policy for the Dvash-Bankses.

The Dvash-Bankses challenged the Department of State’s (DOS) decision with regard to Ethan in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California. In response to a motion for summary judgement, Judge John F. Walter declared that Ethan was a U.S. citizen and ordered DOS to issue him a U.S. passport as soon as possible. The order applied only to Ethan and did not prevent DOS from applying its “blood relationship” policy to other families. In post-summary judgement proceedings, the Dvash-Bankses argued, “The State Department’s refusal to approve [Ethan’s] applications . . . and its persistence in litigating this action full-bore to summary judgement, was manifestly unreasonable and not substantially justified.” The Judge awarded $1.3 in attorney’s fees and costs to the couple.

Ethan’s fathers believe that a straight couple who had used assistive reproductive technology would never have been asked to submit to a DNA test, as they were required to do by DOS. In a similar case, a lesbian couple of one U.S. citizen and one Italian citizen whose children were born in London brought a claim in the federal district court in D.C. – using the same lawyers who represented the Dvash-Banks family.

Source: Birthright Citizenship for Child of Same Sex Couple

Filed under Birth Tourism, Citizenship Tagged with

Canada, U.S. move to redraft border treaty to cut flow of asylum seekers

2019/04/02 Leave a comment

More movement than I would have thought possible with a possible clever fix of taking seekers to a regular border crossing where they could be deported under the STCA.

Should the USA agree (far from certain), will be interesting to see how it would work in practice (a regular shuttle from Roxham Road until the flow decreases?).

And hanging over all of this is the court challenge to the STCA:

Canada and the United States are a step closer to redrawing the Safe Third Country Agreement covering asylum seekers, as Ottawa looks to stem the flow of refugee claimants crossing between authorized points of entry.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has sent a formal request to the State Department – which handles international treaties – to renegotiate the STCA with Canada, a source in the U.S. administration said. The source was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Ottawa wants the pact changed to close a loophole, which would allow Canada to immediately deport most asylum seekers coming from the United States.

Canadian officials would take such asylum seekers to an official crossing, where they would be denied immediate entry. But that plan would have to clear legal hurdles articulated by the Supreme Court that guarantee a hearing to any refugee claimant setting foot in Canada.

More than 40,000 asylum seekers have entered Canada at unauthorized points of entry since U.S. President Donald Trump launched his crackdown on illegal immigration two years ago. The flood of claimants is bogging down the refugee protection system in Canada.

Under the current pact, most refugee claimants who come to Canada from the United States at official points of entry – such as border stations – are immediately sent back to the United States. But the pact does not apply between such points of entry, so those who cross between border stations have the right to make a refugee claim. Canada wants this changed so most people coming from the United States – at any point along the border – can be immediately deported. The idea behind the treaty is that refugees do not face a risk of persecution in the United States, so it is safe for them to apply for asylum there – no need to continue on to Canada.

The U.S. government source said DHS officials are working with their counterparts at the State Department on the request to start negotiations – formally called a C-175. Under that process, a high-ranking State Department official, usually an assistant secretary, must approve the request. An approval would allow talks to begin, but would not determine the outcome.

The State Department would not comment on the development. “We do not discuss internal and inter-agency deliberations, nor do we discuss specific documents or communications that are involved in such deliberations,” spokesman Noel Clay wrote in an e-mail.

Border Security Minister Bill Blair wrote to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen last September to ask her to start talks on changing the border agreement. Mr. Blair’s office said the letter mentioned his mandate from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to manage the surge in asylum seekers at the border.

In a statement this week, Mr. Blair’s spokesman said Canada and the United States have not yet entered into formal negotiations on the STCA.

“However, since his appointment, Minister Blair has met with numerous stakeholders including U.S. members of Congress, Customs and Border Protection and Department of Homeland Security officials to discuss modernizing the STCA as soon as possible,” Ryan Cotter said.

Mr. Blair visited Washington this month to press his case. He met with three Republican legislators active on border-control matters – senators John Cornyn and Ron Johnson, and Representative Mike Rogers – as well as Matthew Reynolds, the U.S. representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s deputy ambassador to the United States.

Mr. Rogers, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, would not discuss Canada’s requested change to the treaty.

“I don’t have a comment right now,” he said outside his Capitol Hill office Wednesday.

One Canadian official, who was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said between 60 and 70 per cent of the asylum seekers crossing the border between points of entry appear to have gone to the United States specifically for that purpose: They arrive in the United States on a visitor’s visa, with no intention of seeking asylum there, then immediately head to the border.

Speaking to The Globe and Mail this month, Mr. Blair said Canada is proposing a change to the STCA that would allow Canadian officials to escort asylum seekers who enter at unauthorized entry points to a designated crossing area. There, the border agreement could be applied, allowing Canadian officials to refuse entry to the asylum seekers. The change would apply to the entire border.

Mr. Blair explained how it would work in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., the unauthorized point of entry at the end of Roxham Road in New York State, where most irregular asylum seekers have entered Canada.

“If, for example, there was an agreement of the United States to accept back those people that are crossing at the end of Roxham Road, then Canadian officials who are already there dealing with those people as they come across could theoretically take them back to a regular point of entry … and give effect to those regulations at that place,” Mr. Blair said on March 15.

The legal community is divided over whether the proposal would violate the Supreme Court’s landmark 1985 Singh decision, which found that all refugee claimants on Canadian soil are entitled to an oral hearing.

Errol Mendes, a constitutional law professor at the University of Ottawa, says the Singh decision would apply to asylum claimants who cross into Canada between official points of entry and express fear of persecution.

“The only way you can get around it is if they don’t claim that they’re seeking asylum, but once they do, the Singh case covers it,” Prof. Mendes said. “This is really tricky.”

However, refugee lawyer Lorne Waldman has a different interpretation of how the Singh decision would apply to Mr. Blair’s proposal.

“There doesn’t have to be a hearing … [because it’s assumed] the U.S. is going to give them a fair hearing,” Mr. Waldman said.

He added that while it may be legal to send refugee claimants back to the United States at the moment, a continuing Federal Court challenge may change that. In 2017, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International and the Canadian Council of Churches launched a legal challenge to change the designation of the United States as a safe country for refugees. The groups argue that the rights of refugees have been stripped under the Trump administration. The Federal Court will take at least another year to issue a decision, Mr. Waldman said.

Craig Damian Smith, an immigration expert at the University of Toronto, said the political calculus for Mr. Trudeau is clear: He wants to shore up Liberal support in Quebec and in the 905 suburbs around Toronto, where anti-refugee sentiment boiled over into protests against asylum seekers arriving from the United States last summer. While tightening the STCA will cause some advocates for refugees to sour on the Prime Minister, there are not enough of them to matter electorally.

Still, the government’s proposed changes to the deal would clash with Canada’s image as a country that welcomes asylum seekers.

“The optics of that – pushing people back across the border, when right now we see friendly RCMP greeting people – what are they going to look like when they start chasing people down? That’s not good,” said Mr. Smith, associate director of the Global Migration Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

It’s not clear exactly when Canadian officials first reached out to their U.S. counterparts to discuss reopening talks on the STCA. Mike MacDonald, an associate assistant deputy minister at the Immigration Department, told a parliamentary committee in May, 2018, that Canada had been in talks with the United States for “several months.”

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale met with Ms. Nielsen last year to talk about the matter. Mr. Blair was the first minister to write to Ms. Nielsen last September, shortly after he was appointed the government’s first Minister of Border Security and took over the irregular asylum seekers file from Mr. Hussen.

Source: Canada, U.S. move to redraft border treaty to cut flow of asylum seekers

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L’obsession identitaire

2019/04/02 Leave a comment

Il n’y a pas quinze ans, jamais on n’aurait cru le Québec capable de se plonger à ce point dans les méandres d’un nationalisme de brocante, qui conduit à édifier un tel barrage contre les apparences, sans rien changer pour autant au fonctionnement réel de notre monde.

Les espaces sociaux nous affirment autant qu’ils nous définissent, paraît-il. On peut du coup se prendre à rêver de lieux stables, immobiles, intouchés, intouchables, immuables, enracinés, figés, homogènes, bref de lieux qui constitueraient une sorte de pierre d’assise, de socle sur lequel pourraient se fonder nos existences, de quelque chose qui, pour tout dire, serait à la fois un point de départ autant qu’un point d’arrivée.

Mais de tels lieux n’existent pas. Ils n’ont jamais existé autrement que dans l’espace de nos pensées. Le monde n’est jamais tout à fait rassurant dans la mesure où il ne nous est pas révélé une fois pour toutes. Tout craque, tout se brise, tout s’effondre, tout est sans cesse à revoir, y compris au chapitre de l’identité, n’en déplaise à des zélotes agités. Ce que nous sommes demeure une question mouvante qu’il ne faut pas avoir peur de continuer de se poser. Les gloseurs du repli identitaire, en laissant croire le contraire, ne rendent service à personne.

Comment peut-on penser édifier une identité nationale sur la base du simple principe de la séparation de l’Église et de l’État, tout en maintenant des exceptions pour les écoles dites privées (soutenues à bout de bras par l’État), en faisant de même avec les services de garde, en ne définissant guère ce qu’est un signe religieux, c’est-à-dire en légalisant, au fond, un système qui ne fait que porter atteinte aux droits de certains individus, au point de les empêcher de travailler ? En quoi une société se trouve-t-elle de la sorte plus avancée ?

Le principe de la laïcité était déjà affirmé. Il demandait sans doute des changements ponctuels, ce qui aurait pu se faire sans la glose du repli identitaire et sans l’usage d’un canon législatif.

Voilà que d’un principe on fait un leurre voué, à force de le sublimer, de soustraire à l’attention publique des inégalités autrement plus sérieuses. Tout ce gâchis s’apparente bel et bien, au bout du compte, à un détournement du regard face à des enjeux sociaux plus structurants.

Dans le champ du discours, au nom de cette cavalcade effrénée de la laïcité, les séparations sociales sont dissimulées, comme si les problèmes de société les plus importants étaient tout entiers contenus dans celui-ci. Pendant ce temps, comme on l’a vu encore ces derniers jours, des enfants défavorisés se font supprimer leurs repas du midi ; le nombre d’itinérants s’avère en forte croissance ; des familles parmi les plus pauvres se voient soustraire des allocations pour leur progéniture sous des prétextes fumeux.

Mais dans cette société, plus déchirée que jamais à force d’agiter cette question de la laïcité, on continue de plus belle, comme si de rien n’était, à parler de « vivre-ensemble », en s’illusionnant sur ce que cela veut dire. Cette idée du « vivre-ensemble » fait l’impasse sur des stratifications sociales pourtant de plus en plus claires. On fait comme si, au moment de les enfermer dans une même cage, on disait à un lion et à un lapin : « Mais entendez-vous, puisque après tout vous êtes tous les deux des animaux ! » Nous voici dans une société qui feint d’ignorer quel sort attend le lapin, parce que le seul fait de vivre, croit-on, devrait suffire à affirmer un principe d’égalité en pratique sans cesse bafoué. En somme, nous nous rendons aveugles sur la vie ici-bas au nom d’un principe envisagé de trop haut.

Les mesures favorables à la laïcité sont vouées, telles qu’elles sont du moins présentées, à continuer de soutenir cette illusion d’égalité dans un monde qui multiplie de plus belle les motifs de relégation aux marges de la vie sociale. Sous le mince vernis de pareilles mesures tout en surface, cette société souffre d’un dangereux durcissement de ses artères sociales.

Oui à la laïcité. Mais si l’idée est d’affirmer l’égalité et la neutralité des individus au service de l’État, pourquoi s’en tenir à de frêles apparences, au point de contribuer à encore plus d’exclusions, tout en flattant de la sorte le populisme, en cajolant les pouvoirs de coercition, en endormant les revendications sociales ?

Le grand Tolstoï écrivait : « Je suis assis sur le dos de quelqu’un, je le fais suffoquer et je l’oblige à me porter ; pourtant, je m’assure moi-même et à d’autres que je suis désolé pour lui et que je désire soulager son sort par tous les moyens possibles — sauf de descendre de son dos. »

Source: L’obsession identitaire

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Europe’s south and east worry more about emigration than immigration – poll

2019/04/02 Leave a comment

Interesting results but understandable given the demographics:

Southern and eastern European countries are more concerned about emigration than immigration, according to a wide-ranging survey of attitudes in 14 EU countries.

In Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary and Romania, six countries where population levels are either flatlining or falling sharply, more citizens said emigration was a worry than immigration, according to the poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

The steepest falls are in Romania, where the population has decreased by almost 10% over the past decade as an exodus of mostly young people move to work in western Europe.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2019/03/popuation-change-zip/giv-3902leY08K5RYnIs/

However, in northern and western nations, concerns over immigration far outstripped those over emigration.

The survey was conducted to establish the principal issues of concern ahead of the European parliamentary elections in May. The 14 nations polled will occupy 80% of the seats in the new parliament.

The poll discovered that Europeans are concerned about far more than migration, even though it has dominated EU politics and discourse over the five year term of the outgoing parliament. Corruption, nationalism, terrorism and climate change are also uppermost in minds.

In the survey as a whole, 20% were worried about emigration and 32% about immigration. The poll was conducted by YouGov and questioned almost 50,000 people.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/mar/2019-03-25T13:41:59/embed.html

In some countries, the fear of emigration was so great that large numbers of people believed compatriots should not be allowed to leave their country for long periods of time.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/mar/2019-03-25T15:48:16/embed.html

“The EU elections have been sold as a battleground over the heart of Europe,” said Mark Leonard, the director of the ECFR, adding that nationalists were trying to turn the vote into a referendum on migration.

“The findings from this poll should give heart to pro-Europeans, and show that there are still votes to be won on major issues such as climate change, healthcare, housing, and living standards,” Leonard said. “They will be making a strategic blunder if they accept the framing of the anti-European parties that this election will be won or lost on migration alone.”

Populist leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Matteo Salvini are seeking to put migration front and centre of the 23-26 May polls, in which 374 million people are eligible to vote in a new parliament for a five-year term. The Orbán government recently deployed a scare poster warning about migration policy in Brussels.

Hungary has refused to take refugees under an EU quota system and continues to block an EU law that proposes a permanent redistribution system for asylum seekers. The poster referred to this theme, stating: “They want to introduce compulsory relocation quotas.”

Orbán, who is under pressure to quit the main centre-right European parliament group, has called for migration policy to be “withdrawn from the commission and returned to the member states”. EU member states already play the decisive role in migration policy.

While Orbán has scaled back his media attacks, following pressure from allies in the European People’s party, he has indicated that he could resume his anti-EU campaign. “Our job now is to continually inform the people about what Brussels is up to.”

But immigration numbers have fallen sharply over the past two years: in 2018, the number who crossed the Mediterranean was put at just over 116,000 by UNHCR, down almost 90% from those who made the journey in 2015.

The survey found that Islamic radicalism was the top area of concern, worrying about one in five Europeans, though fears were much higher in countries like Belgium, France and the Netherlands than in eastern Europe.

In almost all countries, a majority of people agreed that the environment should be made a priority even if it damaged economic growth.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/mar/2019-03-25T15:47:08/embed.html

But the data also showed a wide range of concerns cropping up in different countries, meaning that the election will be fought on different issues across the continent.

The economy was the single biggest concern in Italy, Romania and Greece. In seven countries – Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, Greece and Slovakia – more than 50% of people surveyed said corruption was a major issue.

Some experts have warned centrist and traditional parties against accepting a pro-EU versus anti-EU narrative, fearing it will only bolster populists by setting up straw-man arguments.

The European elections are the second-largest electoral contest in the world, behind the Indian elections. Voters in 27 countries are due to elect 705 MEPs, who will take office on 2 July. The UK is not scheduled to take part in the vote and will have to inform the EU by 12 April if it wishes to elect MEPs, meaning a long Brexit delay.

Source: Europe’s south and east worry more about emigration than immigration – poll

Filed under Immigration, Polling Tagged with , ,

Pope Francis on immigration: Political leaders ‘risk becoming prisoners of the walls they build’

2019/04/02 Leave a comment

Well said:

Pope Francis said on Sunday that political leaders who want walls and other barriers to keep migrants out “will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build.”

The pope made his comments to reporters aboard the plane returning from Morocco in response to a question about migration in general and about U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the southern border with Mexico.

“Builders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build,” he said.

Francis, who did not mention Trump in his response, has sparred with the U.S. president before over migration, which was a theme of several questions on the plane as well as during the trip to Morocco.

Trump has declared a national emergency to justify redirecting money earmarked for the military to pay for his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

“I realize that with this problem (of migration), a government has a hot potato in its hands, but it must be resolved differently, humanely, not with razor wire,” the Argentine-born pope said on the plane.

Addressing Moroccan leaders on Saturday, Francis said that problems of migration would never be resolved by physical barriers but instead required social justice and correcting the world’s economic imbalances.

“With fear, we will not move forward, with walls, we will remain closed within these walls,” he said on Sunday.

Besides the United States, migration has again risen to the fore of national political debates in a number of North African and European countries.

On the plane, Francis repeated some of the key points of his views on migration.

He said wealthy countries should help eliminate the root causes of migration such as poverty, war and political instability.

Migrants should be accepted, protected and integrated and if a country cannot handle the numbers, the migrants should be distributed among other countries, he said.

Source: Pope Francis on immigration: Political leaders ‘risk becoming prisoners of the walls they build’

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Metropolis 2019 Halifax Conference notes

2019/04/02 Leave a comment

For the diversityvotes.ca, see our blog entry: https://www.diversityvotes.ca/whats-new/metropolis-conference-doing-immigration-differently

—–

Overall, the 2019 Metropolis conference had a stronger line-up of plenary speakers than previous years, with substantive discussion of immigration and integration issues in Atlantic Canada. 

The different context of Atlantic Canada, where demographic pressures are sharpest and consequently the need for increased immigration greatest, has parallels elsewhere in rural and northern Canada, as seen in the recently announced Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot and the Alberta UCP’s party platform aiming at increasing immigration to rural Alberta.

The Nova Scotia Minister of Immigration and the mayors of Halifax and Moncton reinforced this need and outlined their respective initiatives to attract and retain immigrants. 

The Atlantic Immigration Pilot, where 800 designated employers have access to Nova Scotia’s share of the Provincial Nominee Program spots, allowed Nova Scotia to introduce new streams: a physician stream and labour market priority (early childhood education, financial professionals, francophone). About 40 percent of employers were located outside Halifax.

Both mayors talked about their focus on retaining international students and events such as receptions to welcome students to the community. Halifax provides free transit and recreation policies to refugees for their first year. Moncton provides a “concierge” service to help newcomers navigate the “system” and holds job fairs to assist them find a job. Both mayors wanted to have a more formal consultative role in immigration along with the provincial and federal government. Additional resources for francophone immigrants were flagged by Moncton and permanent resident municipal voting rights by Halifax.

Michael Hahn of Western noted the vastly improved quantity and quality of data compared to when he did his thesis, particularly the linking of administrative and census data. Immigration was moving outside the major cities, reflecting in part the Provincial Nominee Program and Express Entry (expression of interest by employers). He echoed the call for a greater role for municipalities and suggested that more could be done to assist students to transition from temporary to permanent residency status. He noted, however, that municipalities with a university would benefit compared to those without.

The presentation by the international affairs advisor of Montreal focussed on their international activities in relation to the Global Compact on Migration. Dubious value compared to the practical on the ground initiatives outlined by the mayors. She also mentioned the need for more data regarding indicators of how welcoming a community was at the municipal level.

The plenary on refugees and asylum seekers in North America was a welcome change from last year’s infomercial on the North American Migration Policy forum with substantive presentations and discussion. 

Agustin Escobar Latapi, Director General, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Mexico gave a detailed presentation on how Mexico had changed from an emigration to an immigration country over the past 10-15 years given Mexican returnees and immigrants from Central America and Venezuela (mainly refugees, 30,000 in 2018). Given US immigration and refugee restrictions, most of them will become de facto residents of Mexico.

Julia Gelatt, Senior Policy Analyst, Migration Policy Institute, outlined the impact of staffing and funding constraints at USCIS on processing asylum applications. The decline of refugees from the Middle East and consequent relative increase in the share of refugees from Africa and East Asia reflect Trump administration changes. At the southern border, there was a shift from Mexican asylum seekers to those from Central American and Venezuela, with more being families rather than individuals.

Anne Richard, former Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration in the Obama Administration (2012-2017) noted the 180 degree change in policy under the Trump administration. From the goal in the last year of the Obama administration of 110,000 to 45,000 in the Trump administration, with only 21,000 admitted in 2018. Prejudice against Muslims meant fewer Somalia and Syrian refugees. While stressing the importance of security screening, she animated that the more cumbersome processes were not necessarily more effective. The reduced numbers have had a corresponding impact on organizations that support refugees. On a more positive note, resistance to some of the changes by Congress, the courts, mayors and mainstream press, including the separation of children from their parents, was having an impact.

François Crépeau, Director, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill University, focussed on the Global Compact on Migration and systematically reviewed the myths regarding the Compact.

One of the strongest plenaries was Shaping the Story of Refugees and Immigrants in the News, covering the changing media landscape and suggestions on how best to get stories out.

Kelly Toughill, University of King’s College and former journalist noted that there were only three full-time immigration reporters in Canada: Doug Saunders (Globe), Nicholas Keung (Star) and Doug Todd (Vancouver Sun). There were many more free lancers on blogs and other media than reporters. Moreover, Communications staff, whether government or private, vastly outnumbered reporters. Reliance on communications officers to respond to reporters, rather than experts, further diminished the ability of reporters to report and analyze policy and program changes. Social media had a further impact: Michelle Rempel, Conservative immigration critic has 84,000 followers, twice as much as Minister Hussen, both dwarfing Saunders and Keung at about 5,000 followers each. Toughil noted that, unlike reporters, other sources all had an explicit agenda: #ImmigrationMatters is perceived as pre-election government propaganda, ISANS (Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia) can be perceived as advocating for more resources, CIC News is designed to attract high value clients to an immigration lawyer. Toughill ended with a plea for academics and service providers to develop relations and share their knowledge with reporters.

Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press, Halifax, noted that immigration-specific news can be easily lost in a “torrent” of other important news on the economy, healthcare etc. It is important to relate immigration to other aspects and stories rather than just stand-alone stories. Reporters have an important role to play in helping to “unpack the black box,” making the contrast between the Harper government not providing access to stowaways, and the arrival of Syrian refugees, where reporters were able to talk to sponsors, service organizations and many of the refugees themselves. Tutton noted that the discussion around the importance of immigration in economic terms — as in input — meant less understanding of immigrants as people. He cited the example of the Prince Edward Island investor immigrant program where most did not remain in the province as an example where people lost faith in immigration. However, that being said, reporters should cover the imperfections and problems of immigration. But the goal should be to tell all stories with knowledge, understanding and empathy.

Madeline Ziniak, Senior Broadcast Executive, Chair, Canadian Ethnic Media Association, noted the importance of ethnic media for marginalized voices. Ethnic media had a long history in Canada dating form a German newspaper in 1777. Ethnic media provides a platform for community building and sense of belonging in the context of the larger Canadian society and the lens of Canadian standards and values. These expressions and reflections of Canada’s diversity are part of the settlement and integration process. For seniors, who generally tend to revert to their mother tongue as they age, ethic media helps them to remain connected. Voices silenced in immigrant countries of origin can find a voice in Canadian ethnic media and thus perhaps influencing events in those countries. Ziniak noted the need for greater public support to ethnic media, citing CBC and TVO as examples, given that their business models were struggling as well, with less private sector interest.

Louisa Taylor, Director, Refugee 613, Ottawa, Ontario, after outlining the activities of her organization, noted the current context where the anti-immigration far right were organized and becoming more active. The challenge of getting the facts out in a “post-fact” world made it harder. She suggested that messaging should mobilize hope, know and focus on goals not means. In terms of engaging with those with immigration-related concerns, she recommended listening without judgment and find a space where values overlap in order to engage in discussion.

Some of the questions focussed around the “bubbles” between those with different views. Panelists noted the dangers of separate “facts,” the contrast between mainstream media’s use of the CP style guide compared to other media, and how to find ways to reach people. The example of Colin Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the US national anthems and Nike’s subsequent ad were cited as successful examples, recognizing that these approaches will inevitably annoy some people. Digging deeper into “happy” stories to include some of the problems would be more authentic and credible as well as finding ways to connect a story to the wider community.

The last plenary,  Immigration on the Margins, provided some good examples of how settlement organizations and governments were helping smaller communities welcome immigrants.

Ken Walsh, Association for New Canadians, Newfoundland talked about the range of services provided and how immigration was essential given that Newfoundland and Labrador had the most rapidly aging population in the country. Their approach has a number of satellite offices across the province with considerable focus on direct outreach with employers. Challenges to immigrant retention include lack of ethnocultural groups and social isolation of spouses which the organization which a variety of orientation programs and activities try to address. 

Cathy Woodbeck, Executive Director, Thunder Bay Multicultural Association, noted the work they do with Peel and Windsor to find placement for newcomers from those areas looking for opportunities, given that Thunder Bay has a labour shortage and low unemployment. They are learning from the best practices of the Atlantic Immigration Pilot and work with the community to improve service availability. Pre and post arrival services are available. Note:

Lara Dyer, IRCC and Shelley Bent, Nova Scotia Office of Immigration talked about the Atlantic Immigration Pilot’s experience in Nova Scotia. The AIP is employer driven, with an employer role in settlement services orientation, including a settlement plan for the entire family. Nova Scotia’s experience indicates the need for individual conversations with employers, with dedicated staff to help employers navigate through the system. The major lessons learned to date include: the need for increased support to employers tailored to the needs of the employee and his/her family, and the ongoing partnership with IRCC which has a dedicated team to support provincial staff in answering their questions. While people have fears about immigrants taking jobs, once immigrants are hired, more positive stories start.

Workshops

As has become  my regular practice, I organized a workshop on “how to debate immigration: Atlantic edition” with Kelly Toughill (moderator), Howard Ramos, Dalhousie University, Tony Fang, Memorial University and Alex LeBlanc, New Brunswick Multicultural Council. Although I was unable to locate a reasonable immigration critic for the panel, we did engage in a good discussion on how to engage those with concerns regarding immigration, with the key points a willingness to listen openly, find concrete examples where immigration was beneficial (ranging from the general labour needs to who will buy your house!).

My annual citizenship workshop focussed on birth tourism with my presenting this deck and Audrey Macklin of UofT providing a frank and engaging critiqueI of the substance and magnitude of the issues. Governments also “gamed the system” the deportation of long-term permanent residents who had unwittingly not become citizens (e.g., Abdi, Revell, Moretto, Budlakoti) or imposing a first generation limit on transmitting citizenship. “Meaningfulness” was an elusive concept and there were citizens who had as little connections as the children of birth tourists. Fundamentally, she argued that citizenship laws are a highly imperfect proxy for meaningfulness and connection.  

The most interesting workshop for me focussed on improved data through integration of administrative data (e.g., IRCC’s Longitudinal Immigration Database – IMDB, health data from CIHI) and census data. Improvements to the IMDB include citizenship, children, preliminary 2017 wages and settlement services. External linkages being developed include health, education, and non-immigrant data. For example, with respect to birth tourism, the linkage with CIHI’s DAD will allow separating out temporary residents such as international students from the “non-resident self pay” coding to have a more accurate number of birth tourists along with countries of origin.

 

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with

Elections Canada braces for a surge in international voters

2019/04/01 Leave a comment

Have written extensively against this extension and will be interesting to see what the take up will actually be and whether it is really an important issue for Canadian expatriates or not. The numbers below mentioned suggest it was not:

It was a short letter from Elections Canada — but for Gillian Frank, getting it felt like “an old wound had finally started to heal.”

“I was overjoyed,” said Frank, a Canadian living in the United States who received the letter earlier this month confirming his right to cast a ballot in the upcoming federal election.

For seven years, Frank and other Canadians living abroad fought for the right to vote in general elections and national referendums.

In December 2018, the Trudeau government passed Bill 76 — just a month before the Supreme Court of Canada shot down the 1993 law that prohibited Canadians who had lived outside Canada for more than five years from voting in Canadian elections, calling it a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Frank and fellow ex-pat Jamie Duong filed that charter challenge after being denied ballots in 2011. Bill 76 restored voting rights to all Canadians living abroad; the Supreme Court ruling prevents future governments from restoring the ban.

Number of international voters could triple

Since January, Elections Canada has been mailing out letters to Canadians abroad reminding them that they’re back on the international electors list.

“It felt like a moment of closure, a moment of real victory,” Frank said.

Elections Canada expects to see a surge in the number of mail-in or ‘special’ ballots. It estimates the number of Canadians voting from abroad could almost triple — from 11,000 voters in 2015 to 30,000 in 2019.

To cope with the demand, Elections Canada issued a tender in March for a new system to automate the way ballots are distributed.

“We are reducing the number of processes carried out by hand related to special ballots,” Elections Canada spokesperson Natasha Gauthier said in an email. “In automating these processes, we will reduce the number of staff required to handle the volume of ballots we receive.

“These optimizations will not include automated counting of ballots — all ballots will still be marked and counted by hand.”

‘We’re all Canadian citizens’

Duong said Canadians should not fret about the prospect of votes by Canadians living in the U.S. or Hong Kong swinging individual ridings. If it happens, it happens, he said.

“You can say that about any group. What if votes of people 65 and over change the outcome? What if votes [from voters aged] 18 to 25 change the outcome?” Duoug said.

“We’re all Canadian citizens. We all have a right to vote. So, yes our votes should matter. And they should possibly change the outcome of the elections.”

Former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley argues we’ll never know for sure whether the re-appearance of ex-pat voting in 2019 had any real effect on the outcome, since voting is secret. And while “it just takes one vote to swing a riding,” he said, the ex-pat vote likely isn’t going to have that kind of influence because Canadians abroad have to jump through a lot of hoops before casting ballots.

International voters, he said, have to register themselves on the international voter list, find which ridings they belong to, figure out who’s running, fill out their ballots correctly and then mail them in on time. They also have to pay the international postage themselves.

“These are all difficulties we do not have to overcome when we’re voting from Canada,” Kingsley said.

Source: Elections Canada braces for a surge in international voters

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