How Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Crushed Crowdfunding for Minority Entrepreneurs

2023/05/10 Leave a comment

Another interesting study. Words matter:

What does fearmongering about immigration have to do with crowdfunding new ideas on Kickstarter?

For Black, Asian, and Hispanic entrepreneurs, such rhetoric can undermine fundraising efforts, making it even less likely that new ideas will come to fruition, argues Harvard Business School Professor William Kerr. In a new paper, Kerr and his collaborators shed light on how discrimination affects fundraising, and ways crowdfunding sites, entrepreneurs, and investors can take action.

Minority business founders already typically face a fundraising disadvantage compared to their white counterparts, but that gap triples during periods of high public anxiety over immigration in the United States.

“WHEN THERE IS THE GREATEST ANXIETY, WE SEE THIS FUNDING SHORTFALL.”

Banks have historically rejected loan applications from Black, Asian, and Hispanic small-business owners at higher rates than for whites, according to Federal Reserve data, potentially driving some to alternative sources of capital, like Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites. The pullback in support noted in Kerr’s research is national in scope, taking place in cities like Seattle and New York, with reputations as progressive bastions, as well as in more conservative-leaning locales.

“When there is the greatest anxiety, we see this funding shortfall,” says Kerr, the D’Arbeloff Professor of Business Administration. He cowrote the paper with John (Jianqui) Bai, an associate professor of finance at Northeastern University, and Chi Wan and Alptug Yorulmaz, associate professor and graduate research assistant, respectively, at UMass Boston.

Measuring fear during the Trump era

The paper looks closely at two different sets of data. The first is the Migration Fear Index, which counts the number of newspaper articles that include at least two terms associated with the debate over immigration, such as “migrant, asylum, refugee,” and “human trafficking,” as well as “anxiety, panic, bomb, crime, terror, worry, concern,” and “violent.”

Kerr and collaborators then compared the quarterly fluctuations of the Migration Fear Index from 2009 to 2021 to efforts by minority entrepreneurs to raise money on Kickstarter, which has raised $7.3 billion for popular projects such as opening restaurants and publishing comic books.

“YOU CAN COMPARE QUARTERS WITHIN THE SAME YEAR AND FIND THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE HOSTILE RHETORIC AND GREATER DIFFICULTY IN FUNDRAISING FOR MINORITY CREATORS.”

The fear index surged when former President Donald Trump, with a barrage of anti-immigrant rhetoric, launched his first campaign in 2015, and continued speaking disparagingly of immigrants through his first year in office. Overall, minority entrepreneurs were less likely to meet their fundraising goals during periods like this of high anxiety over immigration, the study finds.

“You can compare quarters within the same year and find the connection between the hostile rhetoric and greater difficulty in fundraising for minority creators. You can also follow individual minority creators over time and see ups and downs in their rates of success,” Kerr says.

Certain groups feel it more

The heaviest impact was felt by groups that found themselves the most frequent targets of hostile rhetoric.

Hispanic entrepreneurs or creators suffered the sharpest pullback in support from financial backers on Kickstarter during the 2016 election cycle, while Chinese ethnic creators in the US faced a harder time meeting their financing goals during “episodes of Asian hate,” including Trump’s use of the phrase “Chinese virus” to describe COVID-19.

By contrast, while Black entrepreneurs had lower success rates overall in raising money, support did not fluctuate as dramatically with the ups and downs of the Migration Fear Index.

The paper finds that even during periods of low anxiety, minority creators are 2.4 percent less likely to achieve their fundraising goals on Kickstarter. But during periods of higher anxiety, minorities experience an 8.2 percent lower success rate.

Where and why it’s happening

Meanwhile, Kerr and his co-authors considered—then knocked down— several different theories for the decline in support, including the idea that funding support from minority communities may be pulling back during times of heightened tension around immigration or that creators might be posting different types of projects.

Rather, the evidence points to another hypothesis, that spikes in anxiety over immigration trigger a broader, nationwide retraction of support among backers of Kickstarter projects. Most backers are white, the study contends.

The decline in support for minority creators during increases in the Migration Fear Index are most pronounced in conservative counties. But Kerr and collaborators “also find sizable impacts in very liberal counties,” according to the paper.

“A majority of financial backers for typical Kickstarter campaigns live more than 50 miles away from the creator they support, tending to reside in big cities like Seattle and New York,” the researchers note.

Drawing lessons from the data

The report builds upon previous research on “systemic racial bias in entrepreneurial finance,” illustrating a “more direct” connection between shifts in public attitudes and struggles experienced by minority creators in raising money for new ventures, Kerr and his co-authors write.

Still, the study does not have data on potential backers who looked at pitches by minority entrepreneurs, only to take a pass on their proposals. That, in turn, made it hard to draw any conclusions on whether these decisions by white backers were driven by conscious racism, unconscious racism, or a combination of the two, according to Kerr.

However, there might be ways for Kickstarter and similar platforms to offset or at least mitigate some of these tendencies and trends.

Minority entrepreneurs are less likely to have projects promoted as “staff picks” on Kickstarter during period of hostile rhetoric, which is not the case normally. That is likely driven by the algorithms used, which tend to pick up on momentum, Kerr says.

Given this research, platform operators could keep an eye out for this trend and look at ways of compensating for it in the algorithm, Kerr explains.

“One of the hopes for crowd funding is that it will democratize access to capital from those previously excluded,” the authors write. “Prior work has shown that discrimination still exists on crowd-funding sites … we take a step further in understanding how minority creators can suffer acute funding shortfalls in moments when anxiety over immigration is high.”

Source: How Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Crushed Crowdfunding for …

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Les experts avec un accent sont jugés moins crédibles

2023/05/10 Leave a comment

Interesting study:

Les accents étrangers influencent grandement l’opinion qu’on se fait des nouveaux arrivants et des experts, suggèrent les résultats d’une nouvelle étude. Le fait d’avoir un accent et d’être issu d’une minorité visible « entrave » la possibilité d’être perçu comme légitime, digne de confiance ou même crédible.

Cette étude confirme ainsi d’autres études au Québec sur les barrières à l’emploi et sur la « glottophobie », une forme de discrimination linguistique qui inclut l’accent. Il est déjà connu que la couleur de peau, la religion ou le genre des experts influencent l’opinion qu’on s’en fait. Cette fois, « le point de départ est la discrimination basée sur l’accent », précise le professeur Antoine Bilodeau. Il a notamment mené cette enquête avec son équipe de l’Université Concordia et en présentera les conclusions au congrès de l’Acfas cette semaine.

« On connaît bien le concept de minorité visible, mais beaucoup moins les minorités audibles », affirme ce spécialiste en science politique et en intégration des immigrants. Les résultats actuels montrent que le fait d’avoir un accent étranger, combiné ou non avec le fait d’être racisé, « entrave la possibilité » d’être perçu comme un expert légitime, digne de confiance et même crédible.

Les chercheurs ont demandé à 1200 personnes dans chacune des provinces d’évaluer la crédibilité d’un expert à partir d’une photo et d’un enregistrement audio. L’effet de l’accent est indéniable dans tous les cas de figure soumis au sondage, mais il n’est pas le même au Québec qu’en Ontario.

Chaque répondant au sondage ne voyait qu’une vignette, soit un homme blanc ou noir, puis entendait cette personne parler une seule fois des changements climatiques et de la taxe sur le carbone. Au Québec, cette voix avait soit un accent québécois, ou un accent de type Europe de l’Est ou encore de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (du Togo). En Ontario, c’était plutôt un accent anglophone assez neutre, puis les mêmes accents étrangers.

Ni la « provenance » de l’accent, ni le but de l’évaluation, n’étaient révélés au répondant, précise M. Bilodeau, « puisqu’on voulait que les gens interprètent eux-mêmes cet accent ». On demandait ensuite de juger la crédibilité de l’expert sous plusieurs angles : l’éloquence de son message, sa compétence et son professionnalisme. « Est-il convaincant ? Est-il digne de confiance ? », exemplifie aussi le professeur

Dépend de la conception du « nous »

Au Québec, l’effet de l’accent étranger était plus grand pour la personne non racisée. En Ontario, il était plus « punitif » chez l’expert racisé. « C’est peut-être là, la spécificité québécoise : la langue est tellement centrale que dès qu’on voit une personne blanche on s’attend à ce qu’elle ait le même accent », avance M. Bilodeau.

Il existe ainsi un « effet de surprise » qui contredit cette attente et affecte négativement la perception. Inversement, l’expert racisé avec un accent québécois est celui qui obtient le score le plus haut en termes de crédibilité.

Une minorité visible qui a ou adopte l’accent local est en quelque sorte « récompensée », selon ces résultats. « C’est comme si le fait qu’il ait un accent de la majorité [québécoise] venait désamorcer une anticipation de distance. Ça rapproche tout à coup le répondant de l’expert en train de parler », propose comme hypothèse le chercheur.

« Est-ce que c’est suffisant de parler français, ou faut-il le parler de la “bonne manière” pour faire vraiment partie du groupe ? », réfléchit M. Bilodeau.

L’étude allait justement plus loin pour mieux comprendre la réaction des répondants, selon leur propre conception de ce qui forme leur groupe d’appartenance. Il y avait ainsi une série de questions sur les critères importants pour être un « vrai Québécois » ou un « vrai Ontarien » : doit-on être né dans la province, avoir passé la majorité de sa vie dans la province, être blanc, être chrétien, se sentir Québécois ou Ontarien, respecter les lois, etc.

Ceux qui avaient une conception qui exclut davantage de gens sont réagissaient aussi le plus fortement à l’accent chez l’expert blanc au Québec.

Une forme trop socialement acceptable

« L’accent, on n’y pense pas ou on en parle moins », abonde en ce sens Victor Armony, professeur de sociologie à l’UQAM. Dans une étude qu’il a menée à l’Observatoire sur les inégalités raciales au Québec, l’accent figure pourtant au deuxième rang des raisons de discrimination citées par les répondants.

« Je partais d’une sorte d’énigme », décrit-il. Chez plusieurs populations, il persiste des écarts importants de revenus ou de postes pour les mêmes qualifications, même si elles ne sont pas des cibles « directes ou ouvertes » de racisme.

Il donne l’exemple des Latino-Américains : « Il y a parfois des préjugés favorables envers les latinos. On nous trouve chaleureux, on apporte une cuisine, une musique, la joie de vivre, etc. L’autre côté de la médaille : on n’est pas toujours pris au sérieux au niveau intellectuel ou professionnel », explique le chercheur.

Une personne qualifiée, avec un diplôme, « qui fait des efforts considérables pour parler français » et reçue sans hostilité préalable peut tout de même être dévalorisée en raison de son accent.

« C’est l’accent qui fait en sorte que le message devient irrecevable, moins intéressant et parfois laissé de côté », résume-t-il. Arrivé d’Argentine il y a plus de 30 ans, M. Armony l’a lui-même vécu. « C’est le regard moqueur, impatient, méprisant de l’autre qui finit par avoir un impact sur l’assurance, sur l’estime de soi ou dans le goût de s’exposer devant les autres même quand j’ai quelque chose à dire. Alors on finit par se taire et rester à sa place », explique l’homme.

La discrimination linguistique, notamment basée sur l’accent, aussi appelée « glottophobie » est plus insidieuse. « Socialement, la glottophobie n’est pas reconnue comme une discrimination. Alors elle peut servir de prétexte ou d’écran pour cacher une autre forme de discrimination socialement inacceptée », décrit quant à lui le sociologue Christian Bergeron.

À l’instar d’Antoine Bilodeau, mais dans un domaine différent, il note lui aussi une attitude différente selon la perception de soi-même : « Plus un locuteur pense détenir la norme, c’est-à-dire la bonne manière de s’exprimer en français, plus il a tendance à rejeter les autres manières de s’exprimer et parfois même à discriminerl’autre », dit ce professeur à l’Université d’Ottawa.

Plus sournoise ou moins affichée, elle peut néanmoins devenir une barrière réelle à l’emploi, rappelle M. Armony. « On va invoquer par exemple l’idée qu’on a besoin d’une personne qui a “un français parfait”, mais alors on confond la grammaire et la qualité du français du point de vue de l’accent », rapporte-t-il.

La Charte des droits et libertés de la personne du Québec ne nomme pas explicitement l’accent, mais plutôt la langue. Il est toutefois interdit de traiter différemment une personne ou d’avoir des comportements offensants et répétés à son égard en raison de son accent, indique la Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse du Québec.

La France est allée plus loin en 2020, en adoptant une loi qui punit la discrimination fondée sur l’accent avec des peines allant jusqu’à trois ans d’emprisonnement et à 45 000 euros d’amende. « Les minorités “audibles” sont les grandes oubliées du contrat social fondé sur l’égalité », avait alors déclaré l’instigateur du projet de loi, le député Christophe Euzet, lui-même d’une région de France connue pour ses sonorités différentes de celles de Paris.

Source: Les experts avec un accent sont jugés moins crédibles

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

If you are in trouble abroad, will Canada come get you?

2023/05/09 Leave a comment

Good realistic explainer featuring the former ambassador to Lebanon:

It was Louis de Lorimier’s first posting as an ambassador for Canada when he arrived in Lebanon in September 2005, after almost a quarter-century in the foreign service.

His appointment came just a few months after then Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri was assassinated in a truck bombing, and the relationship between Israel, the militant group Hezbollah and neighbouring Syria was tense.

Political and military skirmishes between the various forces in the region were not uncommon, but de Lorimier didn’t foresee he would be caught at the centre of Operation LION, Canada’s largest international evacuation effort of its citizens to date.

“You did have violence to a certain extent on the border but nothing could suggest that it would go so far,” recalls the retired career diplomat, now a fellow at the Montreal Institute of International Studies.

“Lebanon was a turning point. I think they really got the (evacuation) system much better organized after that.”

In July 2006, after Israel’s military attacked Hezbollah forces in Lebanon to retaliate for the killing and kidnapping of its soldiers, Ottawa came under heavy fire for what some criticized as chaotic and slow response to bring home its citizens stranded in the war zone. By the end of that August, 14,000 Canadians had been evacuated.

Nearly 17 years later, after a civil war erupted in Sudan between the ruling government and a paramilitary group, the Canadian government’s evacuation effort has once again raised the questions of its responsibilities to its citizens abroad and its readiness to save its people from harm’s way.

Last Saturday, Canada ended its evacuation flights to bring Canadians home from Sudan amid escalating violence and deteriorating safety conditions. Over two weeks, of the 1,728 Canadians in Sudan who had registered with the government, more than 400 had been evacuated, with hundreds of others still looking for assistance.

“Canada continues to monitor the situation actively and will continue to provide assistance to Canadians and permanent residents wishing to depart Sudan,” Global Affairs Canada said in a statement on Friday.

“Our officials will keep in contact with those who call on us for help. We will keep in touch using whatever is the most effective way to help them stay safe, be it phone, e-mail or text message.”

De Lorimier said taking care of Canadians abroad has always been a top priority for consular staff, who constantly monitor conditions on the ground and report them to Ottawa.

“One of our responsibilities is to have a plan in place to deal with social unrests and major events of that nature, or it could be earthquakes or natural disasters, and it goes as far as war,” said de Lorimier, who headed the Lebanese mission until 2008 and then served as ambassador to Belgium and Mali before he retired in 2015.

“But what is obvious is that Canada doesn’t have the assets in the region to deal as quickly as we have to deal with a huge crisis.”

There are many variables in an evacuation effort and officials have to constantly negotiate with the local security authorities to seek safe pathways for both Canada’s personnel and citizens alike.

“I think most people do have unreasonable expectations. Sure, your government is there to protect you in every way possible. Obviously, it’s what we try to do. But the government also tells people, ‘Well, you’re responsible for your own safety first and foremost,’” said de Lorimier.

“If you go to a place where there’s social unrest, or even war, well, there could be consequences. There’s only so much we can do. That’s why we have these warnings that in certain countries, you’d better be careful. It’s not that the government doesn’t want to take care of people. But sometimes you have situations where you just can’t.”

The operation in Lebanon was certainly unprecedented in terms of the scale. At the onset of the war, only 1,000 Canadians registered with the embassy, which quickly ballooned to 30,000 a week into the conflict.

Although Lebanon was under complete blockade by the Israelis who bombed the main runway at the airport and blew up its fuel depots, Canada’s strong diplomatic relationships with both countries assured safe pathways to bus its citizens to an evacuation spot and then repatriate them via Cyprus.

In Sudan, however, de Lorimier said Canadian officials are dealing with two warring parties declaring ceasefires that never hold, and there’s a complete breakdown in the rule of law. The only blessing is the main airport in the capital Khartoum seems to be working of late, letting Canada shift its emergency evacuation efforts toward assisted departures through commercial transportation to exit the country.

Still, de Lorimier said there still could be a lot of uncertainty.

For example, on the first day of the Lebanese evacuation, the Canadian government had initially secured six ships to each carry 250 people out of the Lebanon’s main port. However, at the last minute, the Turkish company that loaned the boats was not satisfied with the security assurances and decided to send just one ship.

“We had prepared more than 1,000 people to evacuate. That’s when the press reported in Canada that the operation was a mess. We got really bad press. Some people were complaining that we left them out in the sun and they didn’t have water and they didn’t have food. It was quite something,” recalled de Lorimier, who didn’t sleep for weeks then and was running on his adrenalin.

“We almost had a catastrophe because we had this 1,000 people that were waiting in a room. We weren’t expecting to give them room and board for a night. So you can imagine kids running around and older people, and we didn’t even have enough restrooms.”

Canada recognizes dual citizenships and dual citizens are treated equally as their Canadian-born peers, but the Lebanese evacuation led to a public debate about whether these individuals’ birth country or adopted country is actually responsible for them.

“If there’s a problem, is it not logical that he be supported by his birth country before being supported by the consular service of Canada, his country of adoption?” asked de Lorimier. Yet in the end, “anyone that had Canadian papers was evacuated.”

The evacuation effort would end up costing Canada $94 million, which also prompted prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2009 to restrict the passage of Canadian citizenship by descent to the first generation of Canadians born overseas.

In its post-mortem of the Lebanese operation, the Canadian Senate, made many recommendations, including urging Foreign Affairs officials to review and ensure adequate resources to missions in countries where the size of the Canadian population and regional risks are high.

In hindsight, de Lorimier said he felt the Lebanese operation was provided with proper resources, with 200 Foreign Affairs staffers redeployed from outside Lebanon to assist with the evacuation, along with additional immigration and military personnel.

“People will always say there’s not enough resources. That’s a tricky question. We evacuated 15,000 people and everybody made it … no casualties,” he noted.

“The first responsibility lies with you. You have to know what you’re getting into and where you’re going in terms of security, military and war and even tsunamis or earthquakes. There’s so many risks that you have to figure out and decide if you want to take the risk.”

Source: If you are in trouble abroad, will Canada come get you?

Filed under Dual Citizenship, foreign policy Tagged with ,

Here’s why the U.S. is pushing Ottawa to require visas from Mexicans

2023/05/08 Leave a comment

Good explainer:

When Canada lifted the visa requirements on Mexicans in late 2016, one of the first things Selene Mateos did was book a vacation to visit Vancouver with her girlfriend.

Drawn by Canada’s reputation as an “open and friendly” country, the couple jumped on the travel opportunity without the hassles of having to put together an application package and line up in queues —and without the prospect of cancelling their trip if a visa didn’t come through.

“If I’d needed a visa, I would’ve had to think about it three or four times more, even though I had all the proofs, of a job, income and ties to Mexico,” says the 35-year-old environmental engineer. “This makes travel easier and faster.”

Mateos was surprised when she learned from media reports this week that Washington has requested that Ottawa reimpose visas on Mexico after a surge of Mexican irregular migrants trying to cross into the U.S. through the northern border via Canada.

“I don’t think that’s fair, to be honest,” said Mateos, who now works in hospitality in Toronto on a work permit. “Even the U.S., Canada and Mexico are trade partners, we are the poor partner. We are not equal.”

That inequality is at the centre of concerns some have over the potential move — one critics say would severely restrict asylum seekers and punish residents of Mexico, a country that is a significant trading partner, but lacks the clout to resist whenever the U.S. wants to change the rules of the relationship.

The situation at the border

Mexicans are increasingly crossing the land border into the U.S. from Canada. The number caught crossing illegally has risen from a total of 1,169 in 2016 to some 300 a month since October, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Mexican refugees made up 7,483 of Canada’s 60,158 asylum claimants in 2022. During that year, more than 400,000 Mexicans came to visit. (That number of claims was up significantly from 250 in 2016, which was before Ottawa lifted its visa requirements on Mexico.)

In March, in response to the irregular migration at the northern border, Washington and Ottawa expanded the Safe Third Country Agreement across the entire land border, not just at official ports of entry, so asylum seekers crossing anywhere are turned back.

Still, compared to the U.S. southern border, where more than 2.5 million irregular migrants were stopped last year, the U.S.-Canada frontier is peanuts, says Laura Macdonald, a political science professor at Carleton University.

So why the increased amount of attention?

“There is some pressure being exerted by Republicans in Congress, Republicans from the northern states. Some of the northern states who want to make an issue out of this partly because they’re trying to convey the message that the Biden administration is weak on border control policies and weak on migration control,” said Macdonald, who studies North American relations and Latin American politics.

“I don’t think it’s a huge issue for the Biden administration. They have many other issues to deal with. But you could see how politicians in the border states could get caught up in that kind of dynamic. So he’s telling Canada they have to fall into line about policies that the U.S. government wants to enact.”

An unequal relationship

The U.S. has always required visas from Mexicans in order to screen out those who come to seek asylum or likely overstay their visits, while Canada has changed its policy back and forth under different governments.

In 2009, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government slapped Mexico with a visa rule in response to an influx of Mexican refugees who fled gang violence and drug cartels. The requirement was lifted in 2016, after Justin Trudeau’s Liberals came to power.

For Washington and Ottawa, visa decisions are tied to border control and economic interests, said Macdonald, but Mexico can never afford to put up travel barriers against its northern neighbours.

“Tourism is such a huge interest. So that goes back to the power asymmetries in the region. The U.S. and Canada could contemplate having such a visa and Mexico will never, ever retaliate in that form,” she said.

The reasons for crossing from Canada into the U.S.

Ramiro Arteaga, founder of a Mexican Canadian Facebook group, says there’s been a lot of discussions within the diaspora about the Biden administration’s visa proposition to Ottawa, with many worrying about further stigmatization of the community.

Arteaga says he’s against visa requirements which would restrict Mexicans’ families and friends from visiting them in Canada, and he doesn’t believe such measures would stop irregular migrants determined to cross into the U.S. at all costs.

He said it has always been easier for Mexicans to get to Canada than to the U.S., even when both countries required visas. And some of his compatriots have always had their eyes set on the U.S., for a variety of reasons.

“The language is not a barrier down there. You can go to Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, anywhere you go, you can find someone who speaks Spanish. You can find your own church, your own community, your own places to gather,” said Arteaga, 48, whose Facebook group has 250,000 members, mostly in Canada.

“It’s more likely to have a family member or someone from the same town back home living in the U.S. You can get jobs easily there. It’s more difficult if you are coming here and you don’t know the language and you don’t know anyone.”

The fallout of imposing visas

Efrat Arbel, an immigration law professor at University of British Columbia, said a visa requirement is a blunt instrument imposed by western countries to stem asylum flow from so-called refugee-producing countries.

“ If an asylum seeker is fleeing for their lives, then they don’t have the time, the ability or the capacity in most situations to apply for a visa in order to set foot on Canadian soil,” she said.

“The effect is that those individuals are prohibited from travel, are prohibited from making access of lawful routes of entry in order to seek refuge from persecution. It works contrary to the basic commitments of refugee protection that underpin our asylum regime.”

The visa requirement is among many tools Canada has implemented over the years to restrict people from certain regions and countries from coming, she said.

Even valid visa holders can be kept off a Canada-bound flight by air carriers that fear sanctions for bringing in “improperly documented persons,” or by border liaison officers stationed abroad, who flag travellers at their discretion.

“All of these mechanisms operate in tandem and Canada is systematically closing its borders to refugees,” said Arbel.

How will a decision be made?

In assessing whether to impose or abolish visa requirements, Canada’s immigration department said officials look at the socio-economic profile of the country, immigration issues, travel documents, security concerns, border management, human rights and bilateral relations.

“Canada values its strong ties with Mexico. The visa lift (ending the requirement in 2016) underscores the commitment Canada made to further enhance and expand its relationship with Mexico,” said department spokesperson Stuart Isherwood.

“The visa lift has generated positive results for Canadians and Canadian business. It has deepened our bilateral relations and expanded trade, investment, and tourism between both countries.”

Since the visa requirement was removed against Mexico, Isherwood said, Canada has welcomed more than two million Mexican visitors and they’ve spent more than $2.4 billion in Canadian hotels, restaurants and other businesses.

Mexican officials said leaders of the three countries met in a summit in Mexico City in January where they reaffirmed their commitment to collaborate on regional migration issues.

“Mexico is working closely with the United States and Canada to achieve safe, orderly and humane migration in the region through a holistic approach that includes addressing its root causes,” the Mexican Embassy in Ottawa said in a statement. 

Mateos is well aware that the political wind can shift at any moment. She just hopes any visa change won’t come before her wedding this August; 20 guests, including her family, are expected from Mexico.

“It’s going to be devastating for me not having my family and friends on my side on this very important day of my life,” she said.

Source: Here’s why the U.S. is pushing Ottawa to require visas from Mexicans

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Schools survey: Non-German students more likely to ‘sit next to a …

2023/05/08 Leave a comment

Interesting study:

A study on children’s attitudes toward their classmates resulted in some surprising, and other not so surprising, findings.

Based on surveys of ninth-grade children (aged 14 to 15) in Germany, research led by Zsófia Boda at the University of Essex and Georg Lorenz from Leipzig University has found that classes that are ethnically diverse are more welcoming of refugee students.

That’s the unsurprising part.

What it also revealed, however, was that students who were born in Germany to German-born parents were the most likely to reject their refugee classmates, and the least likely to refer to them as friends.

Would you sit next to a refugee?

The study is based on the results of a national survey of 6,390 children in Germany in 2018, which asked the students who their friends were and who they would not want to sit next to in class. Most of the refugee students involved in the survey came from Syria and Afghanistan — the two main countries of origin of people seeking protection in Germany.

The results, published this week in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, showed that the refugee children had fewer friends and experienced more rejection than their non-refugee peers.

But in a more mixed or ‘high-diversity’ classroom, it was much less likely for a child to say they would not want to share a desk with a refugee or asylum seeker, and more likely that they would name a refugee student as a friend.

The research found that there are two processes at work here: In a classroom with a high proportion of ‘non-German’ children, you are more likely to get people who are accepting of other non-Germans, the researchers explained. But also, ethnic majority (i.e. second-generation German) students are less inclined to reject refugee peers if they are surrounded by diversity.

The study suggests that this finding – that more diversity does not lead to greater rejection by the ethnic majority group – is an important one, because it challenges critical views of multiculturalism.

A large proportion – about half – of refugees and migrants in Germany are under the age of 18.

These young people need more than just access to education. Having positive and supportive relationships with others their own age in turn leads to them achieving better grades at school and results in overall better health and wellbeing for minority students.

The study suggests that if you take these away, the educational success and psychological adjustment of refugee adolescents will likely be put at risk.

Barriers to acceptance

So what is it that is stopping students from accepting their refugee peers?

There are several possible reasons, the researchers behind the study say. One is language, which is often said to be a major barrier to integration. Traumatic experiences can also make it hard for young refugees to adjust.

Other explanations for refugees having lower levels of social integration or acceptance in the classroom include the fact that they are likely to have joined the class later when friendships between other students have already formed. There is also the dynamics of friendship groups, which often grow and develop between people of the same ethnic group.

Moreover, the study also points out that social integration is not a one-sided process: “[T]he attitudes and behaviors of peers [is] crucial,” it notes.

What should policy makers do with these findings which, taken at face value, seem to suggest that refugee students should attend schools that are already ethnically diverse?

If they were to take this approach, it might jeopardize refugee students’ language development, which usually benefits from having a high proportion of majority-ethnic children in the classroom.

Steering refugee children into diverse schools could also lead to segregation instead of integration, and that would not help in promoting positive attitudes between German and non-German students, the study suggests.

There are some concrete steps that could “mitigate the negative consequences of prejudice,” according to the researchers. They recommend that teachers and principals are made aware of the challenges and that they support integration by, among other things, encouraging cooperation and showing support for mixing ethnic groups.

With global forced migration having become a ‘megatrend,’ Boda and Lorenz argue promoting the social integration of refugees, including adolescents, will remain crucially important for the refugees themselves. According to them, it will also reduce negative attitudes and prejudice towards immigrants — a problem which is widespread in Western societies.

Source: Schools survey: Non-German students more likely to ‘sit next to a …

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

More Islamic lessons in Swiss schools? – SWI swissinfo.ch

2023/05/08 Leave a comment

Of note:

With a “Salam aleikum”, teacher Nimetullah Veseli greets the pupils of year four in the Kirchacker school building. Veseli stands in front of the six boys and six girls in the classroom in Neuhausen, Schaffhausen. Wearing jeans and a white shirt, he explains the Islamic religious teachings.

Imam Nimetullah Veseli gives confession-oriented Islamic lessons at the public school. Confession-oriented means that the children learn about their own religion, in contrast to the inter-faith lessons in most primary school.

Normally, these confession-oriented Islamic lessons take place in mosques. It is an exception that it is offered in a public school. Only ten Swiss schools offer such lessons.

Religious education with quality control

A recent study by the universities of Lucerne and Fribourg corroborates the advantages of this type of teaching: “The school is a neutral place,” says study director Hansjörg Schmid. This also means that children from different Muslim backgrounds receive lessons together.

In addition, more emphasis is placed on instructive elements of its study at the school. “The Islamic teachers are obliged to present their concepts to the school,” says Schmid. “This makes quality control possible.”

The director of the Swiss Centre for Islam and Society at the University of Fribourg, together with three other researchers, has examined all the Islamic instructions offered at schools. The study shows that once the lessons are up and running, the feedback is very positive. Generally the criticism and resistance comes beforehand.

Expand the programme – but how?

The study also shows that the lessons availability are strongly dependent on individuals. Most of the proposals came about as a result of initiatives by imams or Muslim religious teachers. “More stability would be important,” says study director Hansjörg Schmid.

The classes in Kreuzlingen could be a model for future programmes. There, various mosque associations, an interreligious working group and the local parishes have jointly set up Islamic instruction, and an association has taken over the sponsorship.

The study recommends expanding confession-oriented Islamic instruction in public schools. But who will pay for it? At present, the programme is supported by voluntary work as well as parental contributions or subsidies from mosque associations.

Broad-based teachings with trained teachers are lacking. In addition, there is another hurdle as in most cantons, teaching requires recognition under public law.

“Salam aleikum” in chorus

If a comparable religious education as that of the Christian national churches is to be developed, the Muslim communities would first have to be recognised. This is a lengthy process.

But Hansjörg Schmid says, “A lot is possible at the level of pilot trials.” He therefore advises trying out as much as possible at a low-threshold level – as in Neuhausen. There, Imam Nimetullah Veseli ends the lesson with “Salam aleikum”: “What does that mean?” he wants to know from the fourth graders. “Peace be with you and with you,” they answer in chorus.

Source: More Islamic lessons in Swiss schools? – SWI swissinfo.ch

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Bahamas: How to prove paternity is next as govt to grapple with citizenship questions

2023/05/08 Leave a comment

CHILDREN born out of wedlock to Bahamian men and foreign women won’t be recognised as citizens of The Bahamas until they prove that their biological father is a Bahamian through a process mandated by the government or determined by the courts.

How to prove paternity is a question the Davis administration will grapple with as it seeks to satisfy the expectation of people who now see themselves as Bahamian citizens following the Privy Council’s landmark ruling. The administration can address the matter through legislation.

Attorney General Ryan Pinder told The Tribune: “Needless to say, you have to prove that your biological father is Bahamian, which means you have to prove paternity. A framework needs to be put in place for that.”

When Chief Justice Ian Winder ruled in favour of Shannon Rolle in 2020, he deliberately left the question of how to establish paternity unanswered.

Former Attorney General Sean McSweeney, the co-chair of the 2016 Constitutional Commission, said yesterday that requiring scientific tests is the ideal approach to establishing paternity.

“You always have to prove that the man is the father if it doesn’t happen in the context of marriage,” he said. “There are some who are saying they should just use an affidavit, but given the historical laxity with which Bahamians used affidavits, I think it would be dangerous to rely on that. There really should be scientific proof of paternity; at the moment DNA testing.”

“There will have to be steps taken to guard against abuse of the system. You certainly don’t want an industry being created out of this where people feel they could just get an affidavit of paternity and just get citizenship on that basis.”

Mr McWenney said in cases where a person’s father is dead, DNA tests could be performed “on anything the deceased person may have used”.

“You have to ask a scientist about that: how do you go about extracting the materials used for DNA testing?” he said.

National Security Minister Wayne Munroe, who tried the landmark case before Chief Justice Ian Winder and the Court of Appeal, said people who will benefit from the Privy Council’s ruling must now be patient so the government can address the paternity issue.

“The matter isn’t fully resolved as far as this is concerned,” he said. “There were two issues. The first issue was a matter of principle, the construction of Article 6, and that’s what’s been settled, that Article 6 means that a child of an unwed Bahamian father born in The Bahamas is a citizen.

“The part that isn’t resolved that the Chief Justice has to determine because it was referred back to him by the Privy Council, is how do you prove that your father is a Bahamian? Is it enough for your father to come up and say it? Does he have to do an affidavit? Does he have to sign your birth certificate or do you have to have DNA evidence? That hasn’t been decided. In the Supreme Court case that I did, it expressly said that issue is not being decided and it will await this outcome.

“If you go and dash to the Passport Office, they’re gonna consult the OAG and OAG will no doubt take a position. It would be irresponsible not to take a policy position which can apply to everyone, and so as the lawyer who did the initial case and the initial appeal, now as a member of the government, I would advise caution and a degree of patience while the government puts in place the policy to address that issue of paternity, because in reality, there’s no value in saying you’re going to rush and pressure the government because if you don’t get a passport, what can you do? Bring an action. Then you have to wait for a court date and the rest of that. It’s just as easy for you to wait and see how the government will bring about the matter.”

It is unclear what the DNA testing capacity is in The Bahamas.

“I think the Immigration Department and the Office of the Attorney General is going to have to treat with that to bring forward a solution,” Mr Munroe said. “There are a number of things that no doubt the government of which I am a member will be considering going forward and once it’s considered, then, of course, if it’s by virtue of legislation, we’d have to table a bill and the public would be able to see it and give their views.”

Source: How to prove paternity is next as govt to grapple with citizenship …

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Qadeer: Canada needs new immigrants, but must plan for the consequences

2023/05/06 1 Comment

Another good commentary regarding the failures of governments and stakeholders to acknowledge and address the externalities of immigration:

Despite their success, Canadian immigration and settlement policies are producing some unintended negative effects on post-secondary education, housing, the labour market, and visa and immigration processes. Because these areas are interrelated, when one becomes compromised, others are also affected.

The number of scams, false claims and fake documents in the immigration and temporary workers’ permits process points to this issue. While there appear to be no hard statistics, media accounts and government warnings indicate they are an issue.

Canada is a world leader in accepting immigration. In the past few years, it has been adding about one per cent of its population yearly by immigration. In 2022, apart from permanent immigrants (437,000), the number of non-permanent residents increased by a net of more than 607,000, some of whom were admitted as temporary workers and/or international students. Canada’s population increased by more than a million people, largely as a result of a surge in immigration and temporary residents. The federal government is aiming to add 1.5 million more immigrants by 2025.

So far, these policies seem to have worked out. There is strong support for increased immigration among Canadians. Environics Institute’s recent survey shows that seven in 10 support the present level of immigration, though there is some recognition of the challenges arising from it.

One of these challenges is false documents, which tend to follow the priorities of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). For example, if the protection of people persecuted because of sexual orientation in a country is the priority, suddenly claims in that area increase. Some immigrant consultants, as well as human smugglers, tutor and manufacture documents to support such claims.

A recent story in the Toronto Star found that as many as 700 Indian students were admitted to study in Canada on fake admission letters. They lived and found places in different colleges for years before it became known that the letters were bogus. A regulatory body for immigration consultants, the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, has had limited success in supressing such practices.

The post-secondary education sector’s structure and purposes have been widely compromised by the drive to recruit international students. Universities, and especially colleges, including private colleges, have come to depend on the international student enrolment fees. Access to higher learning may only be partially the motivating factor behind the scramble for foreigners trying to access Canadian post-secondary education.

Being an international student also opens the door to permanent residency in Canada. This is a big draw for students from abroad. It has been turned into a business by some post-secondary institutions. Even Ontario’s auditor general has identified the dependence on these fees as a vulnerable point in post-secondary educational finances.

About 500,000 international students contributed  $16.2 billion in 2017 and $19.7 billion in 2018 to this country’s GDP and supported more than 218,000 jobs in 2018. These international students are also being used as a cheap way to combat labour shortages. Recent rule changes allow some international students to work up to 40 hours a week while attending classes. This is to serve the need of the labour market, rather than advance international students’ education. To accommodate their schedule, institutions are arranging classes in the evenings and on weekends. In Toronto, for example, young South Asians dominate the landscape working as delivery workers and van drivers. If they are students, one wonders how much time they can spend on their studies after working a full-time job.

The enrolment of large numbers of international students affects the quality of educational programs in post-secondary institutions. International students generally add to the quality of learning experiences. Many international students are among the brightest. But the aggressive recruitment — combined with studies becoming a path to permanent residence and employment — have affected the classroom. Classes dominated by students from abroad with wide variations of language skills and motivation inhibit discussion and compromise learning. This is hardly the Canadian education for which they paid.

Immigration is a positive force for the Canadian economy, making up for labour shortages and a potentially decreasing population. Yet it has been used for many unethical ends. The downdraft of capabilities and status that immigrants experience on arrival is well-known. The infusion of hundreds of thousands of new job-seekers a year prompts abuses in the labour market.

Gig jobs rather than careers have become the norm. Foreign workers are hired to replace Canadians whose seniority has raised their salaries. Many economists argue that immigration at least initially affects wages of Canadian workers in the fields where immigrant labour supply increases.

In many professions, anecdotal evidence suggests that Canadians and long-standing immigrants are displaced after they have worked out new initiatives and routinized procedures. Foreign workers and new immigrants are then brought in at lower rates to run the programs. This means new immigrants and temporary workers often compete with second-generation Canadians in the labour market.

This affects the mainstream economy. International students and undocumented workers may be paid below minimum wage and off-the-books. A continual supply of young workers at lower salaries pushes older, more expensive and more experienced Canadians off the job market. It is not a surprise that businesses lobby for more workers from abroad.

The ethical responsibilities of attracting professionals in the fields of health and other critical areas from poor countries does not appear to register in discussions of Canadian immigration policies. The Global South needs professionals for development, yet rich countries such as Canada are attracting them to leave their homes with incentives for immigration.

This brain drain has long been an issue for the poor countries. It is particularly damaging in the case of medical professionals, who are direly needed in those places. The World Health Organization has taken note of the dilemma of health professionals emigrating from the Global South. It has established a global code for their recruitment, balancing individuals’ rights of movement and the social costs borne by poor countries.

Problems of housing adequacy, affordability and availability have buffeted Canada in one way or another for a long time. The demand-and-supply laws tell us that accommodating a million persons a year should exacerbate the housing shortages, particularly in major cities. This strain is expected, but what is of equal public concern are the abuses and illegal practices that the excessive demand is fostering.

Immigration funnels “black” money from abroad into real estate, leaving many housing units vacant for speculative gains. Toronto and Vancouver have lately recognized this problem and are restricting foreign buyers and taxing housing units kept vacant for six or more months.

More egregious is the practice of international students and other immigrants crowding in illegal housing, sharing rooms among many other, with their possessions spilling into the driveways. Neighbourhoods become noisy, choked with garbage and traffic. Brampton and Mississauga have been in news for the illegal basement rentals targeted at international students recruited from India.

Of course, a house is more than just a building. It requires infrastructure, schools, parks, sidewalks and roads. Housing requires major public investments and can result in higher taxes at local and provincial levels. Canadian cities are in a frenzy of increasing densities. Regardless of their success, these measures will change the quality of urban life for everybody. Immigration policies will change the form of our cities, potentially creating even more urban sprawl if there’s no careful planning.

Canada undoubtedly needs immigration, but post-secondary education and labour market policies are so interconnected that attention must be paid to the effect of an increase of a million new permanent residents. More enforcement against immigration scams, particularly aimed at post-secondary students, and the over-reliance of those institutions on foreign students should be deterred. The implications of more migrants on a housing market, particularly in specific cities, means a need for more careful planning. All of this suggests that these new immigration targets cannot be viewed as merely an issue of welcoming more faces. It requires careful planning, which to date does not appear to be happening.

Source: Canada needs new immigrants, but must plan for the consequences

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

China needs foreign workers. So why won’t it embrace immigration?

2023/05/06 Leave a comment

Of interest:

For hundreds of years China could boast of having more people than any other country. The title became official in the 1950s, when the un began compiling such data. Such a large population conferred on China certain bragging rights. A huge labour supply also helped to boost its annual gdp growth, which has averaged close to 9% over the past three decades.

Last month China’s reign came to an end. India has overtaken it as the world’s most populous country. The demographic trends behind the shift have troubling implications for the new number two. China’s working-age population has been shrinking for a decade (see chart). Its population as a whole declined last year—and it is ageing rapidly. This is likely to hinder economic growth and create an enormous burden of care.

Yet when officials in Beijing mull solutions, one seems largely absent from the discussion: immigration. China has astonishingly few foreign-born residents. Of its 1.4bn people, around 1m, or just 0.1%, are immigrants. That compares with shares of 15% in America, 19% in Germany and 30% in Australia. Place it next to that of other Asian countries which also shun immigration and China’s total still looks measly. Foreigners constitute 2% of Japan’s population and 3% of South Korea’s. Even North Korea has a higher proportion of immigrants than China, according to the un.

China’s future economic and social needs resemble those that have made other societies recruit guest workers. In January the government released a list of 100 occupations, such as salesperson and cleaner, where there is a lack of staff. Over 80% of manufacturers faced labour shortages in 2022, according to one survey. Nearly half of China’s 400m blue-collar workers are aged over 40, reported a study in December. That is in line with an official estimate that China will have trouble filling nearly 30m manufacturing jobs by 2025.

An abundance of young and cheap workers once filled these openings. But as China ages and shrinks that supply of willing labour is drying up. Firms complain of a mismatch between the jobs sought by young people, an increasing number of whom have university degrees, and those available. Many young Chinese do not want to work in factories, laments China Daily, a party mouthpiece. That helps explain why nearly 20% of 16- to 24-year-olds in cities are unemployed.

Source: China needs foreign workers. So why won’t it embrace immigration?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Russia forces occupied Ukrainians to change citizenship

2023/05/06 Leave a comment

Citizenship warfare and erasing identity:

A convoy of empty buses sweeps into a town, alongside members of Russia’s domestic intelligence agency FSB. They cite a decree issued by the Russian president regarding the deportation of anyone without Russian citizenship from the occupied territories. “They radically demand that people either give up their Ukrainian passport in favor of a Russian one, or their property will be confiscated immediately and they will be resettled,” according to the Ukrainian military.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree according to which citizens of Ukraine living in the Russian-occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk who wish to keep their Ukrainian citizenship can only stay there until July 1, 2024. After that, they can be deported from those occupied regions.

“Constant threats”

DW spoke to people from the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions who confirmed that Ukrainians are being forced to take Russian passports. For security reasons, none of the people want to be named.

“Russian soldiers searched everything in our house. When I showed my Ukrainian passport, they shouted that I should change it for a Russian one, and that otherwise my car would be taken away, and I would be deported,” an elderly man from near Kherson said.

A woman from the Zaporizhzhia region was in tears as she recounted how Russian occupiers threatened to deport her young children to Russia if she didn’t immediately apply for a Russian passport.

Another woman was threatened by Russian soldiers who “put a bag over her head” because she refused to change citizenship. “We held out until the end, we didn’t want to accept a Russian passport. But it’s just unbearable and scary,” the woman from near the Azov Sea told DW.

Why the rush?

The first deputy chairman of the Kherson regional council, Yuriy Sobolevsky, said the pressure on the people living in the occupied territories has recently increased significantly. “Access to medical care and freedom of movement between cities will be restricted for those who refuse to accept Russian passports,” he said. He thinks the Russians are now resorting to terror because not as many people in those territories want to become Russian citizens as Moscow had hoped.

According to the British Ministry of Defense, Moscow apparently wants to speed up the integration of the occupied territories into Russia to sell the invasion of Ukraine as a success to its own people, particularly in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

But people are afraid of ending up in Russian databases, a young man from Khrustalnyi in the Luhansk region told DW. He’s from an area which has been occupied since as early as 2014. Many don’t know what to do. “More and more employers are demanding a Russian passport,” the young man explained. But anyone who applies for a Russian “residence permit” is handing themselves over to the occupying forces. Then there is also the risk of being drafted into the war.

Conflicting signals from Kyiv

Should people have a Russian passport forced on them or not? There are conflicting takes on this among Ukrainian politicians. Dmytro Lubinets, human rights commissioner in the Ukrainian parliament, said on TV that Ukrainians in the occupied territories should accept Russian passports if they fear for their lives. He stressed that Ukraine does not recognize such forced passports and that it would not mean that they lose their Ukrainian citizenship.

However, the Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, Mychajlo Podoljak, said Ukrainians should not accept Russian passports. “Do not cooperate with the occupiers, do not accept Russian passports, flee if possible or wait for our army,” she said on TV.

Life under occupation not a crime

“I’m ashamed and afraid to accept a Russian passport, but I’m also afraid of being deported,” said one desperate woman from the occupied part of the Kherson region. “We can’t leave, as the Ukrainian authorities advise us, because we have an old, sick mother.”

According to Alyona Lunyova from Ukraine’s ZMNINA Human Rights Center, the contradictory advice from Ukrainian officials is confusing people. She stressed that living under occupation is not a crime. “On the contrary, not everyone should leave the occupied territories, it shouldn’t become an empty country and we cannot take in four to five million people from there.” She added that it is not a crime to accept a Russian passport under duress.

Meanwhile, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Lubinets’ and Vereshchuk’s advice was not contradictory. He tweeted this advice for Ukrainians in the occupied territories: “If it is possible not to take a Russian passport, then try not to take one. But if you have to take a Russian passport to avoid oppression and torture, then take one.”

Podolyak stressed that Ukraine would not persecute citizens who “passively obtained Russian citizenship.”

Source: Russia forces occupied Ukrainians to change citizenship

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →