Hiebert: Canada’s Future Depends on Where Immigrants Settle, Not Just How Many Are Welcomed

2025/06/04 Leave a comment

 Good analysis by my friend Dan Hiebert noting the needed linkages between immigration and other policies:

Immigration alone cannot solve Canada’s regional and demographic challenges, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. Immigration must be paired with regional development; otherwise, Canada risks exacerbating the divide between fast- and slow-growth regions while placing even greater strain on already pressured large urban centres.

In “Fast vs. Slow: How Different Immigration Rates Can Impact Canada’s Economic Challenges and Regional Disparities,” Daniel Hiebert finds that regardless of the number of immigrants Canada welcomes, settlement patterns result in only modest population growth in slower-growth regions.

“Regionalization policies like Provincial Nominee Programs have helped newcomers to settle beyond the big three cities,” said Hiebert. “But the real test is whether they stay – secondary migration is pulling people right back into fast-growing areas.”

Hiebert argues that a multi-stage immigration process – such as beginning with temporary status – can help slower-growth regions retain newcomers by giving them time to build social and economic ties before settling permanently.

“If we’re judging the system by how well it supports all parts of the country, it’s coming up short,” Hiebert added. “Immigration can certainly help address Canada’s demographic challenges, but it’s not the only tool – we need broader regional development to make it work.”

The report emphasizes the need for Canada to pair immigration initiatives with broader efforts to strengthen local economic opportunities, access to services, and overall community attractiveness. It also outlines several policy recommendations to help slow-growth regions thrive, including investing in infrastructure, fast-tracking credentials, and supporting the growth of promising mid-sized cities that can absorb growth and ease pressure on major urban centres.

“With housing costs, productivity issues, and an ageing population dominating the national conversation, building growth and resilience across all regions has to be a top priority,” said Hiebert. “It’s not just about the number of newcomers we bring in – it’s about making sure they have the support and opportunities to thrive wherever they settle.”

Read the Full Report

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Immigration Canada rembourse certains frais quand les temps d’attente excèdent ses normes

2025/06/04 Leave a comment

Welcome change and accountability:

Alors que les délais d’attente de traitement en immigration font de plus en plus la manchette, Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC) dépense de plus en plus d’argent pour rembourser des immigrants après ne pas avoir respecté ses propres normes de service.

Cette mesure encore très peu connue a coûté 1,68 million de dollars au ministère fédéral l’an dernier, considérablement plus que l’année précédente, lors de laquelle seulement 72 000 $ avaient été déboursés. Cette politique, qui découle de la Loi sur les frais de service, n’est en vigueur que depuis 2021, et certains des services d’IRCC ne se sont ajoutés à la liste qu’en 2023. Les données pour 2024-2025 seront disponibles l’automne prochain, a indiqué un relationniste au Devoir.

Le remboursement est « automatique », c’est-à-dire que la personne qui a déposé un dossier n’a pas à le demander. « Toutefois, la délivrance peut prendre un certain temps », souvent « entre 2 à 8 semaines », indiquent plusieurs pages d’IRCC. La remise de frais déjà engagés n’est pas non plus à hauteur de 100 % : selon le nombre de jours excédant le délai affiché, ce sont 25 ou 50 % des frais qui sont renvoyés à l’expéditeur. Il s’agit donc, pour la plupart des bénéficiaires, de quelques dizaines ou centaines de dollars tout au plus.

« C’est du jamais vu en 15 ans de carrière », a commenté, surpris, l’avocat en immigration Maxime Lapointe. L’un de ses clients a récemment été avisé par courriel que le montant qu’il a payé à IRCC serait remboursé à 50 %. « Dans le contexte économique actuel, rembourser une partie des frais de traitement est contre-intuitif, car le travail des fonctionnaires est fait quand même », note-t-il.

Surtout, le « client » qui a entamé ces démarches « sort aussi échaudé de son expérience avec IRCC », poursuit Me Lapointe.

Ce ministère fédéral est souvent critiqué, notamment en raison de l’impossibilité de parler à un agent ou à la suite de refus sans demande de document supplémentaire.

Ces remboursements sont en fait si peu connus que deux associations qui représentent des immigrants ont confié au Devoir ne pas être au courant, et donc ne pas pouvoir commenter.

Source: Immigration Canada rembourse certains frais quand les temps d’attente excèdent ses normes

As immigration processing waits are making headlines, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is spending more and more money to reimburse immigrants after not meeting its own standards of service.

This measure, which is still very little known, cost the federal prosecutor’s office $1.68 million last year, considerably more than the previous year, when only $72,000 was disbursed. This policy, which stems from the Service Fees Act, has only been in effect since 2021, and some of the IRCC services were not added to the list until 2023. Data for 2024-2025 will be available next fall, a relations officer told Le Devoir.

The refund is “automatic”, i.e. the person who filed a file does not have to request it. “However, the delivery can take a certain time”, often “between 2 and 8 weeks”, indicate several pages of IRCC. The remission of expenses already incurred is also not up to 100%: depending on the number of days exceeding the posted deadline, 25 or 50% of the costs are returned to the sender. It is therefore, for most beneficiaries, a few tens or hundreds of dollars at most.

“This is unprecedented in 15 years of career,” commented immigration lawyer Maxime Lapointe, surprised. One of his clients was recently notified by email that the amount he paid to IRCC would be refunded at 50%. “In the current economic context, reimbursing part of the processing costs is counterintuitive, because the work of civil servants is done anyway,” he notes.

Above all, the “client” who started these procedures “also comes out scalded from his experience with IRCC,” continues Me Lapointe.

This federal ministry is often criticized, in particular because of the impossibility of speaking to an officer or as a result of refusal without requesting additional documentation.

These refunds are in fact so little known that two associations representing immigrants have told the Devoir that they are not aware, and therefore cannot comment.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Peter Csillag: Is ending the Temporary Foreign Worker Program a good idea? 

2025/06/03 Leave a comment

More reasonable assessment and approach than that of MP Jivani’s call to abolish the program complemely save for agriculture workers. And good question for policymakers and politicians to ponder and influence policy changes:

…A question for government policymakers would be how to incentivize the private sector to make large-scale training investments for underemployed Canadians, and just as importantly, how to make in-demand professions appealing for young adults and underemployed Canadians? There’s no single answer given that needs would vary across regions and sectors.

There are international examples that serve as a useful start. Germany has a dual education system integrating school-based learning with work-based practice. Approximately 52 percent of young Germans complete dual vocational education and training apprenticeships, and in many instances, they are offered long-term positions at the same companies where they trained. It maintains the country’s status as an industrial powerhouse while proactively addressing youth unemployment. Adopting such an approach would mean a longer timeline to wind down the TFW program, transitioning employers only gradually away from the program to minimize economic disruption.

For regional priority sectors, the answer may be a provincial role. Last year, the Government of Alberta launched a program specifically to transition temporary foreign workers in the tourism and hospitality industry to permanent residency. To support the province’s ambitious tourism growth agenda, the program allows qualified candidates, foreign workers already living and working in Alberta with a job offer from an Alberta tourism and hospitality employer, to apply under the provincially nominated immigration stream.

The unique challenges facing different regions and sectors mean that ending the TFW program cannot be done overnight, and not without a clear path for training workers and addressing regional economic challenges. But after decades of the program swinging between a “more and faster” and “Canadians first” pendulum, only to be left with the same structural problems and displaced Canadian workers, the time to have this discussion is now.

Source: Peter Csillag: Is ending the Temporary Foreign Worker Program a good idea?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

MPI: Seeking to Ramp Up Deportations, the Trump Administration Quietly Expands a Vast Web of Data

2025/06/03 Leave a comment

The surveillance state in action:

To help accomplish its aim of mass deportations, the Trump administration is tapping into numerous federal, state, and local databases at an unprecedented scale, and making more of them interoperable. The reach into and communication between information storehouses—including ones containing sensitive information about all U.S. residents’ taxes, health, benefits receipt, and addresses—allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other authorities to harvest, exchange, and share a vast trove of data. The aim of tapping government and commercial databases appears twofold: attempt to secure large-scale arrests and deportations of removable noncitizens, and instill a sense of fear so that others “self deport.”

The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), launched by Elon Musk, has played an oversized role in this data-leveraging mission, accessing sensitive databases across government agencies and breaking down long-standing silos erected for operational and privacy reasons. And the software company Palantir, a longtime ICE contractor, has been awarded a new contract initially for $30 million to build a “streamlined” database to aid immigration enforcement.

Palantir’s Immigration Lifecycle Operating System (ImmigrationOS) will add to an already formidable arsenal of data available to ICE, including from the private sector. The agency is believed to be among the largest government purchasers of commercial credit, utility, motor vehicle agency, and other information—including airline passenger data, according to recent reporting. By one estimate, in 2022 ICE was able to know the addresses of three out of four U.S. adults—citizen and noncitizen alike.

ICE was established as part of the U.S. counterterrorism and homeland security machinery that was expanded in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. While the post-9/11 enterprise was aimed at foreign terrorists, today’s principal enforcement mission across a range of government agencies is to assist the Trump administration’s quest to carry out 1 million deportations annually.

The government’s tapping into databases with sensitive personal information—including databases never before used for large-scale immigration enforcement, such as voter information—has raised alarm among civil libertarians and security experts, who fear the potential for privacy violations for all U.S. residents and possible exploitation by nefarious actors.

This article looks at the recent efforts to expand ICE’s domestic surveillance and arrest capabilities by giving it access to new databases to build a vast, interoperable data network that can be used for immigration enforcement purposes, with the possibility of future implications for U.S. citizens. It places the current moves within a 25-year legacy of information-sharing initiatives in the immigration realm…

Source: Seeking to Ramp Up Deportations, the Trump Administration Quietly Expands a Vast Web of Data

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Shang: America’s talented foreign students could find a home in Canada 

2025/06/03 2 Comments

No to tuition-fee discounts, however. Scholarships for the most talented yes. And the scaling back focus is mainly on the college sector, not on the university graduate students that we should aim to attract.

…Canadian policymakers and university administrators need to act boldly, and they need to act now. Outreach will be critical. This is the time to actively promote our universities as not just reputable, but reliable: institutions where academic freedom is protected, immigration pathways are stable, and world-class education leads to long-term opportunity. 

Strategic outreach to high school and university graduates must go beyond general recruitment. Instead, it should signal with clarity and ambition that Canada is ready to welcome the talent that once defaulted to America. Administratively, universities should simplify credit transfer systems for students wishing to shift mid-degree from the U.S. to Canada. Financially, there can be partial scholarships or tuition-fee discounts for U.S.-based international students affected by policy changes. This requires a rethink of our immigration policies, given that Canada has been scaling back student visas. The federal government, the provinces and university administrators should work together to fast-track visas for talented students. 

Recruiting efforts should not only be limited to students. Many world-renowned researchers and professors are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the instability and politicization of academia in America, and some have already chosen to move to Canadian institutions. Canadian universities can create new and accelerated tenure-track positions and lab relocation grants for such researchers.

An influx of world-class international students and academics would not only strengthen our research institutions but also bolster long-term innovation, entrepreneurship, and workforce competitiveness. Their integration into Canadian society contributes to demographic renewal, economic growth, and the global standing of our universities.

Source: America’s talented foreign students could find a home in Canada

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Trump’s $5 million Gold Card offers the rich a fast lane to residency

2025/06/03 Leave a comment

Good assessment of this harebrained scheme, unlikely to attract the worthy. Lack of details on how it would work also cause for concern. Silver’s comment at the end sounds about right:

Lawyers’ phones are ringing with wealthy foreigners wanting to know more about how to score a “Gold Card” – a glorified green card that would allow them to live and work in the U.S. without going through the usual hassle or red tape. Apparently, the card’s $5 million price tag is not scaring off the jet-setters looking to make the U.S. home. Or at least one of their homes.

“$5 million to these people is jet fuel cost. It means nothing to them,” says Matthew Kolken, an immigration lawyer from Buffalo, NY, who has Canadian clients asking about the Gold Card. The clients declined to comment, but Kolken says he thinks the Gold Card is underpriced, if anything, considering the time and hassle it would save foreign multi-millionaires.

“It allows them to potentially buy their way into the United States,” says Kolken. “They would just be able to throw down their Amex Black Card.”

And plenty are interested.

“I have one from India, one from Pakistan, and two from Egypt. And a colleague who has a few [clients] from Russia,” says immigration attorney Mona Shah. Most are drawn to the offer of an express lane to permanent residency, plus more favorable tax implications; foreign nationals living in the U.S. on a Gold Card would only be taxed on their U.S. earnings.

Shah says the security — and the status — of being able to flash that “Gold Card” to get waved into the U. S. is also a big draw, as well as what Trump has described as “privileges – plus.” The president hasn’t elaborated on what that means, but Shah says clients are imagining VIP perks that range from easy loans to a special fast-track lane through Customs at U.S. airports.

“They seem to believe that this is going to be some kind of separating first class from economy class, and that this is some kind of ‘red carpet’ visa and they will be treated like a VIP everywhere,” says Shah.

But whether any such perks – or obligations – will come with the Gold Card remains far from clear, and the administration is not offering any more details some three months after President Donald Trump first started hyping the idea.

“It’s a great thing, the Gold Card. Remember the words ‘the Gold Card!'” he proclaimed to reporters in the Oval Office in February. “Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people. And we think it’s going to be extremely successful, never been done before anything like this.”

Trump added that he’d be happy to call it the “Trump Gold Card.” In fact officials say a government website is now using the name TrumpCard.gov, and Trump has since revealed a sample card with a picture of his face on the front.

Trump has said the proceeds of the Gold Card would go to help pay down the budget deficit, and possibly even chip away at the massive $36.2 trillion national debt.

“We’ll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that,” Trump said. “A million cards would be worth $5 trillion. And if you sell 10 million of the cards, that’s a total of $50 trillion. We have $35 trillion in debt. That’d be nice.”

But most immigration experts and attorneys see that figure as wildly unrealistic. They expect sales to be in the low thousands.

Immigration lawyer Darren Silver says he’s received a flurry of calls about the Gold Card, but interest wanes as soon as he explains this program is not like the existing EB-5 visa program, which requires an investment of something closer to $1 million in a business that creates jobs or $800,000 for investments in a lower-income ‘targeted employment area.’

Silver says his clients are surprised when he tells them the Gold Card is not an investment that might offer any returns. It’s effectively just a donation.

“I had to explain to them, ‘you’re gifting the U.S. government $5 million. That’s all you’re doing.'” says Silver. “And once I explain that to them, they’re out.”

Source: Trump’s $5 million Gold Card offers the rich a fast lane to residency

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Snubbing Trump, Immigration Nominee Would End Student Practical Training

2025/06/02 Leave a comment

Similar to PGWP in Canada. Our daughter benefited from OPT following her graduation:

Even though President Donald Trump has said international students should receive green cards after graduating from U.S. universities, a nominee to head the nation’s immigration service says he wants to stop foreign students from working after graduation.

Joseph Edlow, the president’s nominee for director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said he would do this by ending Optional Practical Training. Economists, business leaders and educators have said that ending post-graduation OPT and STEM OPT would halt America’s best programs for attracting and retaining international talent.

Immigration Nominee Offers Negative Views On International Students Working In America

During a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Edlow made statements certain to alarm universities, technology companies and international students.

“I think the way in which OPT has been handled over the past four years, with the help of certain decisions coming out of the D.C. Circuit Court, have been a real problem in terms of misapplication of the law,” Edlow said in response. “What I want to see would be essentially a regulatory and sub-regulatory program that would allow us to remove the ability for employment authorizations for F-1 students beyond the time that they are in school.” (Emphasis added. The exchange occurs at about 1 hr., 45 min of the linked video.)

According to the Institute of International Education, in the 2023/24 academic year, 163,452 international students engaged in post-completion OPT and 79,330 were in STEM OPT — a total of 242,782. Limiting employment authorization for OPT or STEM OPT to when students carry their full course load would cause these numbers to plummet and significantly reduce the number of international students who gain H-1B status, including by eliminating STEM OPT, which follows the completion of OPT.

The Immigration Regulatory Threats To OPT And STEM OPT

Optional Practical Training allows international students to work for 12 months in their major course of study before or after completing their course requirements. STEM OPT allows students to gain practical experience through working an additional 24 months (beyond OPT) in a science, technology, engineering or math field.

Educators consider OPT and STEM OPT essential because practical training benefits students’ education and encourages them to enroll in U.S. universities. The additional 24 months in STEM OPT also allows employers a much better opportunity to secure an H-1B petition for students. Business trade associations participated in the D.C. Circuit case on STEM OPT as intervenors due to their interests in the litigation’s outcome, as did approximately 150 colleges, universities and related organizations.

Source: Snubbing Trump, Immigration Nominee Would End Student Practical Training

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

ICYMI: Ontario unveils changes to provincial immigration nominee program

2025/06/02 Leave a comment

Of note:

Ontario has introduced changes to its popular provincial immigration program to meet evolving economic needs.

On Wednesday, the government tabled new legislation which, if passed, will give the provincial immigration minister the ability to establish or remove immigrant nomination streams to quickly respond to the changing job market and labour demand.

The proposed changes to the provincial immigration program would also:

•Allow officials to return applications that no longer match current job market needs or raise concerns;

•Grant inspectors the authority to require in-person interviews with applicants through the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program, to improve program integrity and prevent fraudulent claims;

•Further digitalize the application process by letting employers hoping to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residence submit applications directly and electronically to a new employer portal, starting this summer.

These are among 18 new proposed measures in the Working for Workers Seven Act, 2025 that the Conservative government hopes to adopt to meet changing economic needs and build a stronger workforce.

“We’re proposing changes that will prepare workers and businesses for the jobs of the future, while helping workers facing impacts from U.S. tariffs and economic uncertainty,” said David Piccini, minister of labour, immigration, training and skills development, in a statement.

“This package underscores our unwavering commitment to protecting our province’s most valuable resource — our workers.”…

Source: Ontario unveils changes to provincial immigration nominee program

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

How the Supreme Court Made Legal Immigrants Vulnerable to Deportation

2025/06/02 Leave a comment

The US keeps on making it harder to justify maintaining the STCA:

The government knows their names.

Their fingerprints have been scanned into government computers. The Department of Homeland Security knows where most of them live, because the immigrants in question — more than 500,000 of them — reside in the United States legally.

But two new Supreme Court decisions have left them open to deportation, an abrupt turn for a population that has been able to remain in the country by using legal pathways for people facing war and political turmoil at home.

“Thousands of people — especially Haitians, Cubans and Venezuelans — instantly shift from ‘lawfully present’ to ‘deportable,’” said Jason Houser, a former official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Biden administration.

Now, with their protections revoked while legal challenges move through lower courts, many immigrants have found themselves in a vulnerable position. Because so many of them have shared detailed information with the government, including addresses, biometrics and the names of their sponsors, they could be easy to track down at a moment when the Trump administration is looking for ways to deport people quickly.

Whether and how aggressively the administration might move to begin rounding up people whose legal protections have been revoked remains unclear, though officials signaled several months ago that they feel they have the authority to do so.

“It’s chaotic and unnecessary, and we’re already receiving panicked calls and emails, and the crescendo will only grow,” said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, an immigrant advocacy group that has challenged last week’s rulings in court.

“The Supreme Court has effectively greenlit deportation orders for an estimated half a million people, the largest such de-legalization in the modern era,” she said.

The Supreme Court acted in both cases on emergency applications by the Trump administration, which has pushed for more arrests and deportations, even for people who are in the United States legally. The administration argues that some immigration programs are being abused and allow people into the country who would otherwise be turned away.

The court gutted two such programs in the last couple of weeks, humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status, which together have shielded more than a half-million people from deportation. The decisions were unsigned and gave no reasoning, which is typical of emergency proceedings….

Source: How the Supreme Court Made Legal Immigrants Vulnerable to Deportation

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Newer posts →