Lost for words: One in every 20 Torontonians can’t speak English or French, study finds

2018/07/10 Leave a comment

Interesting data, although it appears that in percentage terms, no significant change. As one would expect, lack of official language more prevalent among seniors, women, and low-income.

Will be including this data in my upcoming riding-based analysis:

One in 20 Torontonians can’t speak English or French and the language barrier has greatly impeded their ability to find a job, be active in the community and enjoy a decent life, says a new study.

More than 132,700 Toronto residents are unable to have a conversation in either official language and they account for 20.5 per cent of the 648,970 non-English and non-French-speaking population across Canada, according to the Social Planning Toronto report which is believed to be the first ever to profile this cohort.

Census data collected between 1996 and 2016 found the number of people without knowledge of either official language has increased by more than 175,000 in Canada over the two decades, though it fluctuated only slightly as a percentage of the total population. In Toronto, the number of people who don’t speak English or French shrank by 10,000 in the same period.

In the GTA, Toronto’s percentage of non-English and non-French speakers ranks second to York Region (5.6 per cent) and is followed by Peel (4 per cent), Hamilton (1.8 per cent) and Durham (0.8 per cent).

Within the city, this population mostly resides in the west end of North York, throughout the former city of York, in the old city of Toronto and in northwestern Scarborough, which alone is home to more than 30,000 residents with no English or French.

The report found a total of 43.5 per cent of Toronto residents who do not speak an official language reported a Chinese language as their mother tongue, followed by Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Tamil, Vietnamese, Korean, Persian, Russian and Arabic. These residents also tend to live in areas where their mother tongue is common, it said.

“There is a range of diversity within the group, but we have an overrepresentation of seniors and women who don’t speak English or French,” said Peter Clutterbuck, interim executive director of Social Planning Toronto, a non-profit group that works to improve equity, social justice and quality of life. “You can’t get employment without some capacity of an official language or access services if you are unable to communicate with others. It limits your ability to be active in the community and to feel connected.”

The report, titled Talking Access & Equity, said women and girls make up almost 60 per cent of Toronto residents who speak neither official language, though they only account for 51.9 per cent of the city’s population.

While only 15.6 per cent of Toronto residents are 65 and above, 44.6 per cent of the city’s non-English, non-French-speaking population belong to this age group.

The report said both women and seniors are more likely to come to Canada as dependants and hence may lack the same official-language skills required of the principal applicants or sponsors.

Fahmeeda Qureshi was sponsored by her husband to Canada from Pakistan in 1972 when she was 18, and never attended English classes because she was busy caring for her three children, parents and in-laws.

“I was too busy to learn English because I had to look after everyone else,” said the now 66-year-old, who spoke little English when she arrived and later picked up the language informally from her husband and children. “It is very important to learn English so you can communicate and do anything you want and be independent.”

Robert Koil, who came to Canada in 1992 and later founded a Tamil seniors group in Rexdale, said older immigrants without English proficiency are forced to rely on their children in their day-to-day lives as they’re often isolated from the world outside of their family.

“They don’t know other people and need help for mobility issues and health issues,” said Koil, 88, whose group organizes monthly seminars and meetings at Rexdale Women’s Centre for non-English-speaking Tamil seniors about health, diet and well-being.

“They speak in their mother tongue at home, stay with their children and are afraid to speak English because they are embarrassed by their English,” added Koil, who unlike many of the people he helps, spoke flawless English when he arrived in Canada.

Jenny Huang moved to Canada from China in 2009 with her daughter and husband.

“I only started learning English in junior high (in China) and knew just a few English words when I came,” Huang said in Cantonese. “I go to English classes but it’s hard to learn a new language as an adult. I can understand better than I speak.”

With limited English, Huang said she also has limited job opportunities and gets by working in restaurants and garment factories.

The report found 35.7 per cent of Torontonians with no English or French had a household income below the poverty line compared to 20.2 per cent of residents overall. The unemployment rate for residents without official-language ability was three percentage points higher than the Toronto average.

Source: Lost for words: One in every 20 Torontonians can’t speak English or French, study finds

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Millions denied citizenship due to ideas of national, ethnic or racial ‘purity’: UN rights expert

2018/07/07 Leave a comment

Good statement, even if the HRC is fundamentally dysfunctional:

E. Tendayi Achiume, Special Rapporteur on racism, focused on the issue of ethno-nationalism in her first report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, whose current session ends on Friday.

In it, she highlighted the plight of millions of stateless people worldwide—often members of minority groups—who are victims of long-standing discrimination which sees them as “foreign”, even though they have been resident in a country for generations or even centuries.

Meanwhile, several countries continue to enforce “patriarchal laws” which make it impossible for women to pass down citizenship status to their children or foreign-born spouse.

In some cases, women are even stripped of their nationality upon marrying a foreigner and cannot regain it if the marriage ends.

“This is gender-based discrimination often deployed by States to preserve notions of national, ethnic and racial ‘purity,’” she said.

Ms. Achiume believes prejudice rooted in ethno-nationalism is behind racial discrimination, whether in citizenship or immigration laws.

She recalled that in the past, European colonial powers used the ideology to exclude local populations within colonies from gaining citizenship, while Jews and Roma were targeted on the same grounds, in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Today, she said, migrants are the target of political hate speech and intolerance, again often under the pretext of ethnic purity and religious, cultural or linguistic preservation.

“Countries that have long celebrated immigration as central to their national identity have taken steps to vilify and undermine immigration, with a disproportionate effect on certain racial, religious and national groups,” Ms. Achiume pointed out.

“Islamophobic or anti-Semitic ethno-nationalism undermines the rights of Muslims and Jews irrespective of citizenship status…the case of the Rohingya Muslims offers a chilling example.”

The Rohingya are a mostly Muslim minority in Myanmar, which is a predominantly Buddhist nation.

Though resident there for centuries, Ms. Achiume said many Rohingya have been rendered stateless following a 1982 nationality law that discriminates on the basis of ethnicity.

Waves of violence and discrimination have driven scores of Rohingya to neighbouring Bangladesh. More than 700,000 have arrived in the past year alone in the wake of a violent military crackdown that began in late August.

Source: Millions denied citizenship due to ideas of national, ethnic or racial ‘purity’: UN rights expert

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US Army Is Discharging Immigrants Who Were Promised Citizenship

2018/07/07 Leave a comment

Ironically, Canada was inspired by the US in 2014’s C-24 citizenship legislation to provide a comparable path, one maintained by the current government:

The military is booting out immigrant reservists and recruits who enlisted with the promise of a path to citizenship, according to a AP report. Some said they are being discharged with little warning or explanation, and the Army and Pentagon said they could not comment due to pending litigation.

Last week Lucas Calixto, a Brazilian reservist who came to the U.S. when he was 12, filed a lawsuit against the Army, alleging that he was offered no reason for his discharge aside from “personnel security,” and given no chance to defend himself.

Immigration attorneys told the AP they know of around 40 other people who have been discharged under similar circumstances, or whose status is now questionable.

Immigrants have served in the U.S. military since the Revolutionary War, and there are roughly 10,000 serving currently. The immigrants facing discharge all enrolled in recent years as part of the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, or MAVNI. The recruiting program, which was started under the George W. Bush administration, offered expedited naturalization to immigrants with much needed skills, including military specialists and people fluent in certain languages.

MAVNI came under attack from conservatives when President Obama made DACA recipients eligible, so the military added additional security clearances for recruits. The Trump administration added even more requirements, creating a screening backlog at the Defense Department. Last fall the Pentagon abruptly canceled the contracts of hundreds of immigrants still in the recruitment process, and a few months later the program was suspended.

GOP Congressman Andy Harris, who backed legislation to limit the program, said it should have been established by Congress, not via executive order. “Our military must prioritize enlisting American citizens, and restore the MAVNI program to its specialized, limited scope,” he said.

Immigrants must have legal status to enroll in the military, but now some fear that in addition to losing their military career they could lose their immigration status. An Iranian citizen with a graduate degree in engineering, who was recently discharged, told the AP that he was proud he was “pursuing everything legally and living an honorable life.”

“It’s terrible because I put my life in the line for this country, but I feel like I’m being treated like trash,” he said. “If I am not eligible to become a U.S. citizen, I am really scared to return to my country.”

Source: US Army Is Discharging Immigrants Who Were Promised Citizenship

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Why India’s new citizenship law is so controversial – and why some regions are angrier than others

2018/07/06 Leave a comment

Interesting read and analysis on shift from jus soli to jus sanguinis:

Citizens of India’s north-eastern states have been protesting vigorouslyagainst a proposed new citizenship regime that they claim will “destroy their culture” in the region. The protests have been diverse and dramatic – petitions, hunger strikes, effigy-burning, a rebel militant group threatening to end talks with the Indian state.

The source of their anger is the Citizenship Amendment Bill, first tabled in the lower house of the Indian Parliament in 2016. It is set to change the Citizenship Act of 1955, which has formed the basis of India’s citizenship regime since it gained independence from the British Empire in 1947. The amendment seeks to allow select “persecuted minorities” (Hindus, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhist and Jains) from the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan citizenship status in India after six years of residency. Other groups must wait 11 years to become naturalised citizens.

In the north-eastern states, the fear is that this amendment would legitimise migration of Hindus from neighbouring Bangladesh in particular, potentially affecting the demographic make-up of the region.

When the bill’s parliamentary committee began touring the north-east in May, protests grew steadily larger, stronger and more widespread. As almost 99% of their boundaries are international borders, the citizens of these states have been quick to point out that they would be the first “victims” of the new amendment if it makes it easier for minority immigrants to travel across the border, settle in and become full citizens. The complaints are loudest in the state of Assam, which has waged a four decade struggle against the Indian state to prevent what some there call“unchecked infiltration” from neighbouring Bangladesh.

The committee’s decision to visit the north-east – and the media coverage of the protests – have framed this as a north-eastern issue, not a national concern. But in fact, the Citizenship Amendment Bill will change the character of citizenship not just for this region, but for India as a whole.

Birthright and blood

When India achieved independence, its citizenship regime was established on the basis of jus soli (birth within a territory), meaning that people were members of the political community regardless of their religion or ethnicity. While mistrust of Muslims has persisted into present-day India, particularly in recent years with growing Hindu right-wing populism, the law has so far upheld the secular, non-religious character of the Indian state. The Citizenship Amendment Bill would fundamentally alter this basic tenet, shifting the basis of citizenship towards jus sanguinis (by right of blood).

But, as historians such as Joya Chatterjiand Ornit Shani have documented, there have been frequent challenges to the principle of citizenship by birth – especially in the period immediately after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.

In contrast to Muslims, Hindus were from the start considered “natural citizens” of India. Muslim citizens of pre-independence India were ostensibly given a choice between the two countries, but in practice they were subjected to arbitrary processes to “prove” their loyalty to the Indian state. Similar demands were not made of Hindu citizens crossing the border from the newly-formed Pakistan back into India.

Regardless of which states or regions would be most affected by a sizeable influx of migrants, the bill changes the character of Indian citizenship and the basis on which it is granted, moving from secular to overtly favouring specific groups – particularly Hindus. It opens the door for the creation of second-class citizenship for non-Hindus and most of all Muslims – not just in the extra-legal practices of discrimination and violence that exist today, but in the law.

Slipping away

Given that India repeatedly fails its own minorities, perhaps it’s not surprising that it is only prepared to offer refuge and asylum on the basis of ethnicity, not humanitarian need. It’s no coincidence that this amendment was introduced by the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, which has an abysmal track record in protecting India’s minorities, whether they are Muslims, Christians or Dalits. Nor has it shown any inclination to help rehabilitate South Asia’s largest persecuted minority, the Rohingya.

Furthermore, the bill also leaves out Muslim minorities in Pakistan, such as Shias and Ahmadis. There is also speculation about whether the bill is a means to appease India’s Hindu diaspora abroad – an important funding base for the ruling party.

Even the relatively hardline BJP is not immune to public resistance. The protests in the north-east prompted India’s government to backtrack and table discussions to address what it euphemistically referred to as “people’s concerns”. But by framing the amendment as a regional issue, the government has managed to confine public opposition to the people of the north-east. Because the region is already marginalised in Indian politics, the rest of the country is often apathetic about its concerns, which rarely become pan-Indian ones.

Still, that the citizens of the north-east are protesting so vehemently – whatever their precise grievances – is currently the only sign of dissent. Unless it feels the heat of visible and vocal public outrage, the Indian state is likely to continue its slide towards becoming a very different, less inclusive, and increasingly more unjust country.

Source: Why India’s new citizenship law is so controversial – and why some regions are angrier than others

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with ,

Citizenship law makes Canadian dad’s kids non-citizens

2018/07/04 1 Comment

A known consequence of C-37 and the replacement of complicated to communicate and administer retention provisions by the straightforward first generation limit (prompted in part by the Lebanese evacuation of Lebanese Canadian citizens with minimal connection to Canada).

Like many policy choices, the focus was on addressing the vast majority of cases (“Canadians of convenience” as the Conservatives called them) with the knowledge that those caught in the situation of the Chandlers having the option to sponsor their children as immigrants and become naturalized after meeting the residency requirements.

But I would hope that cases such as these would be processed as quickly as possible.

And the solution is never as simple as Don Chapman states, given documentation and administrative challenges:

A citizenship rule designed to stop people with no connections to Canada from taking advantage of Canadian citizenship has kept a Vancouver dad from his kids for months.

Patrick Chandler was stunned to learn that he – a Canadian citizen – wasn’t able to pass on his citizenship to his four-year-old and nine-year-old kids, who were born in China while he was working there.

That’s kept the family from following him to his new job in B.C. for seven months as Chandler follows the Canadian government’s advice: sponsor your own children as immigrants.

“I couldn’t be there. I would have loved to be there,” Chandler said, while showing videos of his kids, Rachel and Ryan, in dancing and swimming lessons sent to him by his wife Fiona. “I’ve been missing a lot in these last few months.”

It’s a problem that could ensnare professional, jet-setting parents whose jobs send them around the globe.

Chandler was born in Libya while his parents were teaching there. His parents returned to the Lower Mainland when he was two years old. He left for China when he was in his late teens.

“In my opinion, Canada has always been my home,” he said.

But his birth in Libya came to haunt him with a change to citizenship rules in 2009. According to the new rule, the first children born abroad to a Canadian would keep their citizenship. But a second generation born abroad won’t be.

The goal of the Conservative government was to cut down on the spectre of people with little connection to Canada passing on their citizenship indefinitely.

Rachel was born three months after that law passed. Unaware, Chandler attempted to get her documents filed at the Canadian embassy in Beijing.

“(The worker) starts stamping the documents and says at the very last second, ‘Wait. You weren’t born in Canada. She’s not born in Canada. She’s not allowed to get Canadian citizenship.’ I said, ‘What’s going on?’” he remembered.

Rachel could not be Chinese because of that country’s rules about registering births. She could have been stateless, but her father, whose father is Irish, found the government of Ireland willing to grant citizenship.

Their second child, Ryan, was registered and is a Chinese national. But not having Canadian children was a major impediment to returning home, Chandler said.

It’s a problem that should have all Canadian expatriates paying attention, said Don Chapman, an advocate of people who Canadian citizenship law leaves in the lurch.

“How many Canadians are in this situation? How many Canadians are working overseas? They’ve had nine years to produce babies. There are a lot of people in this boat and they don’t even know it,” Chapman said.

The solution is simple, Chapman said: amend the law so that a Canadian born abroad automatically regains the right to have Canadian children after spending three years in the country. That’s the same length of time that it takes for permanent residents to become citizens.

Those new citizens can go on to have Canadian citizen children when in foreign countries, Chapman said, while Canadians who have been citizens since their birth in a foreign country do not have that right or any way to get it.

Last year a job opened up in the B.C. government, and Chandler and his family decided to make the move. The federal government suggested that the way he could get his children to Canada was to sponsor them as immigrants.

Chandler completed the paperwork, but hasn’t been approved yet, though he has some indications that approval could be near.

Source: Citizenship law makes Canadian dad’s kids non-citizens

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Citizenship application backlog ‘skyrocketed’ under Trump, report finds

2018/07/04 Leave a comment

Not surprising, whether deliberate or due to incompetence:

The backlog of pending applications for immigrants legally in the country trying to become U.S. citizens has “skyrocketed” under President Donald Trump, according to a new report from an immigrant rights organization.

There were nearly 730,000 pending naturalization applications as of the end of last year, a more than 87 percent increase since 2015 under President Barack Obama, according to the report from the National Partnership for New Americans, an alliance of immigrants’ rights groups.

“The Trump admin has built a second wall that prevents legal immigrants in the U.S. from becoming voting U.S. citizens,” Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the partnership, told NBC News.

He said the backlog at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services means processing rates have reached as high as 20 months, raising concerns in a critical mid-term election year that some people will be unable to vote. Last year, over 925,000 people applied for U.S. citizenship, according to the report.

“They may be waiting for as much of 20 months after submitting a 21-page application, paid the $730 fee, submitted their fingerprints for a security a check and then sat and waited to take an exam,” he said.

As of Dec. 31, 2015, under Obama, the backlog was 388,832, according to the report.

“This is either absolute gross incompetence affecting close to a million legal immigrants who want to become U.S. citizens, or it is an intentional second wall that is designed to slow the pace at which lawfully present immigrants can become voters,” he said.

The report also found that certain states saw “enormous spikes” in denials of citizenship applications in the last quarter, noting changes in Alabama, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Utah.

From Oct. 1, 2017, to the end of last December, the backlog increased in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and several 19 states, including Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Utah, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin, according to the report.

The states with the largest increase in pending applications over the last fiscal year included Utah with an increase of more than 53 percent, Texas with an increase of over 50 percent and Washington with over 46 percent, according to the report.

A United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) spokesman strongly contested the reports findings Monday afternoon.

“The truth is that the total number of people the U.S. naturalizes each year has remained virtually unchanged. What we’re looking at is a dishonest and desperate attempt by open borders advocates to undermine the work of Homeland Security officials, law enforcement and the administration to protect the integrity of our immigration system and uphold the rule of law,” said spokesman Michael Bars in a statement. “The current pending workload does not equate to a backlog — it’s a statistic used in the USCIS report to include every application for naturalization filed including those filed in recent days and weeks — and is being inaccurately portrayed as evidence of delays”

“Many of these cases, which can remain pending from one quarter to the next, are well within the processing time goal established by the agency with variances being a direct result of geography and capacity. USCIS will continue to process all applications and petitions in a judicious and comprehensive manner and will do so as efficiently and expeditiously as possible in accordance with the law,” he added. “We reject the inaccurate claims of those fundamentally opposed to this effort.”

The agency naturalizes approximately 700,00 to 750,000 as citizens a year, according to USCIS, and naturalized 716,000 people in fiscal year 2017.

The partnership announced the report’s findings later Monday at a news teleconference with Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill., and other immigrant rights groups.

The members of Congress also sent a congressional sign-on letter asking the director of USCIS to explain the backlogs and would call for congressional hearings and legal action to address the backlog,

The backlog was denying potential citizens the right to vote, and also left some at risk for potential deportation under Trump’s policies while their applications are pending, said Gutiérrez.

“The rules have changed — legal permanent residency does not protect you from deportation under Donald Trump,” he said. “People want to participate in the democratic process, they also want to protect themselves.”

Angelica Salas, executive director of the immigrant advocacy group the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), said, “More and more every day you have a situation in which legal permanent residents, even for minor violations decades old, are being visited by ICE.”

Salas said during the teleconference that their naturalization campaign for 2018 was looking towards the 2020 elections to support legal residents seeking the right to vote, despite the “insurmountable hurdles they face.”

“If you want to vote in November of 2020, you’ve basically got to apply in the next 60 to 90 days. That is something unconscionable,” he said during the teleconference.

Hoyt said the advocates were also working with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, for a mayoral sign-on letter. Sign-on letters are used by lawmakers to come together and express a view on a policy or political matter. He added that the group was planning to file a Freedom of Information Act request looking for internal communications and numbers regarding the backlog.

USCIS did face a higher backlog after Obama was first elected, Hoyt said, but officials worked to curb that backlog to about 8 or 9 months.

Hoyt said his advocacy group has been tracking the backlog of citizenship applications for years and had never seen numbers like this.

He noted that while the backlog is ongoing, USCIS has launched an office focusing on identifying Americans suspected to have used fraudulent means to get their citizenship — and then strip them of it.

USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna told The Associated Press the agency is hiring dozens of lawyers and immigration officers to review cases and look for immigrants who were ordered deported and then used fake identities to later obtain green cards and eventually citizenship.

“We finally have a process in place to get to the bottom of all these bad cases and start denaturalizing people who should not have been naturalized in the first place,” Cissna said. “What we’re looking at, when you boil it all down, is potentially a few thousand cases.”

Hoyt said the move was a poor use of resources considering the current backlog.

“They’re not paying attention to their core responsibility of processing people in a timely manner,” Hoyt said. “Instead they’re on a witch hunt to try to denaturalize citizens who have been here for over 20 years.”

Salas said denaturalizations were very uncommon in the past.

Authorities would have to “demonstrate high, high levels of violation of any type in order for a person to be denaturalized,” she said. “It was something that was very, very rare.”

Source: Citizenship application backlog ‘skyrocketed’ under Trump, report finds

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Indigenous woman fights to stay in Canada, saying traditional territory is B.C.

2018/07/03 Leave a comment

Interesting case, one that requires joint agreement by the USA and Canada to address, and for that reason, unlikely in the post 9/11 security environment and the overall Trump administration to immigration and citizenship:

A First Nations woman working to revive a threatened language in her traditional territory of northern British Columbia says she’s being forced to leave the country on Canada Day.

Mique’l Dangeli belongs to the Tsimshian First Nation, whose territory straddles the border between Alaska and British Columbia. She says Canada won’t recognize her right to live and work in B.C. because she was born on the American side of the Annette Island Indian Reserve.

She said her visa expires July 1.

“For me, what I consider home is my home community and my people’s traditional territory, which is northern B.C.,” she said. “We’re not immigrants to our people’s traditional territory.”

Dangeli gave up a tenure-track position with the University of Alaska Southeast to teach 65 students how to speak Sm’algyax in the community of Kitsumkalum, just outside of Terrace, because there are so few fluent speakers remaining.

‘I’ve shed a lot of tears’

She says she hasn’t said goodbye to her students yet because it’s too difficult.

“I’ve shed a lot of tears with my elders and family but I don’t want to do that with my students. They’re so young and their love for the language is my inspiration and solace. I wouldn’t have the strength to fight this battle if I didn’t see where the hope truly lies, which is within my students,” she said.

After having two express entry applications for permanent residency fail, Dangeli has started a petition calling on the Canadian government to reciprocate the Jay Treaty, which was signed between the United States and Britain in 1794. The treaty allows status Indians born in Canada, who also have 50 per cent blood quantum, to live and work in the U.S.

Canada does not recognize the agreement as binding because it never codified it.

“The colonial border between the U.S. and Canada dissects Indigenous territories in ways that sever the lifelines between First Nation families, communities, languages and ceremonies,” Dangeli’s petition says.

Dangeli says she considered applying for Indian status in Canada, but learned the two-year process hinged on the baptismal record of her great-great-great grandmother in Prince Rupert, B.C., in the 1860s.

“So if she decided not to convert to Christianity I would not be considered an Indian under the Indian Act. The whole process is about one colonial institution affirming the power of another. It has nothing to do with our inherent Indigenous rights that predate colonial law,” Dangeli said.

Border issues unresolved

The federal government has been working to resolve border issues for First Nations but has not reached a solution. In December 2016, it appointed Fred Caron to examine the issue as a special representative of the minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs.

Caron met with representatives from more than 100 First Nations between January and August 2017, submitting a report to a committee of senior federal officials that is charged with developing a plan for addressing the border-crossing issues.

“Among the issues highlighted in Mr. Caron’s report, and that are being examined by the committee of senior officials, are questions relating to the important cultural and family connections between First Nations in Canada and native American communities in the United States,” Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada said in a statement.

The government will discuss next steps on the file with First Nations in the coming months, after the committee submits its recommendations, it said.

“The government is committed to working in partnership with First Nations to address their Canada-United States border crossing concerns,” the department said.

Although the Jay Treaty is historic, Canadian institutions are increasingly choosing to honour it, said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, a law professor with the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia and inaugural director of the school’s Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre.

She gave the example of Vancouver Island University, which offers domestic tuition for American Indigenous students who would fall under the treaty.

Border issues have most commonly arisen in Eastern Canada, she said, where communities like the Akwesasne First Nation cross three borders between Ontario, Quebec and New York.

Some are looking for solutions, like Mohawk leaders who called for a special identification card that would ease the border crossing, which hasn’t been granted, she said.

Practical solution wanted

“Indigneous people have been coming forward and saying let’s work this out in a practical way,” she said.

“It’s a case where Canada is actually behind.”

Toronto lawyer Sara Mainville says border issues have been common in Eastern Canada and some First Nations leaders have taken it upon themselves to set up meetings with customs and immigration officials so their community members don’t run into any problems, since Canada isn’t honouring the Jay Treaty.

In 2006, her own community of the Couchiching First Nation sanctioned the adoption of the husband of one of its members who was born on the American side of the Anishnaabe territory, because he needed medical care and Canada wouldn’t recognize his rights to the territory.

Mainville pointed to Canada’s commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as something that gives Dangeli’s argument more weight, because it specifically says Indigenous Peoples divided by international borders have a right to maintain contact with their own members.

For Dangeli’s part, she says she hopes her situation is resolved as soon as possible, especially given the critical state of the language.

“This is my heart and soul and the work is very much needed within our nation.”

Source: Indigenous woman fights to stay in Canada, saying traditional territory is B.C.

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Citizenship is the new caste system

2018/06/27 Leave a comment

While large written in the US and European contexts, her questions at the end are worth pondering:

Lord Salisbury, one of England’s great conservative leaders, was an unapologetic snob. Looking out over the European landscape in 1862, he saw that the aristocracy was collapsing, and this seemed to him like a catastrophe for all of civilization. How, he wondered, could common morals and high culture be maintained without the support of patricians? Who would govern when no one had been groomed for leadership? What chaos might ensue in a world where people had no clear sense of their proper roles and obligations? “Political equality is not merely a folly — it is a chimera,” he concluded. “It is idle to discuss whether it ought to exist; for, as a matter of fact, it never does.”

Americans read these complaints and scoff. We like to think we’ve transcended this kind elitism. Here in America, we prioritize content of character, not circumstances of birth. In this country, your fortunes depend on what you can do, not on some inherited pedigree.

That, at any rate, is our national myth. Unfortunately, it’s not really true, in this nation or any other. Democratic ideals may have swept the globe so totally that even totalitarians now pay lip-service to them, yet our world is in some respects more ruthlessly class-divided than ever. I’m not talking here about the 1 percent, or the 9.9 percent, or whatever percentage we see as inheriting systemic advantages from their well-heeled parents. I’m talking about citizenship.

Citizenship represents the most significant class lottery remaining in the modern world. The cover of your passport speaks volumes about your prospects for enjoying peace, prosperity, and happiness over the course of your life. If you are the offspring of Danes, you can likely look forward to eight peaceful and happy decades, with a good education and quality medical care. Were you born in Haiti? In that case, you may get 65 years, but you’ll probably spend them coping with grinding poverty (at about 1/30th the income of an average American). If you were born in North Korea, accept my compliments for even managing to read these words.

Citizenship, in short, is massively consequential, and there’s almost nothing meritorious about it. If you’ve spent your life as an American citizen, your fortunes have depended to a very great extent on an inherited pedigree. Even if you’re brilliant and full of entrepreneurial energy, those qualities probably wouldn’t have helped you as a citizen of Burundi or Niger. It’s hard to pull yourself up by the bootstraps when there’s virtually nowhere to go.

Western nations are developing a bad conscience about this system. Thanks to advances in technology, we now know what’s happening in Syria and Sudan, and our planet has become so interconnected that it now seems irresponsible to wash our hands of failed states (and their suffering citizens). Even as the globe contracts though, we’re losing confidence in our ability to improve terrible places. A quarter-century ago, there was still considerable optimism in the West about the potential for democracy and free enterprise to “lift all the boats,” inspiring impoverished nations to transform themselves into prosperous, free societies. In fact, free enterprise has done much to alleviate material need around the world, and even very poor countries have in some cases seen significant improvements in their standards of living. Corrupt government, though, has proved a harder nut to crack. Stability, prosperity, and political freedom seem to arise out of a complex mix of factors that, where absent, are difficult to replicate. The upshot is that truly miserable places may not improve anytime soon.

Where governments fail to secure order and protect human rights, who can blame their citizens for wanting to leave? Unfortunately, that may not really be an option for some people, thanks to the dominating role of citizenship in today’s world order. If you’re poor and lacking rarified skills, other countries probably don’t want you. The truly desperate or determined may try to migrate anyway, at which point Western nations are faced with a choice: How far are we willing to go to maintain these class lines?

This isn’t the first time we’ve stood at such a juncture. In the late 19th century, as class lines were being obliterated all across Europe, a number of aristocrats rose up to make spirited defenses of traditional class division. Lord Salisbury’s Disintegration and Tennyson’s Locksley Hall Sixty Years After stand as two of the more eloquent reflections on this topic. These men saw the collapse of aristocracy as a disaster, and Americans might be surprised to find that they actually make some rather strong points. Salisbury in particular was admirably free of any romantic notions about the intrinsic superiority of the nobly-born. He simply regarded class distinction as a necessary component of a civilized social order. Without defined social roles and a cultivated leisure class, society would fragment and culture would coarsen. Responsible leadership would be buried under the ruthless logic of the political machine. The future would be written by demagogues, skilled only in the art of stoking fears and channeling popular resentment.

Looking at modern society, can we really say that these fears were ill-founded? Do we not have problems today with social fragmentation, a debased civic culture, and hysterical populist politics? Among the European powers, Great Britain was perhaps the most successful in transitioning smoothly from an aristocratic order to a modern, democratic one. There were no major coups, uprisings, or experiments with totalitarianism. Despite that, it seems unlikely that men like Tennyson or Salisbury would withdraw their complaints, given a glimpse of 21st century England. They were right to see that the dissolution of the old social order would precipitate a host of new problems. They were also right to see that the transition was inevitable. A rigid class system simply can’t be maintained once common consensus has deemed it morally unacceptable.

Is the Western world reaching that point, with respect to immigration and citizenship? It’s not clear, but there are interesting signs that we may be moving in that direction. Opposition to migration has been the single most defining feature of right-wing populist movements, both in America and across Europe. At best though, these movements have commanded a very slight majority of public opinion, and their more stringent efforts to crack down on immigration have provoked serious backlash. Italian populists were excoriated this month for their refusal to accept a rescue vessel bearing hundreds of migrants. President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policies drew criticism even from evangelical leaders who have been his staunchest supporters. Permissive immigration policies and porous borders carry obvious social costs, but nevertheless, it appears that Westerners are becoming morally uncomfortable with rigid efforts to maintain a citizenship regime that looks increasingly like a global caste system.

What are the alternatives? In the coming years, that question will need to be explored in more detail. Would a lengthier and more involved naturalization process help us to balance the various conflicting goods? Might we end up with a situation reminiscent of Ancient Rome, wherein different “tiers” of citizens live together in common cities? Perhaps Western nations will explore new methods of cooperation, enabling them to present migrants with a range of livable options. (Even if you can’t live here, perhaps we can help you to move somewhere so that your family can have a clean start.)

Only one thing is certain: Immigration will be a source of heated controversy for many years to come. It forces us to confront old problems in a new guise. What benefits should parents be permitted to bequeath to their children? How can we preserve communities without being unjust to the people who stand outside of them? At what point does communal solidarity bleed into xenophobia, racism, and tribal hatred?

We’ve grappled with these questions before. It’s time to craft new answers.

Source: Citizenship is the new caste system

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Australia’s citizenship program should focus on Indigenous introduction, Darwin linguistics teacher says

2018/06/25 Leave a comment

As IRCC prepares the revised citizenship study guide, with what I understand extensive consultations with Indigenous peoples (to be released later this year?), some interesting reflections from Australia on improving the understanding of Indigenous peoples and new citizens, and language:

As Ganesh Koramannil passed through Sydney Central train station in 2004, a man approached and asked him for $2.

It was an interaction he would have long forgotten, except the man was the first Indigenous Australian Mr Koramannil had ever met.

It could have remained among his only insights to a culture with more than 60,000 years of history, had his wife not turned down a job in Canberra to take up one in Maningrida, 500 kilometres east of Darwin.

After moving to the Arnhem land community four years after arriving in Australia to study English, Mr Koramannil was finally introduced to “the most welcoming culture” he had ever come across, which he said had unprecedented similarities with his own.

“You give an Aboriginal language speaker any Indian name, they will pronounce it very clearly without any accent. Give it to the Europeans, they will give you six varieties,” he said.

“There’s linguistic similarities between Aboriginal languages and Indian languages. My mother tongue for example is Malayalam. There are sounds that are very much part of Yolngu language.

At the time of publishing, Mr Koramannil was the only Territorian to write a submission to the Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment Bill 2018, which aims to toughen the eligibility requirement for new migrants to become citizens.

But Mr Koramannil said that for many migrants, their knowledge of Indigenous Australia would never extend far beyond his experience at the Sydney train station.

He said Australia’s immigration program offered no systemic way of introducing newcomers to Indigenous culture.

Instead of introducing stricter tests and eligibility requirements, Mr Koramannil has called for an “experiential” citizenship pathway, where migrants were taught about culture, history and values in dedicated sessions.

“The link to our Indigenous past and its present and future relevance [should] be included as a mandatory requirement for citizenship,” he said.

Tougher citizenship test proposed

The original bill to toughen up citizenship requirements was struck down 2017, when the Government missed the deadline for the Senate which saw it struck off by default.

The Greens, Labor and the Nick Xenophon Team had all opposed the changes.

But One Nation senator Pauline Hanson introduced it again 2018 and it was referred to a committee for inquiry.

Among the proposed changes will be a separate English language test, which will check for a ‘competent level’ of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills.

It would also increase the general residence requirement, meaning newcomers will need to live in Australia for eight years before applying for citizenship.

The citizenship test would also include questions about Australian values and the privileges, and responsibilities of Australian citizenship.

In April 2017, when the first bill was launched, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the Federal Government was “putting Australian values at the heart of citizenship processes and requirements”.

The Multicultural Council of the Northern Territory wrote a submission to last year’s bill, stating that while it was important for migrants to learn English, proficiency should not be an indicator for a person’s ability to make a positive contribution.

It said the idea may have adverse impacts for those from non-English speaking backgrounds and humanitarian entrants.

“It is our experience that fluency in English to the level proposed for migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds in a stand-alone English language test is not usually gained within the period of settlement, but can be viewed as a lifelong skill,” it said.

It said many of the proposals were “at best, unnecessary and, at worst, divisive and counterproductive”.

‘Language cannot be devoid of racial identity’

During Mr Koramannil’s time in Maningrida, he said Indigenous children, who had seldom met an Indian person before, would come up to and say “You are from India”.

It fascinated him.

“I said ‘How did they know?’ You know Maningrida — 600 or 700km away from here, one of the largest standalone Aboriginal communities — and kids of six years old [recognised me],” he said.

Looking back on it, he said he believed the children had sensed a familiarity between the two ancient cultures, just as people who spoke more than one language could recognise features of languages they didn’t speak.

In his opinion, if citizenship tests focussed so closely on English proficiency, it would come at a cultural and linguistic cost.

Mr Koramannil now works in Darwin teaching linguistics at a tertiary level.

The way he sees it, language is so deeply ingrained in a person’s racial identity that selecting citizens based on their language skills is tantamount to profiling.

“[Selecting people based on] language is profiling. And these days we speak multiple languages. And especially people trying to come to Australia, very few people won’t be bilingual.”

As a linguistics professional, and former IELTS examiner, he said he’d seen many “monolingual anglophone Australian professionals” fail to get their band score in writing.

The only reason he could see for such a test was to keep people of certain backgrounds away.

“The question is why are you trying to keep people away? Do keep people away on character for example, criminal background and that. But language is racially profiling,” he said.

Mr Koramannil said forming connections with Australia’s culture, values and history should instead form the basis of citizenship.

He believes newcomers should spend some of their time in Australia prior to becoming citizens learning about the country’s past, culture and values.

He has suggested ‘cultural welcome centres’, where Indigenous people could meet new migrants and explain their perspective of Australia to them, acting as “cultural translators” and helping forge connections.

Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs is due to file a report by December.

The ABC has contacted the committee for comment.

Source: Australia’s citizenship program should focus on Indigenous introduction, Darwin linguistics teacher says

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Pressure builds to close ‘birth tourism’ loophole for getting citizenship

2018/06/23 Leave a comment

Interesting coming from a Liberal MP:

Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido is optimistic that he can persuade federal ministers to curb so-called birth tourism, as pressure for action mounts in B.C.

“We are reaching a tipping point,” he said. “Nurses have told me that this is displacing folks from giving birth in Richmond.”

The number of babies born to foreign nationals at Richmond Hospital rose to 384 last year from just 18 in 2010 and now accounts for about 20 per cent of all deliveries, according to Vancouver Coastal Health. Under Canadian law, babies born here get Canadian citizenship regardless of their parents’ citizenship.

An entire industry of citizenship brokers and maternity tourism businesses are profiting from this “illegitimate business model,” said Peschisolido, who represents Steveston-Richmond East. “A whole slew of folks are complicit in this.”

Peschisolido plans to present a parliamentary e-petition — which calls for an end to this “abusive and exploitative practice” and “concrete measures” to eliminate the birth tourism —  to federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale.

In response to birth tourism, Australia and New Zealand changed their laws, granting citizenship to babies only when at least one parent is a citizen or a legal resident.

“Birth tourism is wrong and it undermines our immigration system and our health care system,” said Peschisolido. “The reason there are more than 8,000 signatures is that it violates people’s sense of fairness.”

Non-resident births account for two per cent of the 44,000 babies born in B.C. each year.

Non-residents are required to pay the costs associated with their care and the vast majority of these patients pay these fees without issue, said Laura Heinze, who speaks for the B.C. Health Ministry.

“The ministry in no way endorses or supports the marketing of maternity tourism,” she said. “Matters relating to immigration are the responsibility of the federal government.”

Pregnant women who come to Canada specifically to have a child with Canadian citizenship are not breaking the law, but they could be misleading immigration officials about their reasons for visiting Canada.

“If a person, including an expectant mother travelling to Canada, provides false information or documents, IRCC will refuse their application and that person could also be inadmissible to Canada for five years,” according to the federal Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship department.

This is the second time that the petition’s author, Kerry Starchuk, has tried to get the attention of the federal authorities. Her first petition launched in 2016 also gathered more than 8,000 signatures.

A report by Canadian immigration officials recommended changes to citizenship law to then-immigration minister Jason Kenney in 2014.

No action was taken by that Conservative government, but the number of foreign citizens coming to B.C. to give birth in order to secure Canadian citizenship for their child has risen dramatically since then.

People have until July 17 to sign the current petition.

Starchuk became concerned about growth of birth tourism after trying to greet new neighbours with cookies and came to realize the house was being used as accommodation for women from abroad who were about to give birth.

“I’ve done my part being a good neighbour, but this is exploiting the system,” she said. “They are not here to be my neighbours and I’m not OK with that.”

A Vancouver Sun investigation in 2016 found more than two dozen so-called baby houses were providing services and accommodation to birth tourists in B.C.

“These people are jumping the queue when people are waiting to immigrate,” she said. “I don’t see how being born here like this justifies citizenship.”

Petition supporter Gary Liu said the practice of birth tourism is generally “despised” in the immigrant community.

“People who have worked hard to learn the language and raise their families — and everyone has their own struggles and stories — they feel like this is a quick pass for some people,” said Liu, who has lived in Canada for more than 20 years.

Liu believes more rigorous application of existing rules by Canada Border Services Agency and enforcement of zoning bylaws against baby houses would minimize the practice.

Canada and the United States are the only G-7 nations that grant automatic citizenship for babies born in-country to foreign nationals. Critics complain that so-called “anchor babies” become a legal foothold in Canada to gain immigration access for the rest of their families.

Source: Pressure builds to close ‘birth tourism’ loophole for getting citizenship

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