The cure for Canada’s housing crisis? Boost immigration

2023/06/27 Leave a comment

Needless to say, I disagree with the logic and the false parallel with the situation over a century ago.

The problem with asserting the issue is the lack of a “can do” attitude is that while the government can turn up the needle on permanent and temporary migration, housing, healthcare and infrastructure have longer timelines.

While it is helpful that the Century Initiative and others are acknowledging these challenges, the reality is that little progress is being made and thus the calls for restraint:

There is a new fashion among the commentariat of questioning whether Canada has the capacity to accommodate greater immigration, particularly in housing and health care. The underlying defeatism of this position – the belief that we’ve achieved all we can – would leave Clifford Sifton depressed and ashamed.

In 1896, prime minister Wilfrid Laurier tasked this enterprising, 35-year-old Manitoban to “populate” the Prairies with European farmers, following years of net emigration from Canada. Laurier envisioned an agricultural powerhouse to provide an abundant, reliable food supply for our nascent country while solidifying Canada’s claim to the region.

Sifton met this challenge with a radically simple plan: find immigrants with experience farming similarly harsh terrain – people made of “the toughest fibre” – and lure them to Canada with free land.

After considering various candidates, he settled on Eastern Europeans, who had farmed inhospitable steppes like ours for generations. Sifton dispatched agents across Europe circulating ads in Polish, Czech and Ukrainian, promising “160 acres of free land in Canada,” and paid them generous commissions.

We need not condone that Indigenous nations were illegally displaced from this land to appreciate the sheer audacity of Sifton’s achievement. Within five years, he doubled the Prairie population. Within 10 years, annual immigration to Canada increased 840 per cent. And 125 years later, the farms these immigrants established feed not just Canada, but much of the world.

Contrast Sifton’s can-do optimism to the despondent attitude of pundits today, who are unsure how we might handle immigration levels that, at around 1 per cent of the population, are half the rate they were in Sifton’s era.

There are growing calls to constrict immigration until the housing crisis is “resolved” – imprecise though that is. We would be wise to recall what Sifton knew. Immigrants are not the cause of Canada’s failings. Actually, they’re a big part of the answer.

Immigrants don’t simply occupy existing housing. Fact is, they built most of our current housing stock and could build even more. Each worker occupies one home (less, if they share) and builds dozens more for everyone else – an irrefutable net gain.

Yet even when we grasp this seemingly obvious fact, our response falls short. Ontario recently announced that it will almost double the number of skilled workers it welcomes each year, to 18,000 by 2025. Yet even this seemingly ambitious plan is not designed to succeed. If current trends continue, about 6,000 of those will be construction workers. Yet Ontario Labour Minister Monte McNaughton has saidthat in “construction alone we’ll need 100,000 skilled workers over the next decade.”

Six thousand is not an appropriate target; 60,000 is closer to the mark.

A recent federal plan to specifically prioritize construction workers for immigration applications is similarly enlightened yet tepid. It comes with no targets. Were we genuinely committed to solving the housing crisis, we would aggressively recruit the people who can do so, and in huge numbers.

Where would they live upon arrival? Are we really so bereft of purpose and creativity? In Sifton’s day, newcomers lived in government-operated immigration halls until they found their feet. Hardly glamorous, but sufficient. Calgary is pioneering the conversion of vacant office space to residential use. Given the severity of the housing emergency, we should also consider unconventional options, including convention centres and military facilities. It just makes sense to house those whose labour could house us all.

As with housing, newcomers are not the cause of Canada’s health care failures. But they could be an answer. For example, Ontario reportedly needs 24,000 more nurses. That’s just 5 per cent of the 465,000 permanent residents Canada will welcome in 2023. Strategic immigration could eliminate this shortage in mere months.

Some might call these proposals naive: simplistic attempts to impose a 19th-century frontier mindset onto today’s stifling, maximally bureaucratized reality.

These are the weak excuses of the undetermined. We need not inhabit Sifton’s era to honour his ethos: a confident belief that we can overcome existential threats to Canada’s viability. We cannot (and should not) give the most in-demand newcomers stolen Indigenous land, but we can offer other perks, like expanded and expedited family reunification privileges. Intransigent provinces? Withhold transfer payments. Intransigent medical guilds? Show the public who is keeping much-needed help from reaching the front lines of care. These are emergencies. We should act accordingly. Do whatever it takes.

Housing and health care failings pose existential threats to Canada. The only shortage more acute than that of skilled people to provide these vital services is the shortage of audacity to believe that we are capable of solving these problems: the confident ambition to make big dreams come true.

Irfhan Rawji is managing partner of Relay Ventures. Daniel Bernhard is CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.

Source: The cure for Canada’s housing crisis? Boost immigration

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International students face tougher job prospects than domestic peers, B.C. research suggests

2023/06/27 Leave a comment

First reported in New Canadian Media, a more detailed account of the study and reasonable recommendations:

A survey of more than a thousand international students in British Columbia has found the vast majority see their student visas as a pathway to Canadian residency and citizenship, but instead, find limited employment opportunities and little government support to reach their dream.

The three-year project, led by Jenny Francis, a geography faculty member at Langara College in Vancouver, found that while postsecondary institutions like hers heavily recruit international students because of the hefty tuition fees they pay, there is little attention paid to whether they are suited to moving on to fulfilling Canadian careers in their field. Instead, the students end up working in low-paying jobs, facing high living costs and struggling to excel in their studies.

The current system is working well for employers, middle- and upper-income Canadians, postsecondary institutions and the federal government, according to Dr. Francis. “How do we make it work better for international students?” she asked, in a document that includes her main findings.

The number of international students admitted to Canadian postsecondary institutions has soared in recent years, partly as a response to stagnating government funding. International tuition fees are typically four times higher than those for Canadian students.

Statistics Canada reported last year that colleges across Canada saw an increase in international students of 154 per cent between 2015-2016 and 2019-2020. The increase was lower at universities: 39.6 per cent. In Dr. Francis’s study, the majority of respondents – 52 per cent – came from South Asia, the top source of international students to Canada since 2017.

Dr. Francis said she wanted to learn from international students what their experiences were. As part of her study, her team sent a 60-question survey to 7,000 students attending Langara College as well as the College of New Caledonia in Prince George, B.C., with 1,282 students agreeing to participate. The full study results will be published later this year, but Dr. Francis shared her preliminary findings with The Globe and Mail.

The research found the vast majority of those students intend to stay in Canada.

However, Statistics Canada figures show only 30 per cent of those with bachelors’ degrees became permanent residents within 10 years of obtaining their first study permit. The rates were slightly higher for those with master’s degrees at 50 per cent, and doctoral degrees at 60 per cent.

She said that nobody with whom she has shared the Statistics Canada information has ever heard of these numbers. ”Not instructors, not students. Everybody is surprised,” Dr. Francis said in an interview.

Among the provinces, British Columbia has by far the lowest rate of international students transitioning to permanent residency, both five years and 10 years after their first study permits.

“I do feel students are sold a dream,” Dr. Francis said.

Part of the problem is that Canada only expects between 30 and 50 per cent of them to stay, depending on their level of education. But a far higher percentage of students expect they will, she said.

“So there’s a mismatch. Almost all students intend to stay.”

Dr. Francis’s study mirrors findings from Sandra Schinnerl, a post-doctoral fellow at UBC’s Centre for Migration Studies. Her research showed around 60 per cent of international students desire to stay in Canada after graduation, but that the average economic outcomes of these graduates are below that of their domestic peers.

She said the number of international students who make it through the process to stay in Canada permanently hasn’t changed between 2001 and 2022. That transition rate has been stable at about 30 per cent.

“And so has the message changed?” she asked, questioning whether immigration consultants and postsecondary institutions have oversold the Canadian experience.

“Nothing’s really changed from a policy perspective. But you are having an increasing number of very disappointed international students.”

Dr. Francis’s findings show approximately 80 per cent of the survey respondents were working and had one job. Most were earning minimum wage with just under 10 per cent earning more than $20 an hour. Much of their earnings went toward housing.

The federal government lifted the 20-hours-a-week work limit for international students last year, but the move prompted concerns from some instructors, Dr. Francis’s findings show.

“The problem is that many students work full-time or more and as a result they miss class, arrive late or tired, fall asleep in class, can’t concentrate,” Dr. Francis said. “Some students are not really students – they are hopeful immigrants who are using study as their path to PR,” referring to permanent residency.

Her study suggests many students struggle to find a job either in their field or in the region where they are living. At the same time, she said students reported fraud and exploitation by employers.

For example, Dr. Francis said respondents who had completed a two-year diploma program and who had obtained a postgraduate work permit needed a managerial position to qualify for permanent residence status. But management work for someone at that level, sometimes without solid English language skills, is frequently out of reach.

Survey respondents said employers would put them in those positions and pay them accordingly, but the student would be required to refund that money back to the employer. In the end, they earned less than minimum wage, she said.

Immigration lawyer Prabhpreet Sangha, who participated in Dr. Francis’s project, said she’s seen cases where students are misguided and misled: They are told they can work without being aware they are violating the conditions of their permit if they do not study. Sometimes they are advised to apply for refugee status if things go off the rail at school or work, which is very wrong, she added.

“They’re lied to a lot, and they’ll pay the wrong money for the wrong thing,” said Ms. Sangha.

Harmanpreet Kaur had paid $11,000 for five courses she’s taking in her last semester at Langara. She and her friend Rajbir Kaur, both from India, are studying and working full-time.

Besides her own earnings, Harmanpreet also receives financial support from her brother. “If a student is alone here – no support from their family – then it’s so hard to survive,” she said.

Rajbir said balancing work and study isn’t easy. It means there’s no leisure time, no weekends, no vacations.

Both of them, now working at food courts, said their current working experience won’t help them acquire permanent resident status, unless they are promoted to a managerial or supervisory role.

“I was dreaming that life is so easy over here. But when I arrived here, life’s being difficult, totally different,” said Harmanpreet.

Given that the intentions of a large proportion of international students is to stay in Canada, Dr. Francis and Dr. Schinnerl believe that higher education institutions should help them navigate the job environment in this country.

Dr. Francis is also calling for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to give those with postgraduate work permits access to settlement services, such as language training. Additionally, she is recommending the province create a regionalization strategy to better match labour market needs with programs of study and provide greater oversight of employment relationships.

At the college level, Dr. Francis said schools should be more selective in the students they recruit, including ensuring they are academically prepared to succeed at postsecondary studies and, later, in the Canadian labour market.

In response to questions from The Globe, the department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship said it is undertaking a review of the International Student Program with the aim of offering students better protection against unethical recruitment.

The goal is to modernize the program in order to better select and retain students who meet Canada’s economic and socio-cultural goals. These include targets for francophone and regional immigration, a statement from the department said.

A spokesman for B.C.’s Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills said the minister, Selina Robinson, was unavailable for an interview. The ministry said it is in communication with Ottawa on matters involving international students.

Mark Dawson, manager of public affairs at Langara, said the college’s international student services team has grown significantly in recent years, and that all international students have access to the school’s co-op and career centre, which offers opportunities to explore jobs, provides current labour market information, and connects students to career pathways.

UBC spokesperson Matthew Ramsey said the university is aware of the employment challenges facing international students and is in the process of launching pilot programs focusing on career supports for international students as well as information about applying for permanent residency. He said a new program at UBC’s Okanagan campus is designed to address navigating the job market and gaining Canadian work experience.

The idea “is to respond directly to student survey feedback and the research related to barriers they face,” he said.

Source: International students face tougher job prospects than domestic peers, B.C. research suggests

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Le français comme condition d’immigration : la nouvelle réforme de la CAQ

2023/06/26 Leave a comment

Useful overview (English below):

Le gouvernement québécois a récemment présenté ses nouvelles orientations en matière d’immigration. Le message est clair : la langue devient une condition sine qua non pour s’installer de façon permanente au Québec.

Ce resserrement des règles aura des impacts importants sur les futurs immigrants, mais aussi sur ceux vivant déjà au Québec. Il marque aussi la consolidation de l’approche prônée par la CAQ en matière d’immigration permanente : d’abord assurer la protection du français, avant la croissance démographique ou économique liée à l’immigration. D’ailleurs, si le Québec devait accueillir plus d’immigrants, ce sera uniquement en raison de la croissance du nombre d’immigrants économiques francophones.

La nouvelle approche inclut une réforme du programme de sélection des travailleurs qualifiés, une refonte du Programme de l’expérience Québécoise (PEQ), des changements aux conditions du programme de regroupement familial, à celui des investisseurs et à celui des travailleurs autonomes.

De plus grandes exigences pour les immigrants économiques

Bien que la connaissance de la langue ait toujours été centrale dans les orientations du Québec en matière d’immigration (qui furent mises en œuvre par le biais des pouvoirs dévolus à la province dans le cadre de l’Accord Canada-Québec de 1991), l’approche prônée par la CAQ augmente les exigences linguistiques pour tous les programmes d’immigration économique.

Un nouveau Programme de sélection des travailleurs qualifiés (PSTQ) sera mis en place. Alors que dans le programme actuel, la connaissance du français pouvait augmenter les scores globaux des candidats à l’immigration dans grille de sélection, le PSTQ fait de la connaissance du français une condition nécessaire à l’immigration.

Pour les volets 1 à 3 du programme, la connaissance minimale exigée sera modulée en fonction du niveau de qualification requise. Les travailleurs visant un poste de gestion ou qui demande généralement une formation postsecondaire devront posséder une compétence en français de niveau 7 (intermédiaire avancé) à l’oral et 5 à l’écrit, sur une échelle qui en compte 12. Les autres emplois seront soumis à un niveau 5 à l’oral, soit le début de l’échelle intermédiaire. Le gouvernement s’est donné une petite marge de manœuvre pour le volet 4 « talents d’exception ». Pour cette petite partie du programme qui vise des compétences « exceptionnelles », aucune connaissance du français n’est exigée pour l’instant.

Le PSTQ crée aussi une obligation linguistique pour les conjoints des demandeurs principaux à l’immigration au Québec, soit un niveau minimum de 4 à l’oral, le dernier échelon pour une compétence de base. La vaste majorité des candidats à l’immigration permanente devront donc avoir une connaissance intermédiaire du français.

Un nouveau PEQ

En parallèle, le PEQ (Programme de l’expérience québécoise) renaît de ses cendres. Le PEQ est une passerelle vers la résidence permanente pour les immigrants temporaires, à travers deux volets : les diplômés du Québec et les travailleurs étrangers temporaires. En 2020, le gouvernement de la CAQ avait limité dans la controverse l’accès à ce programme très populaire auprès des étudiants internationaux ayant acquis un diplôme d’une institution québécoise et une expérience de travail conséquente dans la province.

Dans la nouvelle mouture du PEQ, l’exigence d’emploi disparaît du volet des diplômés, mais la langue devient centrale : seuls les programmes d’études en français seront admissibles. Le programme reste ouvert aux travailleurs temporaires et devient accessible à de nouvelles professions, autrefois exclues du PEQ, par exemple les camionneurs ou les préposés aux bénéficiaires. Pour les deux volets (diplômés et travailleurs temporaires), un niveau 7 ou plus est exigé à l’oral. Les conjoints, eux, devront encore avoir un français oral de niveau 4, comme c’était le cas depuis juillet 2021.

La version 2023 du PEQ est donc, dans les faits, limitée aux personnes avec des connaissances avancées du français et ayant interagi fortement avec des institutions francophones dans le cadre de leur expérience préalable au Québec.

Les gens d’affaires et les regroupements familiaux

Une même tendance est annoncée pour les gens d’affaires : les programmes dédiés aux investisseurs et aux travailleurs autonomes exigeront dorénavant un français oral de niveau 7.

Les nouvelles orientations affectent aussi le parrainage dans le cadre des regroupements familiaux. Cela reflète les revendications du gouvernement actuel, qui a exigé le transfert de pouvoirs d’Ottawa afin de pouvoir soumettre les réunifications familiales à des critères linguistiques. À défaut de ces pouvoirs supplémentaires, la réforme ajoute une composante linguistique aux exigences des personnes garantes – les parrains –, en plus des conditions financières. Le gouvernement souhaite maintenant qu’un plan d’accueil et d’intégration soit soumis au ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration par la personne garante, dans lequel elle « s’engagera notamment à soutenir l’apprentissage du français par les personnes parrainées ».

Vers une nouvelle ère en immigration au Québec ?

Bien que ces changements restent encore à être mis en œuvre, le message envoyé par la CAQ, alors que Québec s’apprête à revoir ses seuils d’immigration, est clair : il faut parler français pour immigrer de façon permanente au Québec. À cet égard, il convient d’apporter une nuance importante. Depuis 1991, la province met en place des programmes d’immigration visant à s’assurer qu’une part importante des immigrants connaissent et utilisent le français au moment d’être reçus. À titre indicatif, la proportion de personnes immigrantes déclarant connaître le français au moment de leur admission se situait à près de 70 %en 2021.

Les nouvelles orientations intensifient donc l’approche historique du Québec en plus de renforcer les privilèges accordés aux francophones et francotropes dans la sélection. Elles créent aussi des exigences administratives supplémentaires pour les candidats à l’immigration et ceux qui les soutiennent.

Ces changements auront des conséquences marquées sur l’origine des immigrants que le Québec va accueillir, en donnant des avantages encore plus importants aux bassins de la francophonie, tels que la France, la Belgique, le Maroc, la Tunisie, le Sénégal ou le Bénin. Pour les personnes déjà installées au Québec dans le cadre d’un processus d’immigration temporaire pour des études ou pour le travail – et souvent issus de pays non-francophones, comme la Chine, l’Inde, les Philippines, ou l’Iran – la réforme envoie aussi le signal que l’accès à la résidence permanente ne pourra se faire que par un apprentissage soutenu du français.

Ces nouvelles réalités pourraient donc non seulement changer le visage de l’immigration permanente, mais aussi celui de l’immigration temporaire.

Source: Le français comme condition d’immigration : la nouvelle réforme de la CAQ

French as a condition of immigration: the CAQ’s new reform

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Ottawa to rectify issue with massively revised temporary foreign workers data

2023/06/26 Leave a comment

Good quick response. And kudos to the Globe for uncovering the change. Hopefully the lesson learned is that any significant change must be openly and transparently communicated, preferably with advance consultations:

The federal government says it will publish a full accounting of temporary foreign work permit holders in Canada after The Globe and Mail discovered that more than two decades of data had been altered without explanation.

More than one million people held work permits through the International Mobility Program at the end of last year, according to figures that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada published in February.

However, the federal immigration department recently made significant downward revisions to those numbers, indicating there are now around 675,000 permit holders. The figures for all previous years, dating back to 2000, had also been reduced.

Several immigration researchers told The Globe that IRCC removed work permit holders whose primary reason for being in Canada may not be related to the labour market, such as students and refugee claimants.

The department said the revised numbers were not properly labelled. “When this new data set was published, the incorrect title/description was mistakenly published to accompany it,” spokesperson Matthew Krupovich said in a statement.

IRCC said it intends to publish figures on both the narrower and broader groups of work permit holders, but did not indicate when that will happen.

Some economists were frustrated with how IRCC handled the data revision and expressed concern that lowering the numbers would obscure how many temporary foreign workers are in the country.

“The data is just a mess,” said Mikal Skuterud, a professor of labour economics at the University of Waterloo.

By not counting international students with work permits, for example, “one would understate the growth of the IMP,” Feng Hou, principal researcher at Statistics Canada, said by e-mail.

The International Mobility Program accounts for a large share of temporary foreign workers in the country. Within the program are several categories of permit holders, including postgraduate workers and spouses of skilled workers.

Canada’s population is growing rapidly, in large part because of the influx of temporary residents, including workers and students. Many of those people are accruing postsecondary degrees and Canadian work experience in hopes of getting permanent residency.

The use of temporary foreign labour by Canadian employers has soared in recent years. The trend has been criticized by many economists for helping companies minimize their labour costs, among other reasons.

Source: Ottawa to rectify issue with massively revised temporary foreign workers data

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Germany to ease immigration law to attract skilled workers

2023/06/24 Leave a comment

Of note:

From healthcare to IT, carpenters to technicians, Germany’s “help wanted” sign is blinking red. At a German industry event in mid-June, Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised business leaders that change was coming, and with less red tape.

Germany needs 400,000 foreign workers to make up the shortfall every year, according to the Federal Employment Office. And when the baby boomers retire en masse, the problem will only get worse.

Lawmakers from the parties in government — the center-left Social Democrats, the Greens, and the neoliberal Free Democrats — have worked out the final details of a skilled labor immigration law.

The bill heads for a vote this Friday (23.6.) in the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament.

Three options

The bill, initially drawn up by the labor and interior ministries, seeks to open up new opportunities for people from countries outside the European Union.

They could come to Germany either thanks to qualifications and degrees that regulators here will recognize in a faster and more streamlined process; or based on their work experience; or through a point system for job seekers with potential but without an existing employment contract.

Blue Card

Germany introduced what is known as the EU Blue Card, for highly qualified specialists, a decade ago. Now, it will also become easier to get, thanks to a lower income requirement.

In the future, they will need to make an annual minimum salary of €43,800 ($48,000), according to the news agency Reuters. And for IT specialists professional experience can take the place of a university degree.

Incoming workers will also be less restricted in their line of work. Until now, it has been difficult to change industries, based on the existing visa rules.

The ‘opportunity card’

With a point system under a new “opportunity card,” foreigners who don’t yet have a job lined up will be permitted to come to Germany and given a year to find employment. A prerequisite is holding a vocational qualification or university degree.

Points will be awarded for example for German and/or English language skills, existing ties to Germany, and the potential of accompanying life partners or spouses on the German labor market. The new reforms also seek to make it easier for prospective employers to bring their dependents with them.

An opportunity card permits casual work for up to 20 hours a week while looking for a qualified job, and probationary employment is also permitted.

Those who are awaiting asylum approval, and got their application in by March 29, 2023, have the appropriate qualifications, and a job offer and will also be permitted to join the labor market. This would also allow them to enter vocational training.

A similar change holds for those here on a tourist visa. They will not be required to first leave the country, before returning in an employment context.

Fewer hurdles in the recognition of degrees

A major obstacle to immigration has long been the requirement to have degrees recognized in Germany. This is a long, bureaucratic, and often frustrating process.

In the future, skilled immigrants will no longer have to have their degrees recognized in Germany if they can show they have at least two years of professional experience and a degree that is state-recognized in their country of origin.

However, this is only aimed at skilled workers above a certain salary threshold.

The Skilled Workers Act also provides for a new arrangement: Someone who already has a job offer can already come to Germany and start working while their degree is still being recognized.

Skeptics don’t expect improvement

Not everyone is happy with the proposed changes, which first came up for debate in March. Some in the opposition see a problem that legislation alone can’t fix.

“When thousands of skilled workers willing to immigrate are waiting for months for a visa or a recognition of skills, there finally needs to be enough staff, for example, at consulates — not new point system,” Hermann Gröhe, a lawmaker with the conservative CDU-CSU block, said.

Others are mindful of shortcomings in Germany’s digital infrastructure, which hamper visa processing and put off potential foreign labor.

“If a computer scientist from Pakistan or India has to wait months to get an appointment at the consulate for a visa, the doubt that sets in will have him choosing another destination country,” Gerd Landsberg, the managing director of the German Association of Cities and Municipalities, told the regional newspaper, Rheinische Post. He pointed out that all industrialized countries are competing for skilled work

In a recent interview with the Berlin daily, Tagesspiegel, the director of Berlin’s immigration office, Engelhard Mazanke, said his office alone already has a three-month backlog and needs at least 50 additional staff to process the influx of thousands of foreign workers and their families. He pointed out that they will come on top of refugees from Ukraine, Middle Eastern, and African countries, along with the regular flow of students and other kinds of migrants from around the world.

Meanwhile, a reform of the citizenship law is on the cards, too. To give immigrants an incentive to integrate and stick around for the long term.

Source: Germany to ease immigration law to attract skilled workers

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Ottawa makes massive data change on temporary foreign worker numbers 

2023/06/23 2 Comments

Hopefully the government will be fully transparent on how this happened and what changes are being made. This can further undermine general confidence in government management and administration given how fundamental accurate data to government programs:

The federal government has revised more than two decades of immigration data, saying that “technical difficulties” led to bloated figures for a subset of temporary foreign workers.

Slightly more than one million people held work permits through the International Mobility Program at the end of last year, an increase of 48 per cent from 2021, according to figures that were published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in February.

But recently, IRCC updated those numbers – and they are significantly different. Now, the federal government says that roughly 675,000 people held IMP work permits at the end of 2022, a decline of about 340,000 from the earlier dataset. The figures for all previous years, dating back to 2000, were also reduced.

Globe and Mail journalists recently discovered the revisions. The federal immigration department did not publish the new figures with an explanation for why they had changed so much.

IRCC spokesperson Matthew Krupovich said in a statement that the department experienced “technical difficulties” when producing the figures. The current numbers, he said, are “accurate.”

The Globe and Mail asked IRCC for a deeper explanation of these issues, but has yet to receive a response.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” said Mikal Skuterud, a professor of economics at the University of Waterloo, who uses these numbers in his research. “At a minimum, when you’re working with government data, you want to trust that they’re accurate.”

Canada’s population is growing at the fastest rate in decades, in large part because of temporary migration, including students and workers. The country grew by more than one million people in 2022, and just last week, the population surpassed 40 million.

The International Mobility Program plays a large role in population growth, accounting for the majority of temporary work permit holders. Within IMP, there are several streams of migration, including post-graduate workers and spouses of skilled workers.

The presence of temporary foreign workers has grown dramatically over the past two decades. Based on the updated numbers, the volume of IMP permits has grown by 1,434 per cent since 2000.

Canada’s growing reliance on temporary foreign labour has drawn criticism on several grounds, including that it shields employers from making more competitive wage offers to domestic workers or investing in new technologies.

Canada is increasingly moving to a two-step immigration process that sees people come here first as students or workers, who vie for the opportunity of securing permanent residency.

The federal government is ramping up targets for the admission of permanent residents to 500,000 annually by 2025.

Source: Ottawa makes massive data change on temporary foreign worker numbers

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AI Makes Its Way to Immigration With New Tool to Aid Attorneys

2023/06/23 Leave a comment

Perhaps this may make some immigration lawyers less instinctively hostile to the use of AI by the government:

The makers of a new software platform are turning to artificial intelligence to boost immigration attorneys’ research and drafting efforts.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association is partnering with Visalaw.Ai, a platform built to aid attorneys with research and summarizing and drafting documents, to launch a product similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT that will specialize in immigration-focused administrative and case law. AILA will allow its 16,000 members to beta test a tool—dubbed Gen—focused on research and summarization beginning this week at its annual conference outside of Orlando, Fla.

Additional tools are planned for subsequent roll outs that will aid in drafting legal documents and engaging clients.

“We think this will be a tremendous time saver for lawyers conducting research on a regular basis,” said Greg Siskind, a co-founder of Visalaw.Ai and partner at immigration firm Siskind Susser PC.

Attorneys’ use of AI tools like ChatGPT—a chatbot that searches vast tracts of information online based on human-like exchanges—can come with legal pitfalls.

One lawyer landed in hot water in federal district court in New York after filing a brief full of fictitious citations generated by the platform. And use of the open source software potentially could expose confidential client information because users submit information to train the AI platforms.

Siskind said the Visalaw platform will include a private feature, allowing members to draw on information from the platform without sending client information back. Partnering with AILA will also address quality issues by feeding the tool specific information related to immigration law that’s drawn from a huge legal library of regulations and secondary sources, he said.

“It’s set to be conservative in how it answers,” Siskind said of the platform.

Expanding use of technology could help close the gap in immigrants’ access to legal representation, said AILA Executive Director Benjamin Johnson. It’s also important for the organization to get involved in shaping new technology platforms for the immigration bar while they’re being developed, instead of reacting afterward, he said.

Much of the work of immigration law involves submitting forms and documents, rather than practicing in court. But the risks of technology being improperly used mean AILA has a responsibility to make sure any tools offered to its members are accurate and effective, Johnson said.

“We can stand on the sidelines and let somebody else shape the future for us. Or we can get engaged and determine how this should affect the immigration bar and the practice of immigration law,” he said. “In this environment, nobody can afford to stand on the sidelines.”

Access to the platform will be subscription-based, although Siskind said final pricing is still being worked out. AILA’s long-term relationship with the platform will be determined by members’ interactions with it, Johnson said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Kreighbaum in Washington at akreighbaum@bloombergindustry.com

Source: AI Makes Its Way to Immigration With New Tool to Aid Attorneys

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

U.S. is rejecting asylum seekers at much higher rates under new Biden policy

2023/06/23 Leave a comment

Of note:

A new Biden administration policy has dramatically lowered the percentage of migrants at the southern border who enter the United States and are allowed to apply for asylum, according to numbers revealed in legal documents obtained by The Times. Without these new limits to asylum, border crossings could overwhelm local towns and resources, a Department of Homeland Security official warned a federal court in a filing this month.

The new asylum policy is the centerpiece of the Biden administration’s border efforts.

Under the new rules, people who cross through a third country on the way to the U.S. and fail to seek protections there are presumed ineligible for asylum. Only people who enter the U.S. without authorization are subject to this new restriction.

The number of single-adult migrants who are able to pass initial screenings at the border has dropped from 83% to 46% under the new policy, the Biden administration said in the court filing. The 83% rate refers to initial asylum screenings between 2014 and 2019; the new data cover the period from May 12, the first full day the new policywas in place, through June 13.

Since the expiration of Title 42 rules that allowed border agents to quickly turn back migrants at the border without offering them access to asylum, the administration has pointed to a drop in border crossings as proof that its policies are working.

But immigrant advocates and legal groups have blasted Biden’s new asylum policy, arguing that it is a repurposed version of a Trump-era effort that made people in similar circumstances ineligible for asylum. (Under Biden’s policy, certain migrants can overcome the presumption that they are ineligible for asylum.) The ACLU and other groups have sought to block the rule in federal court in San Francisco, in front of the same judge who stopped the Trump policy years ago.

The new filing provides the first look at how the Biden administration’s asylum policy is affecting migrants who have ignored the government’s warnings not to cross the border.

“This newly released data confirms that the new asylum restrictions are as harsh as advocates warned,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council. “The data contradicts conservative attacks on the rule for being too lenient. Less than 1 in 10 people subject to the rule have been able to rebut its presumption against asylum eligibility.”

The numbers show that, thus far, 8,195 asylum-seekers who crossed the border have had the new rules applied to them and 88% had the policy limit their chance at asylum. These migrants were forced to pass a higher standard of screening reserved for different forms of protection under U.S. law. Some 46% of migrants who were forced to go through the new approach either cleared the higher standard or established an exception to the rule, like a medical emergency.

These individuals will now have the chance to seek asylum, and other protections, in immigration court.

“As intended, the rule has significantly reduced screen-in rates for noncitizens encountered along the [Southwest border],” Blas Nuñez-Neto, a senior DHS official, wrote in the filing. “The decline in encounters at the U.S. border, and entries into the Darién Gap, show that the application of consequences as a result of the rule’s implementation is disincentivizing noncitizens from pursuing irregular migration and incentivizing them to use safe and orderly pathways.”

Reichlin-Melnick said that the few who did get past the new rule probably would not succeed in getting asylum in immigration court due to the policy but could still gain the other, lesser forms of protections offered under U.S. law.

Nuñez-Neto said that without the policy, DHS expects to see an increase in border crossings that would hurt local border communities and overstretch government resources.

He explained that DHS intelligence indicates that there are an estimated 104,000 migrants in northern Mexico and that many of these migrants appear to be “waiting to see whether the strengthened consequences associated with the rule’s implementation are real.”

Nuñez-Neto said the population in northern Mexico is within eight hours of the U.S. border. He cited the increase in arrests at the border in the run-up to the end of Title 42 earlier in May, when border agents were seeing upward of 10,000 migrants cross in a single day.

“DHS anticipates that any interruption in the rule’s implementation will result in another surge in migration that will significantly disrupt and tax DHS operations. This expectation is not speculative. DHS needs only to look back to the pre-May 12 surge, which was only blunted by the application of strengthened consequences at the border and expanded access to lawful pathways and processes, in large part as a result of the rule’s implementation on May 12, to identify the repercussions of losing the rule,” he wrote.

The Trump administration barred asylum for migrants who crossed the U.S. border and did not seek protections in another country on their journey. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar later blocked the policy. The Supreme Court stayed the order.

The Times interviewed migrants in Mexico who said they were still assessing the border changes in May — including some who were worried about the new policy and its potential consequences. The Biden administration has advertised deportations and the immigration consequences for those who cross the border without authorization on social media and in statements.

Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said the data revealed the policy changes at the border were making a difference in who was able to access asylum, though she noted that families were not included in the statistics presented by Nuñez-Neto.

“These data show that a much smaller share of single adult migrants are able to get into the United States to seek protections than before Title 42,” she said. “This represents a significant narrowing of the possibility of asylum for single adults coming to the border.”

Source: U.S. is rejecting asylum seekers at much higher rates under new Biden policy

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Canadian Immigration Tracker – April 2023

2023/06/23 Leave a comment

Have am in the process of renaming this monthly update given COVID is long in the past, if not quite over.

Two things that struck me:

– Sharp decline in Permanent Residents admissions: from 44,780 in March to 29,335 in Apri

– Sharp decline in new Canadian citizens: from 28,249 in March to 15,220 in April

Reasons unclear.

Appears that data revisions for the IMP only affect the annual stock of permits, not the monthly flow data. We await more fulsome explanation from IRCC.

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with ,

Canada: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2023 Article IV Mission [immigration and housing linkage]

2023/06/22 Leave a comment

One sentence but noteworthy reference to desirability of breaking down silos between immigration and housing, even it the likely participants are unlikely to consider the fundamental question of whether levels of permanent and temporary residents are too high:

Finally, actions are needed to promote housing supply and address affordability concerns. In the context of rising mortgage rates and the sharp increase in immigration, additional policy steps are needed to boost housing supply and promote housing affordability. While the Housing Accelerator Fund, introduced in the 2022 budget to provide incentives for municipalities to expand housing supply, is a step in the right direction, more needs to be done to expedite permitting and promote densification. Consideration could also be given to creating a permanent discussion forum for relevant stakeholders, including federal, provincial, and municipal officials responsible for both housing and immigration, as well as representatives of the construction industry and advocacy groups.

Source: Canada: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2023 Article IV Mission

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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