USA: New study examines immigration demographics and deportations …

2023/02/22 Leave a comment

Interesting study across different administrations, showing limited variation:

No matter the U.S. political climate, young, single and less educated men seemed to be at higher risk for deportation than other undocumented Mexican immigrants from 2001-2019, an Emory University-led study published today in PNAS shows.

The article, “Deportations and Departures: Undocumented Mexican Immigrants’ Return Migration During Three Presidential Administrations,” was published February 20 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America journal (PNAS).

The study analyzes deportation and voluntary return migration data encompassing the administrations of U.S. Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump.

Lead author Emory assistant sociology professor Heeju Sohn teamed up with University of California Los Angeles colleagues Anne Pebley and Amanda Landrian Gonzalez, and Noreen Goldman of Princeton University to examine trends in socio-demographic characteristics of undocumented Mexican immigrants deported by the U.S. along with those who chose to return to Mexico.

Each administration had different policies toward undocumented immigrants. Bush had a pro-immigration view before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump promoted anti-immigrant rhetoric. Obama targeted deporting recent immigrants and those with criminal backgrounds.

While the study does not predict or offer any absolute probabilities, it provides insight into relative potential risks.

Sohn explained that “even through the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric advocated deporting all undocumented immigrants, particularly from Mexico, the characteristics of Mexican immigrants deported during the Trump years were not dramatically different from previous administrations.“

On average, each administration annually deported about 893,000 people with the majority of them Mexican citizens.

“Despite each administration’s differing approach and rhetoric, who was actually being deported or deciding to leave didn’t change all that much,” Sohn said. “Just because an undocumented person voluntary leaves the U.S. doesn’t always mean they felt they had a choice in that decision either.”

Fewer immigrants were deported annually during the Trump administration than under Obama or Bush who had the highest number of deportations. During Obama’s first term, there was an increase in deportation of Mexican immigrants with criminal convictions but that percentage decreased in the last two years of his presidency.

While Trump’s administration prioritized all undocumented immigrants for deportation, the result shows deportation focused more on young adults and those with less education, groups which already face higher deportation risks.

“Policy makers and the public need to understand the consequences of the immigration policies that are implemented — whether they work or not. While the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies had many negative effects on immigrants and Americans, they did not do what they were apparently intended to in terms of deporting a larger and more diverse group of undocumented immigrants,” says co-author Pebley, a UCLA professor and California Center for Population Research faculty fellow.

The Trump administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and heightened enforcement didn’t appear to motivate a more diverse group of undocumented immigrants to leave voluntarily. Rather, voluntary return migration to Mexico was a trend that began early in the Obama administration after the great recession of 2007-2009, according to the study.

“People who are leaving or being deported do not exist in a vacuum. You can’t isolate them separately from the social and family connections they have interwoven in U.S. society,” Sohn said. “So, what happens to undocumented people that society has neglected has a direct effect on the well-being of U.S. citizens. We have a duty to not discriminate and there is a need for additional research.”

The experiences of undocumented children living in the U.S. is a blind spot in national data; the youngest age group in this study is 18 to 31.

“Moving across countries is a disruptive life event. This is an age group where people take major steps as adults — finding a partner, having children or establishing a career. This can have reverberating consequences for the rest of their lives,” Sohn said.

For the study, Sohn and the other researchers combined deportees’ and voluntary returnees’ data from both sides of the border — the Migration Survey on the Borders of Mexico-North (EMIF-N) and U.S. Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC).

It’s the first time these two major sets of data were combined for research purposes and studied in a novel way.

“It was critical that we understood the nuances of the data and sampling strategy. We took a lot of time and effort making sure our method accounted for the differences,” Sohn said.

“This is part of a bigger desire to make sure the lives of underrepresented groups have adequate representation. A lot of the research in social sciences are based on large data sets that don’t put much focus on the smaller groups or ones that are harder to measure,” Sohn said. “I hope getting this important topic published will get visibility to a wider audience.”

Source: New study examines immigration demographics and deportations …

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Nadeau: Les ballons de l’immigration

2023/02/21 Leave a comment

A reminder from Quebec service provider organizations that the provincial government has failed to act in terms of settlement services and in its public messaging blaming the federal government:

Cela fait plus d’une semaine, mais Mary Claire ne décolère pas. « Lorsque je vais m’être calmée, je vais appeler Denis. Je vais l’appeler, certain ! » Denis qui ? Trudel. Le député du coin, élu sous la bannière du Bloc québécois.

« Quand j’ai vu la publicité du Bloc, qui dit que c’est comme un “tout-inclus” pour les immigrants au Québec maintenant, j’avais envie de leur dire de commencer par venir voir c’est quoi, les conditions réelles de ces gens-là, avant de dire n’importe quoi ! C’est pas un “tout-inclus” pantoute ! Ça n’a pas d’allure de dire ça ! »

Sur la Rive-Sud dans la région de Montréal, Mary Claire Macleod dirige L’Entraide chez nous. Aucune demi-coquille de noix de coco, remplie à ras bord de piña colada, ne traîne dans ses locaux. À midi, une poignée de bénévoles et de permanents mangent leurs sandwiches. Ils attendent qu’arrive, sur le coup de 13 h, un lot de nécessiteux, comme on disait autrefois.

L’Entraide chez nous est installé dans le sous-sol d’une église plantée au milieu d’un quartier défavorisé, comme on dit aujourd’hui pour éviter d’être confronté au sens des mots pauvreté et inégalité. L’organisme a été fondé en 1970 par Mme Robidoux. Elle avait accouché de vingt-trois enfants, Mme Robidoux. Vingt-trois. Elle éprouvait la fragilité de son milieu. Un milieu laissé à lui-même, avec pour seule promesse d’avenir son lot de misères. C’était à l’heure où Robert Bourassa, nouveau premier ministre, se gargarisait de projets de béton et d’acier, au nom d’une modernité dont le monde d’en bas était exclu d’emblée. Bourassa est passé. La misère du quartier est restée.

Yvane Fournier et Diane Roberge distribuent du pain, des fruits, des légumes, de la viande congelée. Ça fait trente ans qu’elles travaillent là. « C’est pire que jamais », dit Yvane.

Ces bénévoles gardent leur téléphone portable à portée de main. Ils l’utilisent à tout moment pour traduire, en espagnol, quelques mots de français. « Le plus dur est de voir des hommes à mon bureau se mettre à pleurer. Ce sont eux qui craquent le plus, on dirait. Ils sont à bout », dit Mary Claire Macleod d’un air dépité.

« Les familles de nouveaux arrivants se retrouvent à devoir vivre les unes avec les autres », explique Lydie, une des responsables de l’accueil. Elle me parle de six adultes, forcés de vivre dans un 5 ½, avec une dizaine d’enfants. « Ils n’ont même pas de matelas pour tout le monde. »

Pour obtenir de quoi manger, il faut présenter sa carte. Les habitués de L’Entraide, avant, l’appelaient « la carte pain ». Cela dit bien le degré de précarité dont témoigne ce bout de carton plastifié.

« Avant, on offrait environ mille services de dépannage par an. Là, en moins de six mois, on en a déjà offert plus que ça », expose Mary Claire. Ce n’est pourtant pas la première fois que la situation est difficile. En 2001, après les attentats aux États-Unis, il y avait eu un afflux de demandes, se souvient-elle. En 2008 aussi, avec la crise financière. Et de nouveau en 2010, avec le tremblement de terre en Haïti. En 2017, pour aider les demandeurs d’asile, le Stade olympique avait été réquisitionné. Mais là, le soutien venu d’en haut fait défaut. Les organismes d’aide sont laissés à eux-mêmes. « En plus, la boîte de tomates coupées en dés que je payais 99 ¢ coûte maintenant le double. »

Pour Eva Gracia-Turgeon, coordonnatrice de Foyer du monde, un centre d’hébergement pour familles demandeuses d’asile, le gouvernement de la CAQ réussit un exploit en matière de communication politique. « La CAQ projette l’illusion que cette situation chaotique dépend entièrement du gouvernement fédéral. Beaucoup de gens achètent ça. Pourtant, c’est faux ! En fait, il faut savoir que, depuis la réouverture des frontières après la pandémie, le provincial n’a pas revu les services. Si ça va mal, c’est beaucoup par sa faute. C’est un gros shitshow. »

En principe, les demandeurs d’asile sont pris en charge par les services québécois du PRAIDA, un programme provincial remboursé par Ottawa. Ses assises remontent à 1956. En 2021, le bel édifice historique qu’occupaient les bureaux du PRAIDA, rue Saint-Denis, a été vidé. N’aurait-il pas pu servir encore, en ces temps où tout déborde ?

Durant la pandémie, le nombre de places d’hébergements du PRAIDA a été réduit, en raison de la fermeture temporaire des frontières. Les places n’ont pourtant pas augmenté depuis, même si tout est redevenu comme avant. Des dix sites d’hébergement, il n’en reste plus que deux, soit 1150 places au total. Ce qui est largement insuffisant. Des hôtels, que le fédéral utilisait pour des quarantaines, sont désormais réquisitionnés pour héberger les migrants, dans des conditions qui laissent beaucoup à désirer. On est loin de Playa del Carmen. « C’est le fédéral qui ramasse les pots cassés, parce que l’administration du PRAIDA ne relève pas de lui », explique Eva Gracia-Turgeon.

« Ça arrange Québec de ne pas bouger », dit Eva. « Ça donne l’impression que, par la seule faute d’Ottawa, nous n’avons pas la capacité de nous occuper de ces gens. Ce n’est pas vrai ! Si ça ne fonctionne pas en ce moment, c’est beaucoup parce que le gouvernement du Québec ne fait rien, qu’il laisse les groupes communautaires s’arranger tout seul, qu’il s’en lave les mains, tout en accusant le fédéral. » Personne ne penserait pour autant donner une médaille du mérite au fédéral.

Pendant ce temps, nos bretteurs aux épées de fer-blanc, ceux qui tiennent des propos incendiaires à propos des immigrants, ont trouvé là des cibles commodes et faciles. Hormis un temps d’arrêt pour considérer quelques ballons chinois, toute leur attention est pointée vers ces boucs émissaires, au nom d’une rhétorique identitaire. Au point de détourner l’attention publique de problèmes pourtant importants. C’est à se demander si nos vaillants tigres de papier, obnubilés par ce seul sujet, ne trouveraient pas le moyen de nous gonfler d’autres ballons si les migrants n’existaient pas. D’ailleurs, n’est-ce pas un peu ce qu’ils font déjà, en nous en parlant tout le temps ?

Source: Nadeau: Les ballons de l’immigration

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Near Roxham Road, RCMP border patrol relies on locals’ help – and tests their patience

2023/02/21 Leave a comment

Interesting account regarding the local residents affected:

While politicians in Ottawa and Quebec City bicker and negotiate over what to do about Roxham Road, locals must put up with frequent RCMP stops while at the same time trying to keep an eye open to help Mounties enforce border rules.

Matthias Kaiser, a farmer who owns land in the area near what is now internationally known as the official unofficial point of entry for asylum seekers in Canada, is used to interacting with law-enforcement agents from both sides of the border.

But with the rise in irregular crossings at Roxham Road and the RCMP operation there, “it’s more severe now,” he said. Mr. Kaiser, members of his family and his employees were all stopped on several occasions by the RCMP last fall.

Once, he was intercepted while driving with his wife on Alberton Road – Mr. Kaiser’s private farm road lined by his soy, alfalfa, and corn fields that runs 2½ kilometres to the east of Roxham Road and is the subject of intense scrutiny by the RCMP. Five police cars came after them.

“Unbelievable. I thought they were going to arrest me … When they asked me what I [was doing] here, I said, ‘Well, I drive on my road, and what are you doing on my road?’ ” Mr. Kaiser recalled.

He allowed the RCMP to patrol Alberton Road under the condition that they “put some gravel down once in a while,” something they have not done yet, he said.

On another occasion last fall, officers stopped his youngest son, driving with a Guatemalan employee. Somebody had to go and get the employee’s paperwork to prove he was not being smuggled.

RCMP officers also stopped other employees during harvest time while they were transporting truckloads of grain, saying they were looking for someone who got out of a car in the area. The interruption disrupted Mr. Kaiser’s operations, and he lost patience with the officers. “I had to apologize” after the heated exchange, the farmer said.

“I’m surprised they’re not here yet,” Mr. Kaiser said of the RCMP when The Globe and Mail met him on the private road Friday morning.

Sure enough, the flashing lights of a police cruiser and two agents appeared near The Globe’s rental vehicle parked on the farm road. Constable Tommy Pepin politely asked for ID and explained they wanted to make sure the vehicle was not abandoned by someone who planned to cross the U.S. border through the fields on foot.

Mr. Kaiser stressed that he has nothing against the officers and wants to maintain a good relationship with the RCMP. Most stops are short, he said, and he understands the importance for federal agents to look for potential smugglers.

But he questions the relevance of such efforts on the Canadian side. “They’re running after us, they’re running after one man but on the other hand, they let thousands come in, which they have no control over,” he reasoned, referring to Roxham Road.

The famous cul-de-sac, at the border between New York State and Quebec’s Montérégie region, has become the primary route for irregular entries into Canada in recent years. The RCMP intercepted 39,171 asylum seekers who did not use official ports of entry to enter Quebec in 2022, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada data, compared with just 369 in the rest of the country.

People who cross irregularly elsewhere are often brought to the RCMP’s Roxham Road facility for their application to be processed there, said Sergeant Charles Poirier, a spokesperson for the Mounties.

The long-standing Safe Third Country Agreement requires border agents from the United States and Canada to turn away asylum seekers from the other country if they arrive at official land border crossings. Because of this and given all the media attention it has received, most people coming from the U.S. who want to claim asylum in Canada use Roxham Road to avoid being turned away.

But sometimes, through bad luck, lack of knowledge of the area or for other reasons, people cross elsewhere, Sgt. Poirier said.

The RCMP’s main concern remains the smuggling of items such as firearms and drugs, he said. As the interaction with Constable Pepin showed, Mounties are also on the watch for smugglers and migrants going the opposite direction, into the U.S., sometimes risking their lives trying to cross in isolated areas in difficult weather.

This is likely what happened to Fritznel Richard, a Haitian migrant whose body was found on Mr. Kaiser’s land on Jan. 5. A little less than a year earlier, an Indian family of four died near the borderbetween Manitoba and the U.S.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection noticed a drastic uptick in recent months of people trying to enter North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin illegally from Canada. Swanton sector, which includes counties in New Hampshire, New York and Vermont, also had “historic highs” of apprehensions and encounters with migrants illegally crossing into the U.S., the U.S. border service said in a news release last week.

Sgt. Poirier worked for years with the local RCMP detachment, whose agents take care of Roxham Road arrivals and patrol a vast territory between Valleyfield and Lake Memphremagog. He said good relationships with locals are paramount to help prevent smuggling and avoid other deaths.

Dominique Martin, the owner of Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle’s Coolbreeze camping, said RCMP officers have questioned his clients on occasion. “If you walk on the road with a backpack, they are sure to stop you,” he said. Conversely, Mr. Martin called the Mounties several times when taxis left people near the campground, suspecting they made the hour drive from Montreal to cross irregularly into the U.S.

“It’s often people who call us,” Sgt. Poirier said of the locals. The RCMP monitors numerous surveillance cameras on the border, but “we need their intelligence,” he stressed.

Source: Near Roxham Road, RCMP border patrol relies on locals’ help – and tests their patience

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A surge of temporary residents is boosting demand for homes in supply-starved market 

2023/02/20 Leave a comment

More on immigration and housing:

A record-setting influx of temporary residents is putting additional strain on the Canadian housing market, just as the construction industry is pulling back on new builds.

By the end of 2022 there were roughly 1.95 million people from abroad with temporary work or study permits in the country, an increase of about 560,000 (40 per cent) over the previous year, according to recently published figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

The International Mobility Program accounted for slightly more than one million of those permits – a new high, up more than 300,000 in a year. The program covers a broad group of people, including the spouses of skilled workers and company transfers from foreign offices.

There were slightly more than 800,000 study permit holders at the end of last year, also a record high. Another 120,000 people held permits under the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program, the most since at least 2000.

Canada is deliberately raising its intake of immigrants, with the goal of admitting 500,000 permanent residents annually by 2025. However, that reflects just a portion of newcomers to the country.

Based on the latest estimates, in the third quarter of 2022 Canada’s population grew at its quickest pace in more than 50 years, mostly because of the increase in temporary residents. Their ranks grew by more than 225,000 during the three-month period, well above the previous record. Many of them aspire to stay in Canada permanently.

Experts say the country is increasingly moving to a two-step immigration process, in which people come for an education or work experience, then apply for permanent resident status.

In recent months, the federal government has been criticized for its immigration policies, particularly when the country is struggling to build enough homes and deliver basic medical services.

It has become “an unplanned, unmanaged, improvised immigration system,” said Anne Michèle Meggs, a former director of planning and accountability at Quebec’s Immigration Ministry. “Who is this helping?”

To some degree, special circumstances have contributed to the population surge. Canada has been admitting thousands of people fleeing Ukraine since the Russian invasion, and there has been a forceful rebound in the number of international students, many of whom delayed their studies here during the acute phases of the pandemic.

Still, the spike in temporary residents over the past year was “driven” by people with work permits, Statistics Canada said in its latest population report.

The federal government is courting more foreign workers, broadening access to low-wage workers through the TFW program and allowing foreign students to work longer hours – moves that it says are aimed at easing labour shortages.

Several economists have criticized Ottawa for flooding the market with cheap labour and suppressing wages.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities have dramatically increased the enrolment of foreign students, who pay significantly more in tuition than their domestic peers. There are no limits on this form of migration.

Many newcomers are discovering that homes in Canada are both pricey and in short supply.

A report by Desjardins Securities published this week said residential home construction would need to immediately increase by 50 per cent through the end of 2024 in order to support higher immigration targets and keep prices from climbing further.

It does not appear that will happen. Facing steep costs and higher interest rates, some developers are cancelling or delaying projects. Earlier this week, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported that housing starts fell 13 per cent in January from December, to an annualized pace of about 215,000 units.

In parts of Ontario with a population of 10,000 and higher, housing starts fell 31 per cent to an annual rate of roughly 71,500 units. That is well below the provincial government’s target of building 150,000 units a year for the next decade to alleviate the housing crisis.

“It certainly makes sense that building activity would be cooling amid a steep drop in sales and prices,” Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter said in a note to clients, referencing the recent slump in real estate activity amid higher borrowing costs.“Notwithstanding the broad and wide calls for the need for massive increases in new home construction in Canada, the reality is that starts are dictated by the market, and not by pundits.”

Source: A surge of temporary residents is boosting demand for homes in supply-starved market

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Yakabuski: Déplacer le problème

2023/02/20 Leave a comment

Good analysis of the issues and the problem for the government, particularly should the Supreme Court rule against the STCA. Potential for a comparable impact to the 1985 Singh decision which required the government to provide due process to anyone who arrived on Canadian soil:

La ministre de l’Immigration du Québec, Christine Fréchette, s’est dite heureuse d’apprendre que les autorités fédérales avaient transféré vers l’Ontario la presque totalité des quelque 500 demandeurs d’asile arrivés par le chemin Roxham en fin de semaine dernière. Selon Mme Fréchette, voilà bien la preuve que le gouvernement du Québec « peut avoir des résultats » en exprimant sans cesse son mécontentement face à l’inaction d’Ottawa devant le flux grandissant de migrants irréguliers qui passent par le chemin Roxham depuis sa réouverture, en novembre 2021.

La ministre Fréchette a imploré le gouvernement fédéral de continuer d’envoyer ailleurs au Canada plus des trois quarts des demandeurs d’asile qui traversent ce poste frontalier non officiel pour ne laisser au Québec qu’une proportion de migrants équivalente à son poids démographique au sein de la fédération canadienne. « On espère que ça va se maintenir dans le temps, et que ça va être la nouvelle approche de gestion de la frontière », a-t-elle ajouté.

Toutefois, le bonheur des uns fait parfois le malheur des autres. Dans la région de Niagara, dans le sud de l’Ontario, l’arrivée des migrants en provenance du chemin Roxham suscite de vives inquiétudes chez les autorités municipales et les organismes de bienfaisance. Cette région est dotée d’un plus grand nombre de chambres d’hôtel que la moyenne en raison de sa vocation touristique, active surtout en été. Alors, il n’est pas surprenant qu’Ottawa l’ait choisie comme destination pour les migrants que le Québec dit ne plus avoir la capacité d’accueillir.

Or, alors que le gouvernement s’apprêterait à louer environ 2000 chambres d’hôtel afin d’y loger temporairement les migrants dans le sud de l’Ontario, certains intervenants expriment des réserves sur la nouvelle stratégie d’Ottawa. « Sans préavis, sans préparation, cela nous met dans une position très difficile, a affirmé cette semaine le maire de Niagara Falls, Jim Diodati, dans une entrevue au St. Catharines Standard. Comment pouvons-nous gérer une situation comme celle-ci quand nous avons déjà une crise du logement et une crise d’accessibilité au logement ? Cela va absolument exacerber un problème déjà existant. » À quelques semaines du début de la saison touristique printanière, il a dit prévoir « un gros problème » à l’horizon.

En agissant de la sorte dans ce dossier, le gouvernement du premier ministre Justin Trudeau démontre de nouveau ses piètres capacités en matière de gestion de crise. Il est pris entre sa base progressiste, qui souhaiterait ouvrir les frontières canadiennes à tous ceux « qui fuient la persécution, la terreur et la guerre » — comme M. Trudeau avait lui-même promis de le faire en 2017 dans un gazouillis dorénavant entré dans l’histoire —, et les contradictions de ses propres politiques d’immigration.

Les véritables réfugiés se voient damer le pion par des passeurs qui exploitent la vulnérabilité des migrants fuyant des conditions de vie difficiles en Amérique latine ou en Afrique pour leur retirer le peu d’argent dont ils disposent. On a beau vouloir être généreux envers ces personnes, l’intégrité de notre système d’immigration en prend pour son rhume et le Canada consolide sa réputation de passoire dont profite quiconque veut s’en prévaloir.

Ottawa se trouve dépourvu d’arguments face à un gouvernement américain qui n’a aucun intérêt à accéder à sa demande de « moderniser » l’Entente sur les tiers pays sûrs (ETPS). Les quelque 40 000 demandeurs d’asile qui sont arrivés au Canada par le chemin Roxham en 2022 ne constituent qu’une goutte d’eau dans l’océan migratoire américain. Même des politiciens démocrates comme le maire de New York, Eric Adams, ne voient pas pourquoi ils devraient se priver d’utiliser cette « faille » dans l’ETPS pour pallier quelque peu leur propre crise migratoire. Avouons-le, leur crise est infiniment plus sérieuse que la nôtre.

Alors, quoi faire ? Le transfert des demandeurs d’asile du chemin Roxham vers les autres provinces permet peut-être au gouvernement fédéral de réduire la pression sur le Québec, mais il risque de créer des tensions ailleurs au pays. Il est aussi possible que les passeurs voient dans la démarche fédérale un geste qui facilite leur travail. La capacité d’accueil du Québec atteint peut-être ses limites, mais le transfert par Ottawa des demandeurs d’asile vers l’Ontario crée plus de possibilités pour les profiteurs du système.

Espérons que le gouvernement Trudeau se dotera d’un plan B au cas où la Cour suprême invaliderait l’Entente sur les tiers pays sûrs. En 2020, la Cour fédérale avait trouvé que cette entente violait le droit à la vie, à la liberté et à la sécurité de la personne garanti par la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. La Cour d’appel fédérale avait par la suite infirmé cette décision.

Toutefois, la notion selon laquelle les États-Unis ne constituent pas un pays « sûr » pour les demandeurs d’asile jouit de l’appui de beaucoup d’adeptes au Canada. En cas d’invalidation de l’ETPS, le Canada devrait accueillir tous les demandeurs d’asile qui arrivent en provenance des États-Unis, même ceux qui passent par un poste frontalier officiel. Cela créerait un méchant dilemme pour M. Trudeau, au point de peut-être même le forcer à répudier le fameux gazouillis dont il semble encore si fier.

Source: Déplacer le problème

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COVID-19 Immigration Effects – December 2022 update

2023/02/20 Leave a comment

Full-year data for 2022 across the suite of immigration programs.

The government continues to make progress on backlogs although the percentage failing to meet service standards has largely not improved: temporary residence 45 percent, permanent residence 48 percent and citizenship 28 percent. The backlog of visitor visas, highlighted in recent media articles, remains high at 70 percent (Dec 31 data).

All programs show a seasonal decrease in December except where noted.

PRs: 435,000 in 2022 compared to 404,000 in 2021. Drop in TR2PR transitions, from 279,000 in 2021 to 177,000 in 2022. Quebec 69,000 in 2022, compared to 50,000 in 2021 (despite public debates).

TRs/IMP: 494,000 in 2022 compared to 326,000 in 2021.

TRs/TFWP: 137,000 in 2022 compared to 106,000 in 2021.

Students: December end-of-year increase. 576,000 in 2022 compared to 469,000 in 2021.

Asylum claimants: Increased in December compared to November. 92,000 in 2022 compared to 25,000 in 2021. I have added a slide on “irregular arrivals” and their percentage of total asylum claimants.

Settlement Services (July): Decrease compared to June. YTD 1,031,000, 2021 same period 918,000.

Citizenship: 369,000 in 2022 compared to 137,000 in 2021.

Visitor Visas. Stable compared to November. 1,238,000 in 2022 compared to 236,000 in 2021.

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Japan to grant residency to high-earning professionals after 1 year

2023/02/20 Leave a comment

Shift of note, even if limited:

The Japanese government decided Friday to update immigration rules in hopes of luring world-class talent, including through slashing the wait for high-earning professionals to obtain permanent residency.

Japan currently grants visas to highly skilled professionals under a point-based system, accounting for factors like academic history, work experience and research achievements. Those in this category can obtain permanent residency after up to three years instead of the typical 10.

The update, which the government hopes to implement in April, shortens the period to one year for researchers and engineers who make at least 20 million yen ($149,000) annually and have either a graduate degree or at least 10 years of work experience.

Source: Japan to grant residency to high-earning professionals after 1 year

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Cosh: The Incredibly Exploding Canada

2023/02/18 Leave a comment

More on the wake-up cry on immigration related to housing availability and affordability.

But why Cosh or his editors have to include a juvenile aside on the Globe “inferior national newspaper,” in general and at a time of Postmedia cuts, is beyond me:

It seems like only a few weeks since us newspaper halfwits were trying to absorb the astonishing news that the population of Canada had grown almost one per cent in three months. (“A few” turns out to mean “eight.”) In the meantime, nobody in Canada’s press has said very much about a Jan. 25 economics memorandum from the CIBC’s Benjamin Tal, which carries a somewhat disturbing message: we ain’t seen nothing yet. 

Tal’s concern is how we analyze the immediate future of housing markets in Canada. Newspapermen focus, perhaps naturally, on the headline details of federal-government targets for new permanent residents. These are already being increased at full throttle, with universal approval from the general public: new permanent resident (NPR) approvals are expected to hit 465,000 in 2023. Does this mean we need to somehow create housing (to say nothing of other infrastructure and social resources) for 465,000 new people and then more each year going forward? 

Well, the good news is that the answer to that question is “no.” Many new permanent residents are people who were already living in the country as students or temporary workers. While international travel was choked off during the pandemic, most new permanent residents were people already here, and so immigration figures didn’t represent new demand for housing and other socioeconomic supports. 

But this changed in 2022, which accounts for the remarkable spike in the observed population. Most new permanent residents last year came from outside the country, and this was coupled with a surge in arrivals of non-permanent residents, including about 140,000 Ukrainians who took immediate advantage of the humanitarian Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) program. CUAET includes a three-year, more-or-less-unconditional work visa. 

The Ukrainians are merely a small part of this story, but they provide a hint as to why NPR numbers are more volatile and harder to forecast than the permanent-resident approvals, which are relatively easy for the federal government to enumerate and limit. Even as Ottawa crowbars the permanent resident-based immigration mainstream ever wider, industry is demanding more permits for temporary workers (don’t you know there’s a labour shortage?) and universities are frantically trying to rebuild their international student numbers. Actual NPR arrivals to Canada jumped from 258,000 in 2021 to at least 700,000 in 2022, Tal thinks. 

I hardly need to add that, this being Canada, reaching this estimate required digging into customized data from the immigration department. “Official published sources” don’t break down new permanent residents into “already here” and “newly arriving,” and Statistics Canada’s population projections have a habit of underestimating future NPR flows. 

“Together,” Tal concludes, net “permanent residents and NPR arrivals from outside Canada in 2022 amounted to an estimated 955,000, representing an unprecedented swing in housing demand in a single year that is currently not fully reflected in official figures.” He goes on to remind the reader that 340,000 Ukrainian holders of approved CUAET visas have not yet come to Canada, and there is a backlog of another 300,000 applications that haven’t been looked at. (The war in Ukraine, one should add, shows no sign of immediately ending; and who knows what unforeseen conflicts might inspire the creation of a second or third or nth emergency visa program?) 

Meanwhile, if you believe the inferior national newspaper, the feds are considering dealing with their notorious and awful immigration backlog by slashing the Gordian knot of visitor visas, waiving the eligibility rules for those and rubber-stamping 500,000 applications all in one wad. This would help Canadian tourism and conference organizing a great deal — but it would also be likely to send that unpredictable “net arrivals” figure through the roof. The discussion memorandum obtained by the Globe, let us note, explicitly considered the possibility that this might be best done in secret without an official announcement.

Source: Cosh: The Incredibly Exploding Canada

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Rents Are Soaring in Canada as Surge of People Goes Undercounted

2023/02/18 Leave a comment

Good article and analysis.

Emblemic of the “undercounting” is that the Immigration Levels Plan does not include temporary residents (workers and students), an oversight that many are noticing given the rapid rise in their number over the past 20 years.

Housing availability and affordability is the most obvious Achilles Heel of the government’s approach but there healthcare and infrastructure are also significant:

Canada’s explosive population growth from immigration is causing rents to surge in its biggest cities. And there’s another problem: The country isn’t even properly counting the number of people who need homes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government plans to welcome 465,000 new permanent residents this year, and increase the annual target to half a million by 2025. But those often-cited numbers understate the pressure on the country’s limited supply of housing —because they don’t include a wave of foreign students, temporary workers and others with non-permanent visas.

The country actually had close to 1 million international arrivals last year, according to an analysis by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce that’s based on other data, including visas. It will probably accept a similar number this year, said Benjamin Tal, the bank’s deputy chief economist.

Apartment Rents Are Soaring in Canada’s Cities

Rent increases for two-bedroom apartments, year-over-year

As a result, Canada is experiencing its fastest population growth since the 1970s, and apartments have become extremely hard to find. The vacancy rate on rental buildings is below 2%, the lowest since 2001. In Vancouver, it’s less than 1%. The situation is made worse by rising interest rates that have made buying a home unaffordable for many people, pushing them into the market for rental properties.

Source: Rents Are Soaring in Canada as Surge of People Goes Undercounted

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The U.S. isn’t rushing to deal with Canada’s Roxham Road migrant problem

2023/02/17 Leave a comment

Realpolitik, no incentive for USA and off-loading some of their “problems” makes meaningful and successful negotiations unlikely, although Michael Barutciski argues that it can be done (Is a diplomatic solution possible for Roxham Road?:

On the day that Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette celebrated the mass relocation of Roxham Road migrants to Ontario, her boss, Premier François Legault, told reporters he couldn’t understand why the U.S. wasn’t willing to take border-crossers back.

He met U.S. Ambassador David Cohen on Tuesday, and then said he doesn’t know why the U.S. won’t change a border agreement so people who enter Canada at Roxham Road, an unofficial crossing between Quebec and New York State, can be returned to the U.S.

“I said to him, I don’t understand why it is taking so long to settle with the United States.”

Mr. Legault is an intelligent politician, so he must be deliberately playing dumb.

He knows the relief that government leaders feel when their intractable problem becomes someone else’s. Ms. Fréchette said the Quebec government was “very happy” that 372 of the 380 people who crossed into Canada at Roxham Road since Saturday had been relocated outside Quebec.

Surely Mr. Legault must have a clue as to why the U.S. government isn’t rushing to solve Canada’s Roxham Road issue.

The U.S. position is not an accident. It has for decades resisted doing what Canada wants it to do on this file.

To be clear, Quebec is right to want some of the migrants, many of whom will seek asylum, to be relocated. The RCMP intercepted 39,171 people entering Canada at Roxham Road in 2022, and the province, and especially Montreal, complained their capacity to settle people was strained. The border is Canada’s responsibility, not just Montreal’s, or Quebec’s.

And certainly, it would be easier on all levels of government in Canada if the United States just took all those people back. But it has resisted.

Politicians shouldn’t act as though getting the U.S. to change should be a snap. Justin Trudeau’s government has hinted a deal might be coming, but we might want to see it before we believe it. You’d have to think there would be some serious quid pro quo. It isn’t the Americans’ border problem.

There was a period in the pandemic when the U.S. did accept people back, in theory temporarily, when both countries closed their borders. Not many people tried to cross at Roxham Road. But the U.S. ended that arrangement in November, 2021. People started crossing there again.

There was a long history before that. At one time, asylum-seekers could simply show up at any official border crossing and claim refugee status in Canada. But as the numbers grew in the 1990s, Ottawa tried and fail to make a deal. The U.S. declined. It was only after the 9/11 attacks, in a broad border pact, that the U.S. accepted a Safe Third Country Agreement that allowed Canada to return asylum-seekers who arrived via the U.S. to make their claim there.

But it only applied at official border posts, and for a pretty simple reason: The United States wanted it that way. It didn’t want the trouble of accepting people who might show up anywhere along the long border with Canada.

The agreement was always opposed by refugee advocates, but from the start there was also a concern that it would encourage people to cross the border in illicit places. Jason Kenney has said he tried to convince the U.S. to change it when he was immigration minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, to no avail.

Fast forward to now, when Roxham Road has become a well-travelled route, and the U.S. still isn’t itching to change it. And we shouldn’t be surprised, when the hottest political issue in the U.S. is illegal entries across the Mexican border, that the U.S. is not racing to stop 40,000 people from leaving.

If the U.S. did apply the Safe Third Country Agreement outside official border crossings, it would shut down Roxham Road, but more people would cross at the many other locations along the boundary.

Taking them all back would require more work and more patrols along the Canadian border when the U.S. devotes its resources to the Mexican boundary. The U.S. Border Patrol has 2,073 agents along the northern boundary, compared to 16,070 agents at the southern border – whose patrols logged more than a million “encounters” with border crossers in 2022.

And U.S. President Joe Biden couldn’t expect to be celebrated for making a deal with Canada that prevents tens of thousands of asylum-seekers from leaving the U.S. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat like Mr. Biden, has been giving asylum-seekers bus tickets to get to Roxham Road. No one should be surprised the U.S. isn’t jumping to “solve” this Canadian problem.

Source: The U.S. isn’t rushing to deal with Canada’s Roxham Road migrant problem

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