Ottawa expands access to temporary foreign workers to ease labour crunch

2022/04/06 Leave a comment

As others have noted, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce,” as the government is likely to discover as did the previous government in 2014 (see So who is to blame for the temporary foreign worker mess?).

https://twitter.com/mikalskuterud/status/1511316965599682563?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”

The federal government is allowing Canadian employers to hire significantly more temporary foreign workers as part of changes to its immigration rules, a move aimed at easing labour shortages that have aggravated businesses during the recovery from the pandemic.

The federal employment ministry announced changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program on Monday that will ultimately increase the number of TFWs allowed into Canada, both in low- and high-wage jobs. The changes will also streamline the application process for employers.

The loosened restrictions deliver a boon to businesses just days before the release of the 2022 federal budget, which corporate Canada will be watching closely for measures aimed at growing Canada’s economy after two years of market gyrations and massive public spending.

Starting on April 30, employers will be allowed to increase the number of low-wage TFWs they hire, from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of their total workforces, until further notice. For seven key sectors that have suffered from particularly acute labour shortage issues over the past few years – such as food manufacturing; hospitals, nursing and residential care; and accommodation and food services – the TFW cap for low-wage workers will be raised to 30 per cent for one year.

The government is also planning to remove a cap on the number of low-wage positions that employers in seasonal industries, such as fish and seafood processing, can fill through the program. Employers will now be able to keep TFWs in these positions for 270 days, instead of the current 180 days.

In addition, the government is expanding the duration of time that a foreign worker hired through the Global Talent Streams program (which is geared at high-wage foreign workers) can be employed in Canada, to three years from two. Technology leaders in Canada have continually lobbied Ottawa to loosen immigration rules for high-skilled workers, because the battle for tech talent often pits domestic firms against deep-pocketed Silicon Valley giants.

Many businesses in Canada, particularly those that were impacted by on-and-off lockdowns over the past two years, have been struggling to find domestic workers willing to be employed on the front lines of an ongoing pandemic, and have been calling on the government to allow them to access the TFW program.

Canadian employers were recruiting for roughly 915,000 positions in the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase of 80 per cent over the number of openings two years prior, according to Statistics Canada. In December, the labour need was particularly acute in three industries, each of which had more than 100,000 open positions: accommodation and food services, retail, and health care and social assistance.

Even as demand for labour has increased, employment in Canada has jumped above prepandemic levels. The national unemployment rate is 5.5 per cent, putting it just shy of a record low – a sign that worker availability is waning.

“As we begin to recover from the pandemic and look to fill remaining job vacancies, we will continue to make our Temporary Foreign Worker Program more accessible, efficient and agile to support employers who are looking to staff up and grow their operations,” Sean Fraser, the federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, said in a statement.

TFWs are allowed into Canada on temporary visas, and they usually face legal restrictions on where they can work and the types of labour they can perform. A TFW can try to gain permanent residency in Canada, but those who aren’t granted permanent status are required to leave the country when their visas expire.

The expansion of the TFW program was met with mixed reactions. Employers and business lobby groups applauded the changes, while labour advocates cautioned that increasing the number of TFWs effectively increases the number of precarious workers with fewer rights than Canadians.

“We feel like the business community has been heard around labour shortages, particularly in the short term,” said Leah Nord, senior director of workforce strategies and inclusive growth at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The TFW program changes are “going to go a long way to help address those issues in many sectors.”

For decades, the TFW program has been a focal point of criticism in Canada’s immigration system. Its opponents have said it is overused by companies looking to drive down labour costs. Another frequent criticism is that the program allows employers to exploit migrant workers.

Only 0.4 per cent of Canada’s overall labour force consists of workers from the TFW program, according to the government. Most end up working in low-wage jobs. Agriculture alone accounts for 60 per cent of all TFWs.

Seasonal agriculture workers often live in employer-provided bunkhouses. Those crowded conditions have been blamed for a rash of COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant workers over the past two years, resulting in thousands getting sick and some dying. Labour groups say inhumane treatment of agricultural workers is acute in Ontario, where they are barred from unionizing or entering into collective bargaining agreements.

“This is very concerning. When workers come into this country tied to an employer, it completely limits their ability to speak up about any unfair labour practices or health issues,” said Deena Ladd, executive director of the Workers’ Action Centre, a labour advocacy group.

Ms. Ladd added that allowing an influx of foreign workers to enter the country without a clear path toward permanent residency, which would give them full labour and health protections under the law, is regressive.

The government has said increasing the Global Talent Streams visa period to three years from two will allow this class of foreign worker to more easily find ways to qualify for permanent residency.

Jane Deeks, a spokesperson for Carla Qualtrough, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, said nearly 152,000 applicants transitioned from worker status to permanent residency between January and November of 2021.

Source: Ottawa expands access to temporary foreign workers to ease labour crunch

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Legal US immigration rebounds somewhat after plunging with COVID pandemic

2022/04/06 Leave a comment

Useful analysis by Pew:

The number of immigrants receiving green cards as new lawful U.S. permanent residents bounced back last year to pre-pandemic levels after plunging during the coronavirus outbreak, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of recently available government data. Green cards issued to immigrants already in the United States seeking to adjust their temporary status rebounded above pre-pandemic levels, while the number of green cards for new arrivals also grew but did not reach earlier totals.

About 282,000 people received green cards in July-September 2021, the final quarter of the fiscal year, according to quarterly admissions data from the federal Office of Immigration Statistics. That number was higher than in any quarter since April-June 2017, and slightly higher than the quarterly average for the period from October 2015 to March 2020. During the pandemic, new green card issuances fell to a quarterly low of 79,000 in mid-2020.

Arrivals of foreign tourists, business visitors, guest workers, foreign students and other temporary lawful migrants also rebounded somewhat, according to data for the final quarter of fiscal 2021, which ended Sept. 30. For the most part, however, arrivals of these lawful temporary migrants are still well below their pre-pandemic averages.

How we did this

Beginning in early 2020, the coronavirus pandemic had a big impact on migration worldwide. The U.S. closed land borders with Canada and Mexico to nonessential travel through late 2021, and air travel between countries also was severely restricted. Three-quarters of U.S. consulates globally, which issue visas, remained closed through June 2021. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes applications for immigrants already in the U.S., suspended in-person interviews as well as other services during the height of the pandemic. Other countries – both sources of immigrants and transit corridors for them – closed their borders early on in the pandemic, bringing international migration nearly to a halt.

Fewer green cards issued

A line graph showing that green card totals for legal U.S. immigrants have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels

During the pandemic, green card issuances for newly arriving immigrants dropped more sharply than issuances for immigrants already in the United States on temporary visas. Issuances for newly arriving immigrants also have not recovered as much ground as issuances for immigrants already in the U.S. when compared with pre-pandemic levels.

At the low point for visa and legal permanent status issuances at the start of the pandemic – the April-June 2020 period that was the third quarter of the fiscal year – roughly 19,000 green cards were issued to new arrivals to the U.S., compared with an average of about 134,000 each quarter for the period from October 2015 to March 2020. In the last quarter of fiscal 2021, in June to September of that year, about 105,000 green cards were issued to immigrants newly arriving in the U.S., or about 78% of the pre-pandemic quarterly average.

The number of green cards granted to immigrants already in the U.S. on temporary visas, called an “adjustment of status,” did not fall as steeply. During the 2020 pandemic low point for lawful immigration, about 60,000 green cards were issued to immigrants adjusting their status, compared with a quarterly average of 141,000 for fiscal 2016 onward. By the final quarter of fiscal 2021, roughly 177,000 green cards were issued for adjustments of status, more than in any quarter recorded since at least fiscal 2016.

Legal admission of temporary migrants partially rebounds

Arrivals of legally admitted temporary migrants, which averaged 19.6 million per quarter from fiscal 2016 through March 2020, dove to about 600,000 during April-June 2020, the third quarter of the fiscal year. That was only 3% of the pre-pandemic average.

A line graph showing that tourist arrivals to the U.S. have not recovered from a pandemic-era drop

About 80% of these arrivals before the pandemic were tourists, and most of the rest were business travelers, temporary workers and their families, and students.

While the numbers have gone up from the low point in April-June 2020, the number of arrivals of tourists and business travelers are still well below pre-pandemic levels. However, the number of arrivals for temporary worker and student visas have risen closer to average levels in comparable quarters for October 2016-March 2020 than have the number of arrivals by business or tourist visas.

Hardest hit by the border closures were arrivals of tourists, which dropped to only 1% of earlier levels in April-June 2020 – about 185,000 arrivals, compared with a quarterly average of 15.6 million for the period beginning October 2015. These arrivals have since risen considerably, but the latest data (from July to September 2021) shows that quarterly tourism has reached only 22% of the average level of the period from late 2015 until the pandemic hit in March 2020.

A line graph showing that U.S. arrivals of temporary migrants, especially business travelers, are below pre-pandemic levels

The number of foreign visitors attending conferences or otherwise traveling on business also declined dramatically, to only 6% of pre-pandemic levels. Even with sizable increases since then, business visitor visas only reached 21% of pre-pandemic levels, roughly 461,000, in the final quarter of fiscal 2021.

In April-June 2020, only about 11,000 foreign students arrived in the United States, representing 4% of average arrivals during similar quarters since 2016. The numbers increased substantially but remained well below pre-pandemic levels until the fourth quarter of 2021, when about 501,000 foreign students arrived in the U.S., reaching two-thirds (67%) of the average number of fourth-quarter arrivals prior to the pandemic’s start.

Arrivals of temporary workers and their families dropped somewhat less during the pandemic than those of others with temporary status. The roughly 226,000 arrivals of temporary workers in April-June 2020 represented 23% of average quarterly arrivals from October 2015 to March 2020. By July-September 2021, arrivals of temporary workers had more than doubled from the 2020 low, to about 542,000, but still remained at only slightly above half the pre-pandemic level (54%).

The somewhat smaller drop in temporary workers was in large part a function of the continued arrival of agricultural workers (issued H-2A visas) to cross the border to pick crops. In a Federal Register notice, the Department of Homeland Security deemed these jobs “critical to the U.S. public health and safety and economy.” About 100,000 H-2A workers were admitted in April-June 2020, only 4,000 fewer than were admitted in the same quarter the year before and 12% more than the average number admitted for the third quarters of 2016-2019. Excluding H-2A visa arrivals, the number of arrivals of temporary workers during April-June 2020 fell to 14% of pre-pandemic averages.

Source: Legal US immigration rebounds somewhat after plunging with COVID pandemic

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USCIS Issues Immigration Rule To Expand Premium Processing

2022/04/05 Leave a comment

May be some merit in exploring premium service options for economic and family class given backlogs and likely lengthy time to reduce the backlogs. We do so for passports:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a final rule to expand premium processing, which will allow employers and individuals to pay a higher fee in exchange for quicker processing times in certain immigration categories. USCIS also announced a temporary final rule on employment authorization renewals and targets to reduce backlogs and processing times. Employers, attorneys and foreign nationals with long waits welcomed expanded premium processing but hope the time horizons for implementing the measures will be quicker than those announced.

Why the Rule is Important: USCIS processing times are long and remain a chief complaint of the individuals, employers and attorneys who interact with the U.S. immigration system. Catherine Rampell, Michelle Hackman, Miriam Jordan, Dara Lind and other journalists have described the impact of long delays on the spouses of H-1B visa holders and others waiting for employment authorization documents (EADs) or an EAD renewal. Wasden Banias and other firms have filed lawsuits to compel USCIS to process cases more quickly.

Expanding premium processing does not solve USCIS processing issues. However, it provides the agency with more revenue that can be used to address those issues and can help individuals and their employers overcome processing delays by paying an additional fee. The new rule fulfills a mandate from Congress.

What Will the Premium Processing Rule Do?: In an appropriations bill that became law on October 1, 2020, the USCIS Stabilization Act expanded USCIS authority “to establish and collect additional premium processing” fees. USCIS states that it will adopt a phased implementation of premium processing because the law specifies it cannot worsen existing wait times when implementing or expanding premium processing. 

USCIS will expand premium processing for Forms I-539(application to change/extend status), I-765 (application for employment authorization) and I-140 (immigrant petition for alien work) as soon as feasible. “DHS plans on a phased implementation strategy to allow current premium processing revenue to pay for development and implementation costs associated with expanding availability of the service,” according to USCIS. 

“DHS plans to implement expansion for certain categories of Forms I-539, I-765 and both of the new I-140 classifications in FY 2022,” states USCIS. “DHS estimates that it will not be able to expand premium processing to the additional categories of Forms I-539 and I-765 until FY 2025 due to the possibility that premium processing revenues do not yet exist to cover any potential costs of hiring additional staff to expand premium processing to these additional categories without adversely affecting other benefit’s processing times, as directed by Congress.”

The rule will go into effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. These are the forms that will become eligible for premium processing first:

· “Form I-140 requesting EB-1 immigrant classification as a multinational executive or manager or EB-2 immigrant classification as a member of professions with advanced degrees or exceptional ability seeking a national interest waiver (NIW). Fee: $2,500. Timeframe: 45 days;

· “Form I-539 requesting a change of status to F-1, F-2, J-1, J-2, M-1, or M-2 nonimmigrant status or a change of status to or extension of stay in E-1, E-2, E-3, H-4, L-2, O-3, P-4, or R-2 nonimmigrant status. Fee: $1,750. Timeframe: 30 days; and

· “Form I-765 requesting employment authorization. Fee: $1,500. Timeframe: 30 days.”

“DHS is prioritizing premium processing for some Form I-765 categories,” according to USCIS. “DHS anticipates to begin premium processing Employment Authorization Documents for students applying for Optional Practical Training (OPT) and exchange visitors beginning in FY 2022.”

Analysis of the Rule: “The new premium processing regulation is a welcome step forward by USCIS and provides an important option for relief to massive processing delays for some individuals and businesses,” said Kevin Miner of Fragomen in an interview. “However, much remains unknown. In particular, the rule notes that while USCIS intends to implement premium processing for certain EADs (employment authorization documents) and dependent extensions this year, it may be several years before it expands premium processing to all categories of EADs and dependent extensions. 

“Just having the rule in place isn’t useful if the agency takes years to implement it. I am hopeful that USCIS will be strategic in how it handles this implementation. For instance, if the agency were to implement premium processing for all initial EAD applications, this would be a major help for individuals and businesses while allowing USCIS to manage its workload. The rules that already exist extending EADs where there is a timely filed renewal combined with the ability to premium process the initial request for an EAD would go a long way toward solving the very difficult interruptions in work authorization that we are so commonly seeing.”

“While the stakeholder community is grateful for the relatively quick expansion of premium processing to additional I-140 categories, the delayed implementation for Forms I-539 and I-765 is disappointing,” said Dagmar Butte of Parker Butte and Lane in an interview. “Since, generally speaking, I-140 filers already have status and work permission while they wait for their applications to be adjudicated, the individuals most impacted by the continued delays are those who cannot work until the I-539 (application to change/extend status) and I-765 (application for employment authorization) are adjudicated.”

“EADs are included in the rule,” said Miner. “We know that premium processing for EADs will cost $1,500 and result in an adjudication within 30 days. The big unknown is how soon USCIS will implement premium processing for EADs, and for which ones. The rule leaves it to the agency to implement this by putting a notice on its website, so we have to wait and see.”

New USCIS “Cycle Time” Processing Goals: USCIS also announced it will establish new internal “cycle time” goals. “A cycle time measures how many months’ worth of pending cases for a particular form are awaiting a decision,” according to USCIS. “As an internal management metric, cycle times are generally comparable to the agency’s publicly posted median processing times. Cycle times are what the operational divisions of USCIS use to gauge how much progress the agency is, or is not, making on reducing our backlog and overall case processing times.”

What are the cycle time goals for particular USCIS forms?

– Two weeks: I-129 and I-140 (with premium processing);

– Two months: I-129 (without premium processing);

– Three months: I-765, I-131 Advance Parole, I-539, I-824;

– Six months: N-400, N-600, N-600K, I-485, I-140 (without premium processing), I-130 Immediate Relative, I-129F Fiancé(e), I-290B, I-360, I-102, I-526, I-600, I-600A, I-600K, I-730, I-800, I-800A, I-90, I-821D Renewals.”

Critics of USCIS will likely consider these goals aspirational. However, there is a benefit for a federal agency to establish benchmarks since it can help focus decision-making. “As cycle times improve, processing times will follow, and applicants and petitioners will receive decisions on their cases more quickly,” according to the agency. “USCIS will increase capacity, improve technology, and expand staffing to achieve these new goals by the end of FY 2023.”

Temporary Final Rule on EADs: USCIS stated that it “continues to make progress toward a temporary final rulecurrently named ‘Temporary Increase of the Automatic Extension Period of Employment Authorization and Documentation for Certain Renewal Applicants.’” Depending on the substance, the rule could provide an option for individuals who risk losing their jobs due to USCIS processing delays.

“I don’t think anyone has seen the text, but from the title, I think they must be extending out the automatic 180-day extension that you get with a timely filed renewal for some EAD categories,” said Kevin Miner, “This would be helpful, especially for adjustment of status EADs. We have had many cases where the EAD renewal is filed as far in advance for the expiration as USCIS allows (6 months), but with processing times taking 13 or 14 months in some cases, the individual still ends up with a gap in work authorization. 

“By extending out the auto-extension period to say, 240 days like they do for H-1Bs, L-1s, and other nonimmigrant [temporary visa] categories, that would provide a better cushion and avoid those gaps. It would also likely significantly reduce the number of EAD expedite requests the agency has to handle, which would allow them to better allocate resources internally.”

Nothing precludes USCIS from proposing broader solutions, including changes in the process, that would limit the need for individuals to file—and the agency to process—requests for employment authorization. Under a recent settlement, USCIS agreed to “issue policy guidance that states that L-2 spouses are employment authorized incident to status.” (That means no initial filing requesting employment authorization would be necessary.) There may be statutory differences with the spouses of L-1 visa holders. However, USCIS could consider a range of regulatory or administrative actions in other categories. Miner points out a regulation will not be quick. On the other hand, USCIS has proposed a potential three-year phase-in for the premium processing rule.

The Trump administration enacted many policies designed to make it more difficult to gain approvals in various immigration categories, made the process more cumbersome and, as a result, cases piled up and wait times increased. During the Trump administration, the number of pending cases at USCIS increased by 37%, from 4.7 million to 6.4 million, between the first quarters of FY 2017 and FY 2021, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis, and the trend has continued.

USCIS Director Ur Jaddou started her job less than 8 months ago and inherited what observers consider a train wreck years in the making. Ultimately, Jaddou and USCIS will be judged by their ability to reduce wait times for immigration benefits. Expanding premium processing, allowing more leeway on employment authorization renewals and establishing clear targets to reduce processing times represent steps in the right direction.

Source: USCIS Issues Immigration Rule To Expand Premium Processing

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Federal Court getting clogged with immigration appeals – Canada News

2022/04/05 Leave a comment

Without earlier pre-pandemic data, hard to assess the degree to which this is a significant increase. In the context of backlogs etc, clearly could be:

The number of people seeking the Federal Court’s help to determine the status of their applications to become new Canadians has increased by almost seven times over the past three years, according to the latest figures provided to New Canadian Media.

Commenting on a recent NCM article, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said that it is now dealing with 445 mandamus files referred by the Federal Court. There were only 65 such cases for the 2019/2020 period.

In the immigration context, a mandamus application is a judicial remedy compelling the performance of a public legal duty by IRCC that is owed to an applicant.

According to the latest IRCC numbers, 445 mandamus applications were referred by the Federal Court for the 2021/2022 year as of Feb. 28, including 153 in family class, 239 in economic class and 53 as refugees.

“The increase in mandamus applications is in part due to closures at various processing offices and Visa Application Centres during COVID-19 that led to longer processing times for applicants, and in part due to our growing inventory and the number of applications received by IRCC every year,” Julie Lafortune, IRCC’s communications advisor, told NCM.

“A number of complex files involving paper application forms have been seriously impacted by the office closures, and all of our partners upon which we rely on for the processing of complex files have also been experiencing longer delays than usual.”

Victor Ing, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer, said the latest numbers clearly confirm a marked increase in mandamus cases over the past year, which is consistent with the day-to-day experiences of immigration law practitioners.

“Applying for mandamus is not something that most clients take lightly. Starting a lawsuit against the party you want to receive a positive decision from is counterintuitive, but many clients eventually reach a tipping point where they no longer feel like there is an alternative path,” he told NCM.

“In my experience, many mandamus applications can be avoided if IRCC would communicate more openly and honestly with clients. Too often they are made to feel like a file number, and what is easily overlooked is that they are all individuals whose lives have been put on hold waiting for decisions they expected to receive much sooner,” said Ing.

“The frustrations of the public around COVID-19 related to processing delays are palpable, and IRCC needs to continue to develop new tools and policies to increase transparency in the decision-making process and to reassure clients that their cases will be processed in a timely manner.”

There are now close to two million applications trapped in a massive backlog that IRCC is struggling to clear.

IRCC undeterred

At the same time, Canada aims to attract about 1.3 million new immigrants over the next three years to help fill critical labour shortages and fuel post-pandemic growth.

The 2022–2024 Immigration Levels Plan aims to continue welcoming immigrants at a rate of about one per cent of Canada’s population, including 431,645 permanent residents in 2022 (an increase of about 21,000 people from its original plan), 447,055 in 2023, and 451,000 in 2024.

The Government of Canada recently announced that it has allocated $85 million in new funding to reduce IRCC application inventories. The funding will build on what IRCC has already done to reduce wait times, such as hiring approximately 500 new processing staff, digitizing applications, and reallocating work among its offices around the world.

Ing said that while IRCC has introduced many innovative systems since the start of the pandemic, the implementation of these systems has been lagging, contributing, in some cases, to the growing frustrations of the public.

“For instance, on February 8, 2022, the Minister announced a new online tool that would allow Family Class applicants for permanent residence to track the status of their cases online,” he said. “I shared the announcement with one of my clients who would have benefited from the new tool, but she was unable to make use of it due to technical issues.”

Numerous mistakes

Chun He, a student-at-law, in an article for the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA), said IRCC’s appetite for automation has led to numerous mistakes and dehumanizing experiences for people trying to come to Canada.

He said that the multiple, rapidly designed electronic IRCC portals implemented without adequate testing or stakeholder feedback has resulted in poor functionality and user frustration.

“Advocates note that they have never experienced so many portals not working. The authorized representative portal has been out of order for days at a time. These glitches and kinks in the system have created huge problems for clients, as it has forced some of them to file applications at the last minute, lose their status, or even stop working,” wrote He.

“Overall, the primary outcome of this never-before-seen multi-portal experiment is ongoing distress for clients and their representatives.”

Source: Federal Court getting clogged with immigration appeals – Canada News

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Working long hours. Earning meagre wages. Fainting from exhaustion. What some international students face in Canada

2022/04/04 Leave a comment

The Globe also did a similar analysis with respect to Brampton (Canada’s international student recruiting machine is broken). More a cheap labour program than an education one.

So much abuse, so little action by governments:

Each year, thousands of international students come to Canada. Despite the fact that many are from modest backgrounds, they pay hefty tuition fees for the chance not just to study in this country but, potentially, to start a life here. Yet the realities of their decision can stand in stark contrast to the dream. They face difficult challenges, unforgiving timelines and social isolation, and are often prone to exploitation by employers and others. In a new series, Hard Lessons, we look at whether Canada is living up to its bargain with these students.

After being let go from her part-time job at Walmart, Satinder Kaur Grewal says she felt lucky to be hired at a local restaurant in June 2020, working as server, cook, cleaner and cashier. She needed money for food and rent, and many other international students had lost their jobs during the pandemic.

The deal, according to a complaint she filed with the Ministry of Labour, was she would be paid $60 a day by the Brampton restaurant regardless of the hours she worked. After six weeks, she got a raise to $80 for a 10-hour day, $100 for 12 hours and $116 for 14 hours, but the hourly rate would still be much lower than the $14 Ontario legal minimum wage.

Grewal said she would start at 9 or 10 a.m. and sometimes worked until midnight, without a day off. Twice, she said, she fainted from exhaustion — once in the washroom and another time, behind the counter — during her six months working there.

“I got home from work and slept on my bed. I did nothing else. Just sleep, shower and work. No cooking. No cleaning. My body was dead. I wasn’t able to do anything else,” said the 22-year-old Brampton woman, who came to Canada in 2018 and graduated from CDI College in December 2020 with a diploma in web design.

“I called my family in India many times. I told them, ‘I can’t survive like this here.’ And my family said this is a stage of life and just to tolerate it a bit longer and the future will be better.”

Sarom Rho of Migrant Students United said international students have become the largest group of temporary migrant workers in Canada, with 778,560 study-permit holders and postgraduate-work permit holders in the country in 2021 alone.

Many of them are stocking shelves in grocery stores, handling packages at warehouses, cleaning offices and buildings, working in food service and making deliveries.

International students pay three, four times more in tuition fees than their domestic peers and contribute $22 billion a year to the Canadian economy. With the tuition fees skyrocketing across Canada, she said Ottawa needs to at least remove the 20-hour work limit for international students, to ease the risk of them being taken advantage of by employers.

“This is a cash grab, where people are called to show up with the promise of permanent residency. And when they come here, they find that it’s a landmine filled with exploitation and abuse and really lack of dignity,” said Rho. “So many workers will say that this has been such a humiliating experience. The way to reclaim that dignity is to come together and organize to fight for the necessary changes to the rules that cause these conditions in the first place.”

When Grewal finally quit her job at Chat Hut on Christmas Day in 2020, she said she would’ve worked a total of 1,844 hours. Based on the legal minimum wage, she should have earned a total of $32,782.82 in regular pay plus overtime, public holiday and vacation pay. However, she only got paid $14,356.40.

The Star reached out to Chat Hut’s owners, who declined to comment on Grewal’s complaint when reached by phone or respond to the Star’s email request about the allegations.

In Chat Hut’s response to the provincial government’s employment standards officer in charge of the case, the employer said Grewal worked 1,704.50 hours for the employer, including 576.75 hours of overtime. 

The restaurant said Grewal “consistently confirmed that she wanted to work the hours she did work” and she was given time off whenever she required a break, according to the labour ministry’s reasons for decision dated Feb. 10, 2022. 

In February, Chat Hut agreed to pay Grewal $16,495.29.

Grewal’s experience might not have come to light if not for an Instagram post she came across last year about the launch of Naujawan Support Network, a support group to help international students and workers facing workplace exploitation.

She reached out to the organizers, who assisted her in trying to recoup her owed wages and filing a complaint against the employer with the Ontario labour ministry. 

Naujawan, a Brampton-based advocacy group, was formed in 2021 initially to support farmers’ protests in India last year, but organizers began to shift its focus after hearing from participating international students and workers about incidents of alleged exploitation by employers right in their own backyard.

“When students and workers know that they need permanent residence, they are at the mercy of their employers. Not only do many not know about their rights, but those rights are often actively denied to them,” said Simran Dhunna, of Naujawan.

“There are obviously a whole range of barriers that are related to not knowing about your rights, about the language and about being new to the country. The biggest, most critical factor that makes international students vulnerable is their immigration status.”

Dhunna said many international students are forced to work for cash only and under minimum wage because of restrictive immigration rules — the rules that stipulate students may work no more than 20 hours off-campus during school and limit access to permanent residence (PR) with stringent criteria and timelines.

“The employer could simply be like, well, ‘You’re working (extra hours) illegally, so if you actually work for $8 an hour, we won’t report you and we’ll give you an employment reference letter for your PR,’” she explained, speaking generally about the concerns she sees.

“So all sorts of rights from the minimum wage, overtime, vacation pay, employment reference letters for PR and just basic respect and dignity are denied to international students because of this.”

Grewal, whose father is a bus driver, said her parents helped cover her tuition — more than $23,000 over two years — but she had to make money for other necessities.

While she expected to work hard in Canada to support herself, she didn’t anticipate it to be this hard.

“When I was in India, when our relatives came to visit from Canada, they are showing their clothes and pictures in their mobile phones of their cars, the fancy restaurants and malls and everything. So we thought like, oh, it’s so easy there,” Grewal said.

“When I came to here and found out my auntie was working as a cleaner at a hotel, I was shocked. I was like ‘you guys showed me all these pictures but you never told me you were a cleaner.’ People back home only see our lifestyle. They don’t see our struggles.”

Grewal said she knew about Ontario’s minimum wage but said she realized the stakes would have been even higher for her if she didn’t have a job, given her precarious status.

“It’s like there’s a noose around our necks, whether we work or whether we don’t work. There’s no financial support,” she said. “I needed money and I didn’t have money to hire a lawyer to help me.”

Naujawan Support Network worked with Grewal and helped her draft a letter to Chat Hut’s owners in November to urge them to return the owed wages in November. Instead, her former employer threatened to take legal action against her, they alleged.

Chat Hut said its lawyer only sent a letter to Naujawan Support Network to ask them to stop “harassing” the owner after they were “vexatiously” calling the restaurant and the owners as well as other employees and people linked to the company.

“None of the employer’s actions form reprisal,” said the ministry’s reason of decision, citing Chat Hut’s position.

“The Company did not intend to intimidate, dismiss or otherwise penalize or threaten to intimidate, dismiss or otherwise penalize the employee. The employer took the claimant’s representative’s actions as harassment and intended for that harassment to stop. However, it was willing to listen to the claimant.”

Despite an order against Chat Hut to pay back Grewal’s owed wages, the ministry sided with the employer in denying the complainant’s claim of reprisal.

Source: Working long hours. Earning meagre wages. Fainting from exhaustion. What some international students face in Canada

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Qadeer: Student immigration visas are a money-making business

2022/04/04 Leave a comment

More and more articles on the questionable practices and policies with respect to international students. Given the public and private interests at play, hard to see any major reform being possible:

Both Canada and the U.S. have a paradoxical history of immigration. They depend on immigrants to people Indigenous lands and fuel economic growth but simultaneously discriminate against new arrivals by treating them as racially and ethnically inferior. Civil rights and human rights movements, as well as economic imperatives, have helped reduce overt discrimination, but treating immigrants unequally always courses just below the surface.

In the 21st century, immigration has been turned into a money-making business in Canada. It has been put on sale, though the rhetoric remains of economic growth and humanitarian interests. The use of immigration as a source of financial gain has permeated into business, the labour force, housing and now education.

Canadian colleges and universities are increasingly dependent on international student fees as a major source of tuition revenue. A Statistic Canada study prior to COVID shows that in 2017-18, almost 24 per cent of new enrolments in universities were by international students. In colleges, it was slightly more than 16 per cent.

In eight years, the enrolment of international students in universities has nearly doubled. At the college level, it’s about tripled. The revenue from international student fees in universities and degree-granting colleges was $12.7 billion in 2019-20. According to Global Affairs Canada, international students spent $22.3 billion in 2018 on tuition, accommodation and discretionary expenditures. China is the leading source of international students in universities while India dominates college enrolees.

In Ontario, with about 280,000 international students, the situation has been alarming enough to come to the notice of the provincial auditor general, whose 2021 audit report observed that Ontario colleges were more and more reliant on tuition revenue from international students – 68 per cent of fee revenue for colleges. Should enrolment drop for any reason, these institutions would be in a precarious position.

The Globe and Mail has published several investigative reportsabout the malpractices and consequences of what it calls the “international student recruiting machine.” An industry of recruiting students abroad has coalesced. It includes immigrant and educational consultants (sometimes working on commission for private colleges), tuition centres to help potential students cram to qualify for the English test and post-secondary admission offices.

The Globe reports that in Indian Punjab, billboards advertise “study in Canada,” and notices are posted on electric poles advertising “settle abroad.” An international student can work for up to 20 hours a week and they can earn even more by working off the books.

This opens the possibility to turn college study into an investment toward the Canadian immigrant visa and a route for earning money. This lure has drawn thousands from Punjab alone. Many families borrow money or sell properties to pursue the dream of riches in Canada.

The prospect of an immigration visa as an incentive to send children to study in Canada has not drawn only the fortune-seekers. It also motivates many well-off families in China, India and other countries to send their youth to Canadian universities and colleges as a way of establishing a foothold in Canada for opportunities, security and freedom.

Undoubtedly, many international students come with genuine educational motives but are being tarred by the practices of those primarily using enrolment as a route to immigration. The associated malfeasance is corrupting the educational system, and is also blighting local housing situations and promoting dubious business practices.

Cutbacks in provincial funding over many years drove universities and colleges to rely on international students’ high fees to fill the financial shortfall. The international students coming to seek employment and settlement in Canada work long hours and have little time, energy and motivation to meet the educational requirements. Though tutored to qualify for the language test, many do not have the proficiency in English or French to keep up with the demands of classwork. The outcome of these conflicting pressures is that the educational standards are being compromised. Occasional letters to the editors, social media postings and teachers privately point out that academic compromises are made in classes, where a large number of students are linguistically and academically unprepared.

The student immigrants are themselves often victims. The City of Brampton in Ontario is a prime exhibit of these complex issues. International students from Punjab converge there because it has a large Punjabi population. Scores of students live together in squalid illegal basements. In 2019, the city registered 1,600 complaints of illegal secondary units. The callers to Punjabi radio programmes often bring up problems of crowded neighbourhoods and the financial ruination of families in villages across Punjab.

International students often find that the well-paying work they were promised by recruiters does not exist. They struggle at schools and are often entreating their not-so-well-off families back home to send them money to live. Businesses come to rely on them as cheap labour. Mental health problems affect many. The Globe quotes the director of the Lotus Funeral Home in Toronto as saying he handles four to five international students’ deaths – suspected to be suicides or overdoses – every month.

The student visa channel and its misuses are widespread. The Indian family that recently froze to death illegally crossing from Manitoba to the U.S. had entered Canada on a student visa. The president of the Indian Association of Manitoba has characterized international student recruitment as full of “rampant fraud and exploitation.” In December 2020, the Quebec government barred 10 private colleges from issuing admission certificates for such visas.

The federal and provincial governments are ignoring the misuse of student visas for immigration. The Ontario government had a cavalier response to the auditor general’s observations, saying, “Ontarians should be proud that local colleges attract students from all over the world.”

Both levels of government need to detach immigration eligibility from enrolment in Canadian colleges and universities. The graduates of these programmes maybe should get extra points for their Canadian education, but they should be put in line with the applicants for immigration from their homelands. Also, the non-educational employment of international students should be more strictly monitored.

Most importantly, these governments should appropriately fund educational institutions, reducing their dependence on international student fees.

A good society in Canada will not be built if those coming to settle here experience it as a land of illegal and immoral practices. Canadian governments should prioritize social development as much as economic growth.

Source: Student immigration visas are a money-making business

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Campos: Canadian Immigration: Will the Improvements Be Enough?

2022/04/02 Leave a comment

Seem like a reasonable assessment, one that will become clearer over the course of the year:

In this feature, Canadian immigration lawyer Maria Campos offers her thoughts on the issue.

Do you think the proposed measure will go far enough to tackle Canada’s 1.8 million+ immigration backlog?

It is uncertain whether the current $85 million budget will have any meaningful positive impact in the short term, on the 1.8+ million immigration backlog. Most of the money was meant to be spent on developing online and electronic processing systems, which in themselves take time to create and meanwhile the backlog only increases. Also, there is a transition period once these new systems come into effect, which requires re-training of officers while many will still be processing applications in the traditional way. The express entry system is a perfect example of the time that it takes for an electronic processing system to become effective.

The express entry system was created in 2015, and in my opinion only started to show positive results within the last 2-3 years. This is because most people who are applying under express entry are finally familiarised with the system itself and the officers are now well aware of how the system works, both technically and legally. The pause in the express entry draws have nothing to do with the ineffectiveness of the electronic system itself, but with the significant number of invitations that IRCC issued in February 2021.

Most technical difficulties under express entry have been dealt with, but even with an already proven-to-work system it was insufficient to handle the backlog after the invitations last February. It does not matter how much technology IRCC uses if they continue to expand on the number of applications taken into processing. Another problem with technology in the immigration field is that there are currently several different portals to work with and multiple areas to submit applications, which may make it more difficult for applicants who qualify under different streams to navigate an ever more complicated electronic bureaucracy.

I do believe that the funds allocated now to improve the current system will have results at some point, but definitely not in the short term. The government of Canada has increased the number of targeted immigrants year after year without being ready to process all the applications.

It is uncertain whether the current $85 million budget will have any meaningful positive impact in the short term

Recently, what are some of the most common concerns you see from clients wishing to enter the country?

It is obvious that younger immigrants are usually the best candidates. Clients in their late thirties or early forties often feel discouraged by the fact that they will most likely have fewer opportunities to qualify under the various programs available. That being said, with the current backlogs and potential applicants getting older, they are concerned about not getting invitations on time or before they continue to lose points because of their age.

In your experience, which groups are most heavily impacted by the backlog?

Citizenship applicants are the most heavily impacted group. However, they are not necessarily in a rush, as most are already established permanent residents in Canada. The delays of the processing in the citizenship applications indeed help to prove intent to reside in Canada because applicants are “patiently” waiting for their citizenship applications to be processed.

How have IRCC operations attempted to address the increased demands of the pandemic?

There are some candidates across the world who would have not thought to come to Canada in the past, and the response by the Canadian government during the pandemic made people more aware of how incredible it is to be here. Those people who never thought of immigrating now look to Canada as an option. As a result, IRCC has more and better candidates to choose from.

However, the government has been missing out on this opportunity by not issuing invitations under the FSW program because they also have a responsibility to the applicants who are already in Canada, which might be the reason why they decided to issue thousands of invitations early last year under the Canadian Experience Class instead. It could be said that Canada has attempted to respond to this increased demand by facilitating more permanent residency options to immigrants who are already here.

Those people who never thought of immigrating now look to Canada as an option.

How has the IRCC started to reduce processing times?

The first move shown by IRCC to reduce processing times happened in the middle of the pandemic when the minister committed to processing family class applications within the regular processing times despite the initial backlog created at the beginning of the pandemic. Right after his statement, IRCC started issuing temporary file numbers to most applicants in the backlog. It was noticeable how within a few days, I started receiving dozens of emails from IRCC, all regarding family class applications providing their temporary file numbers.

Another obvious move was seen in the spring of 2021 when IRCC processed entire express entry applications within 3-4 months. Something that is definitely helping to reduce the backlog is the electronic landing system, which means applicants do not have to book appointments to perform their landing. They also do not risk missing their landing date deadline and are able to complete their process electronically.

It has been suggested that express entry draws would not invite FSWP candidates or CEC candidates for the first half of 2022. In your opinion, what are the major pros and cons of this?

A pro is that better candidates will submit their profiles for the next several draws once express entry resumes. Also, not issuing as many invitations helps reduce the backlog.

But the major cons are that in-Canada applicants are now turning to provincial nominee programs which are starting to show a backlog as well, and some applicants are relying on invitations to continue remaining in Canada, which makes their futures uncertain.

What is your opinion about the public policy permanent residency programs for international graduates and essential workers? Did these programs contribute to the backlog?

The essential workers program was great, because not many of those people had options to become permanent residents. The areas also cover industries in high demand and the program provided certainty for those immigrants.

The program for international students was good in substance as well, although badly planned. There are hundreds of thousands of international students in Canada and it was obvious that the program was going to fill up within hours, meaning that over 40,000 applications contributed to the backlog in one single day. Not to mention that many self-represented applicants rushed into submitting their applications without even understanding the basics, and while those applications have the right to be processed, their relatively poor quality puts an added burden on the system.

How do you foresee these changes to immigration processing times impacting your firm?

We have had to accommodate our cases remaining active for a longer period of time. Invicta Law is taking on new clients and addressing their immigration needs, but at the same time focusing on active files and addressing the statutory stages of the processing, replying to procedural fairness letters and ensuring clients keep their legal status at all times until they become permanent residents.

Source: Canadian Immigration: Will the Improvements Be Enough?

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Tech group wants new visa for skilled workers to enter country without a job offer

2022/04/02 Leave a comment

Of note. Not clear why Canadian companies also cannot hire people to work remotely:

A group representing 150 of Canada’s fastest growing and most promising technology companies wants the federal government to pilot a new visa stream allowing high-skilled tech workers to enter the country without a job offer.

The visa proposed Thursday by the Council of Canadian Innovators would target in-demand professions like software developers and data scientists, allow recipients to work, switch jobs or employers and help them extend their stay and attain permanent residency without needing to switch into another visa category.

The idea is one of 13 the council included in a new report aimed at addressing the country’s critical shortage of skilled tech talent and helping startups compete against Silicon Valley giants and multinationals.

“There’s over 200,000 positions in the tech space that are not being filled in Canada,” said Benjamin Bergen, the council’s president.

“At the onset of COVID, borders basically collapsed and the problem that we were seeing in terms of lack of skilled workers in the country was only exacerbated by the fact that foreign firms can now come into Canada and hire people to work remotely, increasing the pressures … on the general labour market.”

On Tuesday, Facebook owner Meta announced it would hire 2,500 Canadians over the next five years with many working remotely.

They’re joined by Microsoft, DoorDash, Amazon, Google, Wayfair, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit and Netflix, which revealed Canadian hiring plans during the pandemic, causing homegrown startups to fret about how they’ll compete with these companies’ big names and salaries.

“If you’re an Amazon or you’re Facebook or you’re Google, you’ve already set up in Canada…you’re able to bring in technology talent through some of the immigration streams that already exist…because they’re doing it at such a massive scale,” said Arif Khimani, the president and chief operating officer at MobSquad, a Calgary company helping businesses with recruitment and visas.

Many companies he works with are looking to hire a small number of people to work from Canada, and trying to figure out immigration rules, tax policies, payroll, benefits, office space, and remittances can be difficult for them.

Khimani feels they would be helped by more policies targeting immigration and giving workers better pathways to permanent residency, which the council’s report advocates for.

The council also wants to see programs better reflect emerging talent needs. Khimani notices the most in-demand job roles right now are full-stack and software engineers and developers, and jobs related to artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“Given how quick tech innovation changes, looking for a salesperson who has experience on X, Y or Z product, that happens to only reside in a specific jurisdiction often doesn’t apply for some of those programs, so we’re really pushing for an expanding (of current policies),” Bergen said.

Immigration changes could be accompanied by a “digital nomad strategy,” which the council envisions including clarity around taxes and length of stay for Canadians working remotely and internationally and foreigners who locate to Canada for part of the year.

The council also recommended the country target talent retention with a 12-month student loan repayment grace period for new graduates who work for Canadian firms and tax-advantaged loan repayment benefits for employers who make contributions towards their employees’ outstanding student debt.

Finally, the council wants to see talent generation prioritized. It asked the government to consider funding for Canadian businesses developing up-skilling or retraining programs and incentives to encourage post-secondary institutions to offer more experiential learning opportunities like longer co-op placements.

Source: Tech group wants new visa for skilled workers to enter country without a job offer

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Sciubba: Immigration Is a Political Choice—Not a Certainty

2022/04/01 Leave a comment

A needed reminder:

The Mistaken Assumption That Immigration Is Inevitable

The notion that mass movement is foreordained distorts our politics, galvanizing anti-immigrant forces and lulling progressives into complacency.

“They keep coming. The numbers are climbing with no end in sight,” claims an ominous voice over images of migrants crowded at the southwestern U.S. border. The implication of the 30-second spot sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which lobbies for lower immigration, is that the mass migration of people across borders is inevitable. On that point, even many immigration advocates agree. Only their interpretation is different: If large-scale population movement is inevitable, they argue, the receiving countries—and especially wealthy liberal democracies such as the United States—need fairer, more humane systems for processing people as they arrive.

The widespread assumption that immigration is inevitable shapes public discourse in other ways. To light a fire under Western governments only sluggishly moving to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, climate activists have cited a looming migration of people from countries prone to floods, fires, extreme storms, and desertification. Supporters of an internationalist foreign policy paint the many Ukrainians streaming across Europe’s borders so close on the heels of the 2015 influx of Syrian refugees as evidence of a foreordained future, in which those displaced by a surge in conflict will force open Europe’s doors.

But as I explain in my new book, 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World, this rhetoric does not match reality. It has, however, distorted the politics of the U.S. and other wealthy nations by galvanizing anti-immigrant forces while lulling progressives into complacency. In practice, national governments can and do exercise considerable control over how many people cross their borders. People fleeing conflict, displaced by environmental changes, or just hoping for a better life may try to come to liberal democracies. But those states don’t have to take them—and probably won’t, unless immigration advocates convince the general public that an influx of newcomers is desirable rather than inevitable.

Even after Donald Trump, who pursued a “zero tolerance” immigration policy, left office, the U.S. has continued his restrictive approach using a policy known as Title 42, which, since March 2020, has allowed the U.S. to remove people who were recently in a country where a communicable disease was present. Critics see this as a border-enforcement mechanism masquerading as a COVID-19 measure; under first a Republican administration and then a Democratic one, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has used it to expel more than 1.7 million would-be immigrants and asylum seekers along the southwestern U.S. border. (Yesterday, the Biden administration floated the idea of lifting Title 42 in late May.)

Contrast recent American gatekeeping at the Mexican border with Colombia’s more welcoming response to the mass displacement of people from Venezuela, its economically and politically troubled neighbor. Colombian President Iván Duque recently offered 10-year residency permits to nearly 1 million Venezuelans living in Colombia.

In Europe as in the Americas, individual nations differ significantly in their willingness to admit migrants. More than 1.1 million people applied for asylum in European Union countries in 2016. Although 61 percent of cases received a positive decision overall—largely driven by Germany, which issued approvals in 69 percent of its 631,000 cases—France approved only 33 percent, the United Kingdom (then an EU member) 32 percent of cases, and Greece just 24 percent. But the welcome mat can just as easily be rolled up as rolled out. As citizens in many European democracies soured on immigration in the second half of the 2010s, even Germany denied more than 50 percent of first-time applicants in 2020.

The initial European response to Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion has been generous. But just a month into the brutal conflict, officials in Moldova, Ukraine’s smallest neighbor, are already saying that refugees are putting their country under strain. Past experience elsewhere in the world suggests that host nations’ resolve to support a huge exodus may not last as long as the crisis will.

Predictions of future human mobility—voluntary and forced—frequently focus on the dozens of “push” factors, such as crime and poor job prospects, that could drive people from their home country. The pressures that create emigration will continue in the future. Changing climates will make earning a living difficult for many people, and natural disasters will render some currently populated areas dangerous or even uninhabitable. The global retreat of democracy could yield more civil conflict and an increase in forced-displacement trends. But even if emigration from a troubled country is inevitable, immigration to a wealthy, peaceful one is far from it. Liberal democracies will not open their borders enough to accept all those seeking refuge.

Similarly, the “pull” factors that make a country attractive to migrants do not guarantee their legal entry. As America’s population ages, unless it can boost its fertility rate (which isn’t looking likely), the country will have to either accept more immigrants to supplement native-born workers or else face the consequences of a shrinking labor force. Experts have made the same argument in Japan, where low fertility would seem to have made immigration an economic necessity. But Japanese voters and public officials continue to resist proposals to invite migrants from elsewhere in Asia. Although Japan has the world’s oldest population, immigrants make up only about 2 percent of its residents, and the country imposes significant institutional barriers to discourage immigrants from settling permanently.

Sovereign nations, for reasons of their own, can and do enact restrictive immigration policies even when doing so is not in their best economic interest. Domestic political concerns—including those in response to fears of ethnic change—can prop up anti-immigration laws indefinitely. I have previously argued that, far from trying to keep immigrants out, the United States should build a wall to keep them in.

Perpetuating the narrative of inevitable immigration has consequences for a country’s politics. Demographic analysis frequently suffers from what psychologists call desirability bias—the data appear to show exactly what the observer wishes to be true. For those who wish to welcome migrants—or who stand to benefit politically from demographic change—the presumption that the flow will always continue may breed inaction and complacency.

In the U.S., that presumption made the Democratic Party overly confident about its long-term electoral prospects. “Many Democrats came to believe that long-term demographic trends would inexorably produce a Democratic majority,” Elaine Kamarck and William Galston—both policy experts who served in the Clinton administration—argued in The Wall Street Journal in February. “The expectation was that decades of robust immigration from Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region would steadily increase the diversity of the U.S. population. As these Americans entered the electorate, they would join forces with other people of color—especially African-Americans and Native Americans—to strengthen support for the Democratic Party.”

But voters’ political affiliations are not fixed. Although people of color make up a growing share of younger voters, many Hispanic voters of all ages are shifting to the Republican Party, seemingly out of frustration with the Democratic platform or party norms that seem divorced from their values on a variety of issues, including immigration.

Of course, the narrative of inevitable immigration can also increase some voters’ resolve to keep would-be newcomers out. Governments respond to those pressures. Many democratic countries have used extreme measures to deter would-be asylum seekers from crossing into their borders. Australia has created offshore processing centers that prevent migrants from ever setting foot on the country’s soil; the U.S. has followed a “Remain in Mexico” policy to keep Central American migrants at bay; and the EU criminalized rescues at sea in 2017. In lieu of permanently settling refugees, Denmark chose to issue temporary residency permits in many cases, a move supported by politicians on both the right and the left. And now that many Danes are ready for those Syrians to leave, Denmark has instituted a plethora of policies designed to force them to return home, including a “jewelry bill” entitling the Danish government to seize asylum-seekers’ assets to build the country’s funds. 

Immigration advocates, including those in the private sector who are hoping that immigrants will fill skills gaps, need to push for legal changes to increase immigration, rather than simply assuming that immigration will happen no matter what. 

This piece is adapted from Sciubba’s recent book, 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World. 

​​Source: Immigration Is a Political Choice—Not a Certainty

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Canada expands settlement support for Ukrainians coming to Canada

2022/04/01 Leave a comment

Press release confirming these precedents, again drawing contrasts with other groups of refugees:

The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced that Canada is offering temporary federal support to help Ukrainians settle in their new communities. Settlement Program services, which are typically only available to permanent residents, will soon be extended until March 31, 2023, for temporary residents in Canada eligible under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel (CUAET). This is an extraordinary temporary measure aimed at supporting Ukrainians arriving under this special, accelerated temporary residence pathway. Key services that will be available to Ukrainians as they settle into their new communities include

  • language training
  • information about and orientation to life in Canada, such as help with enrolling children in school
  • information and services to help access the labour market, including mentoring, networking, counselling, skills development and training
  • activities that promote connections with communities
  • assessments of other needs Ukrainians may have and referrals to appropriate agencies
  • services targeted to the needs of women, seniors, youth and LGBTQ2+ persons
  • other settlement supports available through the Settlement Program

Settlement services are delivered through more than 550 agencies across Canada. The Government of Canada will continue working closely with provinces and territories, which are mobilizing to support Ukrainians arriving in Canada. They play a key role in helping temporary residents through settlement and social services.

Starting early April 2022, the Canadian Red Cross, in support of the Government of Canada, will provide arrival services at the Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver international airports. This support includes providing translation services, as well as information in their language of choice to help connect Ukrainians with government and community services.

We have also created a Ukraine Cross-Sectoral Collaboration Governance Table, which will bring together settlement sector leadership, provincial and territorial representatives, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the Canadian Red Cross, federal partners and other stakeholders. This table will facilitate communication and collaboration on the Ukraine response and will help to triage logistics for cash donations and volunteers.

IRCC is exempting certain individuals who are low-risk from providing biometrics on a case-by-case basis at the decision maker’s discretion. Biometrics are currently a requirement before arrival in Canada for the majority of Ukrainian nationals. IRCC relies on biometrics for identity management and to ensure the integrity of Canada’s visa programs. The collection of biometrics is an essential component of the security screening process to protect the safety and security of Canadians and Ukrainian nationals when they arrive on Canadian soil. The easing of biometrics requirements will ensure Ukrainian nationals arrive in Canada as quickly and as safely as possible.

Service Canada is working with service delivery partners to provide Ukrainian newcomers with information about Government of Canada programs and services, in particular the social insurance number (SIN), including through SIN clinics delivered at convenient locations. To help connect Ukrainian newcomers with available jobs, the government also launched Job Bank’s Jobs for Ukraine webpage, including a fact sheet in Ukrainian, on March 17, 2022. Since its launch, the site has been viewed close to 96,000 times.

Canadians have been stepping up to help Ukrainians. Together, and with our partners, we will welcome Ukrainians into our communities and provide the supports they need to thrive, until they can safely return home.

Source: Canada expands settlement support for Ukrainians coming to Canada

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