#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 4 May Update and end of this series

2022/05/05 Leave a comment

As this note from the Globe notes:

“Due to changes in the prevalence of testing, case counts alone are no longer a reliable indicator of the spread of COVID-19. In part due to this, recovery data is no longer available from all provinces and territories. Some provinces have also shifted to weekly or irregular updates, which impacts the timeliness of data shown below.With some provinces and countries no longer reporting on the number of infections, comparisons between provinces and countries on the omicron variant are imprecise.”

In addition, the data from many of the countries surveyed has remained largely static over the past month, with some revisions downwards. This data has served its purpose in in helping me analyze the effect of COVID on immigration (see my How the government used the pandemic to sharply increase immigration).

One other note, visiting Switzerland, Holland and Germany to visit friends and family, it was striking the differences in COVID restrictions, with Holland the most relaxed (no required masking on planes and transit) and Germany the most strict. Nice to have a sense of normality but disconcerting at the same time (we wore our masks).

Vaccinations: Ongoing minor shifts and convergence among provinces and countries with plateauing of overall vaccination rates. Canadians fully vaccinated 81.8 percent, compared to Japan 80.2 percent, UK 73.2 percent and USA 66.6 percent.

Immigration source countries: China fully vaccinated 88.3 percent, India 61.8 percent, Nigeria 6.5 percent, Pakistan 55 percent, Philippines 61.7 percent.

Trendline Charts:

Infections: As noted, variations in reporting make comparisons difficult. Steep increase in Atlantic Canada may reflect more consistent reporting.

Deaths: No relative changes.

Vaccinations: Minor changes. All provinces have stalled in vaccinations, Saskatchewan reporting gaps account for Prairie fluctuations.

Weekly

Infections: Italy ahead of New York, Australia ahead of California, Atlantic Canada ahead of Canada less Quebec, China ahead of Nigeria. 

Deaths: No relative change.

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Where two years without immigration puts New Zealand

2022/04/08 Leave a comment

Largely the opposite approach of Canada:

New Zealand’s population has had a growth spurt over the past decade, when compared with the rest of the OECD.

In 2016, unprecedented growth was seen at 2.2 percent a year – levels not seen since the early 1960s.

According to the Productivity Commission, a Crown entity tasked with lifting New Zealand’s productivity, the reasons for this relatively rapid growth were high resident numbers and largely uncapped temporary migration programmes.

Newspaper headlines about the ‘brain drain’ and skilled labour shortages being filled in by recent migrants were common occurrences through the 2010s – and along came a virus.

Overnight, the flow of migrants was cut down to a trickle, calling for fast-tracked changes across almost every economic sector.

Now as the border slowly returns to a more permeable state after two years of stasis, the Productivity Commission is evaluating what this means for New Zealand’s immigration policy and whether the country’s reliance on migrant labour could be labelled an objective over-reliance.

After months of research and public consultation, the commission is preparing a report on the impact of differing levels of migration to be presented to ministers in the Government on April 30.

The preliminary report highlighted the significant role immigration has played in supporting New Zealand’s population growth.

Along with this came a heavy reliance on temporary migrant workers, a potential source of volatility and economic uncertainty in the case of borders being closed.

Before March 2020, New Zealand had an annual population growth of just over 2 percent, around two-thirds of that from immigration.

Since then, it has dropped to a growth rate of 0.6 percent. That means this country went from having some of the highest annual growth rates in the OECD to being bang on average.

Massey University sociology professor Paul Spoonley specialises in how social change and demographics affect political decisions.

He said the issue of immigration is a difficult equation for New Zealand to balance, with benefits and consequences on either side.

“There are two sides to the issue because as we’ve seen, lots of the labour market in New Zealand rely on either temporary or permanent migrants,” he said. “So to actually build houses or infrastructure like roads, we’ve become very reliant on migrant labour.”

On the other hand, he noted that rapid growth also requires a matched pace in infrastructure development, especially in quickly growing cities like Auckland or Tauranga – two cities Spoonley said have “an historic deficit in terms of infrastructure”.

If infrastructure already isn’t fit for purpose, he said rapid population growth can enact enormous pressure.

So there’s a delicate balance to strike if New Zealand moves back to its prior reliance on migration. Other factors to consider include benefiting from other countries’ investment in human resources.

“What we get in terms of our skilled migrant category, where the majority of our permanent migrants were approved, is somebody whose life up to this point, including their skills, training and experience has been paid for by another country,” he said. “If we’re getting the surgeon from South Africa or the roading engineer from India, we didn’t make the investment but we are going to be the beneficiary of their skills.”

New Zealand’s immigration profile has changed in recent years, shifting from a focus on permanent migration to more migrant workers being here on work, student or visitor visas. Temporary work visas in particular have grown to represent a much larger chunk of all arrivals since around 2010.

The commission pointed to this increase in the temporary visa load as a result of policy choices made by governments in response to demands from employers for workers, an increase in international students and the points system for New Zealand residency privileging those who have already had work or study experience within the country.

But as the dust of these initial Covid years settle, many countries share the same gaps in the labour market that they are now likely to try to fill.

Spoonley says it will be a competitive market as migration resumes over the next two or three years.

“The labour crunch which Covid has accelerated is common to other countries, so what we are then doing is competing for migrants with Australia, the UK, the USA or Canada,” he said. “At the same time, they will also try to recruit out of New Zealand, in particular skilled New Zealanders.”

Could this mean a return to the ‘brain drain’ days of 2012, when a group the size of a packed-out Eden Park left for Australia?

Spoonley’s best guess is the number of Kiwis packing their bags for environs further afield will be somewhere between those seen in 2012 and now.

“I don’t know to be honest, but will we see our new graduates and some of our skilled workforce leaving to another country? Absolutely,” he said. The outflow will be seen particularly to countries that can put a premium on attracting people – whether with higher incomes or lower cost of living, pull factors that have long had Kiwis set their sites overseas.

“Australia can pay a third more,” Spoonley said. “So will we see a net outflow of New Zealanders? Almost certainly. I’m just not clear on the size of that. What I am clear about is that many of them will be highly skilled and we can’t afford to lose them.”

He said it’s a looming retention issue for the New Zealand economy, where the biggest reasons for people to stay put will be family or friends.

“Other countries will be outbidding us in terms of pay and conditions.”

Source: Where two years without immigration puts New Zealand

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Extend special immigration measures to other crises: House of Commons committee

2022/04/08 Leave a comment

Of note:
Canada’s treatment of Ukrainians fleeing war has been distinctly different to those fleeing other humanitarian crises, the House of Commons immigration committee said Wednesday, and MPs want that to change.
The committee voted Tuesday to issue a public statement, urging the government to provide the same special immigration measures it extended to Ukrainians to refugees from other regions.The statement reads that “time is of the essence,” and said the committee calls on the immigration minister to ensure Canada’s response to humanitarian crises in other regions “are treated with the same vigor as Ukraine.

Canada has expedited immigration applications from Ukraine and created an extraordinary program to allow Ukrainian citizens and their families to come to Canada and work or study for three years while they decide their next steps.

The program does not apply to non-Ukrainians who fled the country.

Canada has received 112,000 applications from people fleeing Ukraine and has so far approved more than 26,500, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said at a press conference Wednesday.

The MPs on the committee say the measures should also be available to Afghans who are still in their Taliban-controlled home country, and refugees from other regions facing humanitarian crises such as Yemen, Myanmar and China.Fraser didn’t address the committee’s request in his press conference, but did say Canada remains “extremely committed” to helping people escape Afghanistan.

Canada has so far welcomed 10,025 Afghans since August 2021, when the Taliban took control of the country.

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for Fraser said refugee resettlement efforts, including initiatives in Afghanistan and Syria, can take years to implement and must be accounted for in the government’s annual immigration-level targets tabled in Parliament.

Meanwhile, consultations with the Ukrainian community reveal many wish only to come to Canada temporarily and then return home when it is safe“We will continue to look at more ways that Canada can settle refugees, complementary to our resettlement efforts,” spokeswoman Aidan Strickland said in a statement. “Each situation is unique and should be considered as such to ensure that Canada is responding accordingly.”

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi applauded Canada’s actions to bring Ukrainians to a safe haven, but also reminded government officials of other refugee crises.

In February, before Russia’s violent invasion of Ukraine, the UN refugee agency counted about 84 million refugees and displaced people worldwide.

“Since then, that number has probably grown to well over 90 million. We must be in the region of 95 million now,” Grandi said at the press conference with Fraser.

Grandi was in Ottawa Wednesday to announce a new global task force, chaired by Canada, aimed at finding other ways to bring refugees to safe countries.

The initiative builds on a Canadian pilot program to allow skilled refugees to apply for permanent residency through economic channels. The idea is to bring additional refugees to the country, in addition to those welcomed through humanitarian processes.

The pilot removed some of the barriers that would traditionally have precluded refugees from applying for permanent residency in Canada through economic channels.

It was expanded late last year to accommodate 500 skilled refugees, and Fraser says he hopes to see even more welcomed under the program in the future.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan says the idea behind the pilot program is great, but she has noted some issues with the execution. For example, the program is supposed to include a loan option to allow refugees to meet the economic requirements to support themselves when they come to Canada, but that loan is not yet available.

Source: Extend special immigration measures to other crises: House of Commons committee

And a good op-ed by Naomi Alboim and Karen Cohl:

It is hard to rationalize the strikingly different approaches the Canadian government has taken to two major refugee crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan.

There have been benefits offered to Ukrainians looking to escape the Russian invasion, but not to Afghans fleeing the Taliban’s takeover, including authorization for emergency travel to enter Canada on a temporary basis with open work permits for up to three years. In addition, the government has promised to develop a family-reunification sponsorship program for both immediate and extended-family members.

There have also been benefits offered to Afghans, but not to Ukrainians, such as special programs for arrival as refugees with permanent residence and entitlement to all associated supports and services.

Certainly, the specific context of a refugee crisis can necessitate unique policy responses. But a common framework should be in place to provide similar support for individuals in crisis, with differences in treatment only where demonstrably justified.

The Canadian government has said that the “temporary residence” approach is justified by the assumption that most Ukrainians will return home. The reality, however, is that many Ukrainian refugees who choose to come to Canada can be expected to stay. No one knows how long the war in Ukraine will last, what the outcome will be, how much destruction will occur and whether or when it will be possible for individuals to return. The large Ukrainian community in Canada provides an added incentive to stay.

Indeed, an example from the past may foreshadow future decisions of Ukrainians coming to Canada. In response to the crisis in Kosovo in 1999, Ottawa initiated emergency airlifts of Kosovars on the expectation that many would return home as soon as the situation abroad was resolved. They were provided with permanent residence to entitle them to supports and services while in Canada. Kosovars were also offered transportation to return home and funding to re-establish themselves there. Despite these incentives to return, and the absence of a significant Kosovar community in Canada, only 30 per cent did so.

It would therefore be well worth providing supports and services that meet the needs of new Ukrainian arrivals. Many people fleeing Ukraine are women with small children, so even with open work permits, they may not start work immediately, and many won’t be able to earn enough money to support the needs of the family. Support from the community will be invaluable in many cases, but it cannot be expected to carry the full load.

Although the federal government has announced that Ukrainians arriving as temporary residents will have access to national settlement services, they are not eligible for federal income support or interim health coverage normally provided to refugees, leaving it up to individual provinces to decide on access to health care, schools and income support.

Afghans, for their part, need emergency travel authorization and reunification of extended-family members. Such measures would help to compensate for the fact that the implementation of the two special programs for Afghan refugees has been slow and rife with problems, and that private-sponsorship applications remain blocked.

Many Afghans are at greatly increased risk from having helped Canada in Afghanistan, and many have fled to neighbouring countries that don’t want them and are unable or unwilling to provide support. Ukrainians are in a horrendous situation, but they are at least being welcomed by EU countries who want and are able to help them. Some Afghans were airlifted to Ukraine from Afghanistan. Yet, even these Afghan refugees are not entitled to Canada’s new policies, which are available only to Ukrainian nationals.

We see no justification for Canada to offer such different treatment to two groups coming to our country at around the same time. Some observers have already begun to wonder if the policy differences have been influenced by race, religion or political benefit, and the lack of limits to the number of Ukrainians being allowed to enter Canada only fuels that argument. The perception is heightened by the fact that crises under way in Africa and elsewhere have gotten no special response at all.

Canada needs a common refugee framework that includes expedited entry and permanent residence, eligibility for supports and services and reunification of extended family members. Fair and equitable responses – for any refugee group – will help people in need of protection to make the transition to a successful life in Canada, no matter how long they choose to stay.

Source: Canada needs a unified approach for people fleeing Ukraine and Afghanistan

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#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 6 April Update

2022/04/07 Leave a comment

With some provinces and countries no longer reporting on the number of infections, comparisons between provinces and countries on the omicron variant are imprecise.

Vaccinations: Some minor shifts but convergence among provinces and countries but minimal increases to overall vaccination rates. Canadians fully vaccinated 83 percent, compared to Japan 79.8 percent, UK 74 percent and USA 66.4 percent.

Immigration source countries: China fully vaccinated 88.9 percent, India 61 percent, Nigeria 4.8 percent, Pakistan 53.5 percent (significant jump), Philippines 61.4 percent.

Trendline Charts:

Infections: As noted, variations in reporting make comparisons difficult. Steep increase in Atlantic Canada may reflect more consistent reporting.

Deaths: No relative changes.

Vaccinations: Minor changes. All provinces have stalled in vaccinations, as have most countries.

Weekly

Infections: Germany ahead of New York, British Columbia ahead of Atlantic Canada.

Deaths: No relative change.

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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

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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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