H-1B Visa Denial Rates Plunge After Trump Immigration Policies End

2022/01/14 Leave a comment

Not surprising. Will see if this reverses some of the preference of some high skilled immigrants for Canada that emerged during the Trump years:

H-1B denial rates have returned to pre-Trump levels after court decisions and a legal settlement ended the Trump administration’s restrictive policies, according to a new report. The changes started in the fourth quarter of FY 2020, while Donald Trump was still president, following a legal settlement with the business group ITServe Alliance and judges declaring the Trump administration’s policies unlawful. The lower denial rates continued through FY 2021 because the Biden administration abided by the legal settlement and did not introduce new restrictions.

“The denial rate for new H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2021 dropped to 4%, far lower than the denial rate of 24% in FY 2018, 21% in FY 2019 and 13% in FY 2020,” according to a new report from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). “The Trump administration managed to carry out what judges determined to be unlawful policies for nearly four years, and the policies imposed significant costs on employers, visa holders and the U.S. economy, likely contributing to more work and talent moving to other countries.”

H-1B petitions for “initial” employment are for new employment, normally a case for companies that counts against the H-1B annual limit. The FY 2020 denial rate would have been higher if not for the legal settlement. Court rulings also stopped U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from continuing to impose new restrictions on who qualified for an H-1B specialty occupation.

The low H-1B denial rates in FY 2021 show the Trump administration’s anti-immigration approach was an aberration. “NFAP found the denial rates in FY 2021 and FY 2015 to be similar for employers, meaning the Trump years were an aberration due to imposing restrictive policies that courts found to be unlawful,” according to the report. “For several companies, particularly those that provide information technology (IT) services or other business services to U.S. companies, the denial rate for H-1B petitions for initial employment was far lower in FY 2021 than in FY 2020.”

H-1B temporary visas typically are the only practical way for a high-skilled foreign national, including an international student, to work long-term in the United States and have an opportunity to become an employment-based immigrant and a U.S. citizen. Many founders of billion-dollar companies and individuals who created the vaccines and delivered medical care that has saved the lives of Americans during the pandemic have used H-1B visas and employment-based green cards, notes NFAP.

Among the findings in the NFAP analysis:

–     “The denial rate for H-1B petitions for continuing employment was 2% in FY 2021, much lower than the 12% denial rate in FY 2018 and FY 2019 and the lowest level since data on H-1B denial rates became available. H-1B petitions for ‘continuing’ employment are usually extensions for existing employees at the same company or an H-1B visa holder changing to a new employer. The denial rate for H-1B petitions for continuing employment was 7% in FY 2020 but would have been higher if not for the impact in the fourth quarter of the court decisions and the legal settlement. In recent history, the 7% denial rate was still high compared to the 3% denial rate for H-1B petitions for continuing employment each year between FY 2011 and FY 2015.

–     “Much of the increase in denials for continuing employment during the Trump administration was due to an October 2017 memo that instructed adjudicators to no longer ‘give deference to the findings of a previously approved petition.’ Many extensions of H-1B status were reviewed under a new, more restrictive standard based on policies that judges later determined to be unlawful. Employers and attorneys have credited USCIS Director Ur Jaddou and the Biden administration for rescinding the October 2017 memo.

–     Amazon had the most approved H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2021 with 6,182. Amazon also had the most new H-1B petitions approved in FY 2020. Infosys had the second most H-1B petitions in FY 2021 approved for initial employment (5,256), followed by TCS (3,063), Wipro (2,121) Cognizant (1,481), Google (1,453), IBM (1,402), HCL America (1,299) and Microsoft (1,240).

–     “Processing issues likely inflated the number of approved H-1B petitions for the top employers. In the USCIS data, H-1B petitions are counted in the fiscal year they are approved, not in the cap year the H-1B visa holder begins to work. NFAP determined approximately 18,000 more petitions were approved for initial employment in FY 2021 compared to FY 2020, possibly due to USCIS processing issues in FY 2020 caused by the pandemic and the higher denial rate in 2020. Another caveat to the numbers is that, according to attorneys, in FY 2019 and FY 2020 during the Trump administration, USCIS held or delayed H-1B applications for many IT services companies, which would have inflated the number of approved H-1B petitions for those companies in FY 2021.

–     “The top employers of approved H-1B petitions in FY 2021 were also among the fastest-growing employers of U.S. workers, providing evidence that companies that employ H-1B visa holders also seek out and employ U.S. workers in significant numbers. The information on the significant hiring of U.S. workers by employers of H-1B professionals helps demonstrate the fallacies of the zero-sum argument about high-skilled foreign nationals ‘taking’ American jobs, particularly since economists have found hiring high-skilled personnel complements other high-skilled jobs as well as other types of employment at a company and in the economy.

–     “At U.S. universities, only approximately 25% of the full-time graduate students in electrical engineering and computer and information sciences are U.S. students.”

Source: H-1B Visa Denial Rates Plunge After Trump Immigration Policies End

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Students left in lurch after Quebec private colleges, recruiting firm file for creditor protection

2022/01/13 Leave a comment

Not all that surprising given the financial incentives involved and the exploitation by some Indian recruiters and likely some private colleges:

Three Quebec colleges and a connected recruiting firm have filed for creditor protection, adding to the uncertainty for hundreds of international students who had already been seeking tuition refunds.

M College in Montreal, CDE College in Sherbrooke and CCSQ, which has campuses in Longueuil and Sherbrooke, all requested protection in a filing in Quebec Superior Court last Friday. The Montreal-based recruiting firm, Rising Phoenix International, also filed for protection.

They are all owned by the Mastantuono family — including Caroline, Christina, Joseph and Giuseppe Mastantuono — under the umbrella name RPI Group.

The request for creditor protection comes a little more than a year after the province suspended 10 private colleges, including M College and CDE college, for what it described as “questionable” recruitment practices for students in India.

The suspension meant the schools were temporarily prevented from accepting certain foreign-student applications. Quebec’s investigation into the 10 colleges revealed shortcomings around recruitment, commercial practices, governance and teaching conditions.

Although the suspension was lifted at the beginning of 2021, hundreds of students faced long delays in obtaining a student visa that would allow them to come to Canada.

Students from India struggle to get refunds

Students pay between $28,000 and $30,000 to attend the colleges, usually over a two-year period, according to court documents. Students from India represent 95 per cent of the 1,177 students at the three colleges.

In December, CBC News reported dozens of students in India had been trying to get their tuition refunded for months after their student visas had been delayed.

Several said their parents had saved for years so they could study abroad. Without a refund, some students said they are unable to apply to other colleges, meaning their academic progress is effectively frozen. Others had to take out loans or work part-time jobs.

According to the application for creditor protection, unpaid tuition fees and refund claims from 633 students against the RPI Group are estimated at nearly $6.4 million.

The document adds that there are “potential additional claims of approximately $5 million from pipeline students awaiting a decision on their student visa application.”

In its application, RPI Group blamed its financial troubles on “a cascade of unfortunate events,” including “the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, untimely and improperly financed expansions, changes to the immigration process for international students, as well as the litigation and public relations issues faced by the group.”

RPI Group’s decision to purchase CDE and CCSQ colleges in June 2020 for $10.9 million also left it vulnerable after subsequent visa delays led students to ask for refunds, the application said.

‘No refunds can be processed at this time’

The application for creditor protection says the colleges are committed to ensuring “the best possible outcomes for all stakeholders, including students and other creditors.”

But a letter to students at CDE College from Joseph Mastantuono, the president of the school, suggests it will be difficult for them to get a refund.

According to the letter, which CBC News has obtained, there is a plan being developed for students close to graduation to help them complete their program.

Other students will have their academic training temporarily suspended to see if a potential buyer for the colleges can be found. Failing that, the students will have to transfer to other colleges.

The letter tells students that it is “within your right to withdraw from your college” but because of its creditor protection filing, “no refunds of tuition can be processed at this time.”

The Mastantuono family is involved in another legal matter involving international students.

In November 2020, investigators with the province’s anti-corruption unit arrested Caroline Mastantuono and her daughter, Christina, for allegedly committing fraud to facilitate the processing of student permit applications while working at the Lester B. Pearson School Board between 2014 and 2016.

Although the allegations occurred before RPI was created, the negative publicity led to creditors backing out or refusing to work with them.

Caroline and Christina Mastantuono deny any wrongdoing and have contested the charges against them. The case is still before the courts.

Source: Students left in lurch after Quebec private colleges, recruiting firm file for creditor protection

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 12 January Update

2022/01/13 Leave a comment

Steep rise of infections remains the main story, along with resulting increases in hospitalizations and ICUs.

Vaccinations: Some minor shifts but general convergence among provinces and countries. Canadians fully vaccinated 78.7 percent, compared to Japan 78.8 percent, UK 71.4 percent and USA 63.4 percent.

Immigration source countries are also converging: China fully vaccinated 87 percent, India 46.8 percent, Nigeria 2.4 percent (the outlier), Pakistan 34.7 percent, Philippines 49.4 percent.

Trendline Charts:

Infections: Effects of Omicron seen in steep curve in all G7 countries and provinces. No such effect in immigration source countries

Deaths: No relative changes but slight uptick in Quebec.

Vaccinations: Ongoing convergence among provinces and G7 less Canada and narrowing gap with immigration source countries. Nigeria remains the laggard.

Weekly

Infections: Alberta ahead of Germany, Australia and Philippines ahead of India, India ahead of Atlantic Canada. 

Deaths: Atlantic Canada ahead of Pakistan.

Fair amount of commentary on Quebec’s announcement of a health tax on the unvaccinated, with most commentary opposed to the idea. A notable exception on the right side of the political spectrum, Tasha Kheiriddin:

What to do about the unvaccinated? As Omicron tears through Canadian society, this public health question has become a political wedge issue. The Liberals and Conservatives have chosen sides, ramped up the rhetoric, and polarized the debate, each playing to the base they think is most likely to support their point of view.

With 88 per cent of Canadians over the age of 12 fully vaccinated , the Liberals figure they’re pretty safe siding with the crowd that favours the jab. Regrettably, they have chosen the strategy of demonization. On Friday, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos speculated provincial governments would make vaccination mandatory, which he said could be needed to get “rid” of the virus.

During the election campaign Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the unvaccinated “misogynists and racists.” He dialled that down a bit last week when he said that Canadians are angry at the unvaccinated who take up hospital beds, but his remarks caused a furor that has yet to subside. This is not accidental.

The sad reality is that there is a subset of the unvaccinated who fit Trudeau’s description; since September, for example, some have been using the hashtag “Pureblood” on social media to self-identify as unvaccinated. You don’t have to scroll far to find tagged images peppered with shots of white supremacy gestures or MAGA hats.

The Liberals’ dogwhistle is designed to conflate these people with mainstream Conservatives — and turn people off Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s call for “reasonable accommodation.” O’Toole is asking for “acceptance” of the fact that up to 15 per cent of the population will not get vaccinated. He favours using rapid tests to keep unvaccinated workers on the job, as opposed to shutting down to stop the spread of the virus.

“In a population that is now largely fully vaccinated, in fact the action and inaction by the Trudeau government is normalizing lockdowns and restrictions as the primary tool to fight the latest COVID-19 variant.”

But this approach is also wrong. First, it relies on unreliable technology. Rapid tests are not good at detecting Omicron infections, particularly in the early stage when a person is infectious but shows no symptoms. Second, it sends a double message. On the one hand, the Tories encourage people to “get vaccinated.” On the other, they make allowances for those who eschew the jab. It’s like saying “wear your seatbelt, but if you don’t, that’s OK.” Well guess what — it’s not. If you get in an accident, it will cost up to three times more to treat you in hospital than if you were buckled up. Sound familiar?

The reality is that we restrict plenty of behaviours where we judge the harm to others, including economic harm, outweighs the limits to individual liberty. We don’t allow people to smoke in workplaces or public buildings. We forbid drinking and driving. And we mandate vaccination for contagious diseases such as measles if children are to attend public school. Why? Because otherwise your actions, or inaction, present a real risk of harm to someone else. They can cause quantifiable loss, in the form of sickness, suffering, even death (yes, last year 200,000 people worldwide died of measles , mostly children under five). People don’t live in a vacuum.

A liberal would cite Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract, which called for government by popular consent; a conservative would point to Edmund Burke, who rightly observed, “Men are never in a state of total independence of each other.” In other words, there is no freedom without responsibility, no liberty without duty.

When it comes to vaccination, we should protect those who understand this truth from those who disdain it. Vaccine passports, restrictions on interaction and withdrawal of privileges are preferable to calling people names, forcing them to get the shot, or conversely accommodating a choice that puts others in harm’s way. Obliging those who opt out of vaccination to pay a penalty, such as the Quebec government is suggesting, is also a possibility. Such measures are not about cajoling or compelling, though if they do result in more vaccinations, that’s a good thing. They are meant to protect all of us who just want to move on from this once-in-a-century public emergency and get back to living our lives

Source: The unvaccinated must be deterred from harming others

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Safe places [Safe Third Country Agreement Supreme Court case]

2022/01/12 Leave a comment

Bit unbalanced in terms of experts interviewed. Would be useful to have a dissenting view for contrast as there is room for debate on the SFCA:

The Safe Third Country Agreement with our Southern neighbour that compels would-be refugees to cross into Canada at unofficial border crossings was bound to end up before our Supreme Court at some point. Last month, the top court finally granted leave to review its constitutionality. The Federal Court initially ruled in 2020 that the agreement violated refugee claimants’ Charter rights by deporting those who arrived from the U.S. and had filed a claim in Canada in contravention of the STCA. The declaration of invalidity was suspended to give the government time to take action, and then the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the decision.

There are several key questions the Supreme Court must address now, says Janet Dench, executive director for the Canadian Council for Refugees, who brought the challenge along with several asylum claimants. She calls the Federal Court of Appeal ruling “disturbing,” having “left us with a sense that there is no real recourse for violations of refugees’ rights.”

She also expresses concern that a broader application of the Federal Court of Appeal’s ruling could affect other Section 15 Charter claims.

Indeed, part of the Council’s case hinges on the failure of the U.S. to adequately protect people fleeing gender-based persecution, which it says was exacerbated under former President Donald Trump’s administration. The Federal Court rendered its judgment based on Section 7 arguments, and did not consider Section 15 claims. Having overturned the Section 7 argument, the Federal Court of Appeal also did not need to look at Section 15.

Another issue is that the Federal Court of Appeal held that the plaintiffs were wrong to challenge the designation of the U.S. as a safe third country. Instead, it’s up to cabinet to regularly review the designation, and therefore it is cabinet’s decision that must be challenged.

“If this decision and analysis was to stand, then lawyers would constantly be asking what they are challenging,” says Dench. “Are they challenging that a regulation was put into force that disadvantages or violates certain people’s rights, or should they be challenging the fact that regulation hasn’t subsequently been set aside,” says Dench.

Jamie Chai Yun Liew, professor at the University of Ottawa, who has previously represented the Canadian Council for Refugees but is not involved in this matter, notes that the focus of the Federal Court decision was on the impact of the decision-making by those at the border implementing the STCA.

“There was a lot of social science, affidavit and first instance evidence presented to the court of the experiences of migrants who have been turned away at the border and their experiences,” Liew says. “One of the things that the [Federal Court] focused on was the immediate detention of people who were turned away at the border, and the risk of them not even having their refugee claim assessed at all by either country.”

Liew notes that the Federal Court of Appeal focused instead on “safety valves” that allowed for claimants to access a different assessment or protection before the decision leading to the harm that the applicants described, including federal review of the STCA.

“During the discovery process, the government was very resistant in sharing any information about the internal political system of how the Safe Third Country was reviewed, so there’s very little evidence on that,” Liew adds. “What evidence there is, publicly, doesn’t show that the government has done a very deep review of these kinds of things, despite increasing evidence that the United States is a hostile place for refugees, especially during the Trump administration.”

Despite the evidence of harms, Liew notes, the government’s unwillingness to come forward with information during the discovery process means the Supreme Court will be limited in its ability to examine what actually happened.

“It will be interesting to see how those on the bench absorb the evidence and what angles they take,” Liew says.

Liew hopes that the court ensures that Charter rights aren’t being trampled under the pretext that the so-called “safety valves” are available to refugee claimants. She notes that past ruling on immigration by the Supreme Court have raised questions around alternative remedies. On paper there are mechanisms, such as pre-removal risk assessments, whereby a person can apply to remain in Canada if they are at risk of physical harm in the event they get deported to their country. In reality, however, people have difficulty accessing these measures.

Audrey Macklin, professor and the Rebecca Cook Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Toronto, says that Canada can neither directly violate the Charter rights of those seeing refugee protection, or indirectly, by returning them to a country that will violate fundamental human rights.

“We’re talking about arbitrary detention, separation of families, detention of children, substantive doctrines that deny women fleeing gender persecution, and so on,” says Macklin. “Procedurally, there is also an issue about the failure of the Canadian government to regularly monitor the United States for compliance with those fundamental human rights obligations.”

Macklin adds that the STCA is predicated on the notion that the U.S. is safe for people to seek refugee protection. Even if it was not when the agreement was signed and implemented, circumstances can change. The problem is that Canada has no procedure to scrutinize whether the U.S. continued to be a safe country, she says.

What’s more, Canada routinely evaluates the safety of other countries as part of refugee determination itself. It would hardly be an overstep for Canada to do the same with the U.S. Besides, there are provisions in the STCA allowing either country to suspend it for two six-month periods, or to terminate it with one year’s notice. “There’s nothing untoward about Canada doing that,” says Macklin.

Liew doesn’t think the court will strike down the whole Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It’s not the legislation that is problematic so much as the Safe Third Country Agreement, which flows from provisions in the Act.

“My suspicion would be that they would suspend or ask the government to terminate the agreement that flows from the provision, and it wouldn’t be striking a provision from the legislation per se,” Liew says. “Or they could give the government that six-month window, as the Federal Court did, to get their act together and either review it or amend it, and that might be a way for the government to save face.”

Or the Supreme Court might find the violation so glaring that it suspends it right away, she says. But its history with immigration decisions shows a pattern of moving more cautiously.

Dench notes that because the situation in the United States can change from year to year, there isn’t an expectation that the Supreme Court will make findings of fact. Instead, it could provide a pathway for these kinds of matters to be brought to the courts for evaluation.

Dench also disputes that the situation in the U.S. is solely attributable to Trump’s policies. Since he left office, it’s not like there’s been a complete reversal of his border policies.

“We don’t expect an impartial analysis to say that all of the existing problems have been solved,” Dench says.

Ultimately, says Liew, the agreement has failed to live up to its promise. It hasn’t stopped people from coming to the border, though it has made it harder to do so safely. There are countless stories of claimants who lost fingers from frostbite at irregular crossings or at the quasi-official crossing facility at Roxham Road in Quebec.

Therefore, she would advise the government “to look at how people can access our official ports of entry and process them in a way that is humane and fits with our international law obligations.”

Macklin notes that the STCA was struck at the behest of Canada, given that we only have one border. And though it is a mechanism to put breaks on the flow of people who can reach Canada and make refugee claims, she also disputes the notion that it is intended to combat “asylum shopping.”

“In absolute and relative terms, the number of asylum seekers that Canada receives is trivial,” says Macklin. “If you were seeking refugee protection and you had a child with you, and you knew that the United States would rip you away from your child, do we call it asylum shopping because you say I can get to Canada, please let me do that?”

Source: Safe places

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Owners of 30 immigration firms in Chandigarh booked

2022/01/10 Leave a comment

At one point, the Canadian consulate had a “wall of shame” of fraud examples ….

Two days after the UT police booked owners of 29 immigration consultancy companies for not providing their information to the Police Department, the owners of 30 more such companies operating from Sector 17 and 22 have been booked for the same offence.

As per the District Magistrate’s orders, the immigration consultancy companies are supposed to provide information about the company and their antecedents to the police. The list of these companies is then uploaded on the Chandigarh Police website to assist people.

A police official said a majority of the companies operating from the city had not provided information to the police following which a check was being conducted and action being taken against erring company owners.

“We advise people to choose among the consultants whose names are mentioned in the list as in case the consultant commits a fraud, the police can easily track them,” said an official.

Meanwhile, an investigation has been initiated into the cases at the Sector 17 police station.

Source: Owners of 30 immigration firms in Chandigarh booked

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Germany’s new leader has a plan for the migrant crisis

2022/01/07 Leave a comment

Of note:

When Olaf Scholz made his first major speech as German chancellor in mid-December, it was closely watched for signs of how he would continue Angela Merkel’s successes – and how he would fix her mistakes.

Scholz focused mainly on his priorities for the pandemic and climate change, as might be expected given the continued discovery of new Covid-19 variants and his center-left coalition.

But almost unremarked was a small but far-reaching change, designed to solve one of the most taxing of German problems – what to do about the large number of refugees inside the country. The issue is still a source of controversy among Germans over whether it counts as a success or a failure of the Merkel years. In outlining his new approach, Scholz said Germany would for the first time allow dual citizenship.

Source: Germany’s new leader has a plan for the migrant crisis

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with ,

Canada’s next wave of immigration set to add more fuel to overheated housing market

2022/01/07 Leave a comment

About time for greater focus on the links between levels and housing prices. Federal and provincial governments need to consider such externalities rather than just push for more:

After a frenetic 18 months when Canadians pushed up home prices in a quest to ride out the pandemic in comfort, another influx of buyers is set to provide more fuel to the overheated real estate market.

The federal government has increased its annual immigration targets to the highest levels on record, creating the conditions for a surge of new permanent residents, which Canada needs to fill job vacancies. These new immigrants will add to the country’s population and immediately boost the need for housing in major job centres and nearby cities.

This will ramp up competition for homes at a time when national real estate prices have jumped 40 per cent in the past two years.

“Canada’s strong population growth is a factor driving our home prices upward at a faster pace than in many other economies,” said Bank of Montreal chief economist Douglas Porter, who analyzed the relationship between population growth and home prices in 18 developed countries.

He found that countries with faster population growth have had greater home price inflation than those whose populations have remained stable, or decreased.

Between 2010 and 2020, New Zealand and Canada both saw their populations climb by an average of more than 1 per cent each year. In Canada’s case, much of that growth was attributable to immigration.

Over that same decade, home prices rose an average of 7.9 per cent each year in New Zealand and 7 per cent each year in Canada.

Meanwhile, countries with shrinking populations have experienced stagnant or falling home values. Japan’s population declined by an average of 0.2 per cent each year, and home prices there rose an average of 0.2 per cent annually.

One reason immigration may be pushing up Canadian home prices is that Canada’s policies cater to newcomers with wealth and job skills. Many new permanent residents arrive with hefty bank accounts, or with enough professional expertise to make money quickly. And, like anyone else with means, they buy real estate.

Parisa Mahboubi, a senior policy analyst with the C.D. Howe Institute and an immigration labour expert, said integration is a challenge for all newcomers. But, she said: “Economic immigrants, especially those with Canadian experience or with education, are able to integrate into the labour market quickly. This means they are able to purchase a property sooner than other immigrants.”

New research from Statistics Canada suggests that in many cases it’s pre-existing wealth, not Canadian income, that is behind pricey real estate purchases by immigrants.

For example, in Richmond, B.C., a typical immigrant buyer in the lowest wage quintile, with median annual income of just $11,100, spent a median of $763,000 on a home in 2018, according to data from Statscan’s Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP).

In contrast, a typical Canadian-born buyer in British Columbia in the lowest income quintile, with median annual income of $32,300, spent a median of $396,000 on a home in 2018, according to CHSP, which analyzed land registry information, property assessments and tax filings.

The disparity in the amounts spent by low-income immigrants and Canadian-born buyers suggests that the newcomers were relying on money not earned in Canada. The actual sources of the funds are unknown. CHSP has said the immigrant wealth could have been income earned previously in Canada or abroad, or income that was earned by others or underreported.

CHSP observed that in 2018 the majority of immigrant buyers across B.C. had moved to Canada prior to 2009 and had been admitted through the country’s various economic immigrant programs, which are designed to attract skilled workers and those with wealth.

“If you are an economic immigrant and you don’t have other opportunities, real estate becomes one of the fastest wealth generators,” said Andy Yan, director of the city program at B.C.’s Simon Fraser University. “They are wealthy. But when they try finding a job, it goes south.”

Other factors that have contributed to high home prices in Canada include low mortgage rates, a flood of domestic investors looking for high investment returns, and millennials increasingly forming families and seeking properties.

In the Toronto region, the country’s largest job centre, the average price of a home is above $1-million and many of the surrounding cities are nearing or above that price.

That has pushed Canadians and newcomers out of Toronto and into smaller regions in Southern Ontario. Some have left the province altogether for more affordable areas such as Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Halifax.

Canada’s six largest metropolitan areas – Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa – used to be the top destinations for immigrants. But that has been changing.

In 2002, Canada’s largest cities took in 88 per cent of the country’s immigrants and non-permanent residents. In 2019, the proportion was just 68 per cent, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

Over that same period, net international migration to those cities grew by 43 per cent. But in the rest of Canada it soared by 370 per cent, with particularly strong growth in Ontario locations such as Niagara, London, Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge.

Today, there is an acute shortage of housing in those smaller cities.

In Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, London and the Niagara-St. Catharines region, the typical price of a home is 60 per cent higher than it was two years ago, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association home price index, which adjusts for higher-priced homes.

The flow of new permanent residents will put even more pressure on those places. If prices continue to rise, the higher cost of living could discourage newcomers.

“We need the immigration for the labour market. But if we don’t get the immigration for the labour market because they can’t afford to live in the community, that’s a significant challenge,” St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik said.

The federal immigration target for 2021 was 401,000 new permanent residents. The goal for 2022 is 411,000. For 2023, it’s 421,000. By comparison, the number of new permanent residents admitted to the country in 2019 was 341,180.

Anthony Passarelli, a CMHC senior analyst, said that if immigration reaches these record-high levels and Canada doesn’t respond by increasing its housing supply, the effects on the housing market could be noticeable. “We will likely go through a similar situation, where you see another price surge and the ripple effects of people getting priced out of the larger population centres and moving further out,” he added.

Asked whether Canada should slow the pace of immigration until the country has enough affordable housing, BMO’s Mr. Porter said: “I suspect policy will be little swayed by housing market concerns. Having said that, at the very least the impact on housing should be taken into consideration when determining immigration targets.”

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

ICYMI: Its critics call it ‘birth tourism.’ But is the practice real? COVID-19 is providing clues

2022/01/06 Leave a comment

The COVID-19 pandemic and the border closures and travel restrictions that came with it seem to have put a dent in the number of non-Canadians coming to this country to deliver their babies.

The latest government data offers what may be an unprecedented look at the practice that has been controversially dubbed “birth tourism.”

It shows the number of “non-resident self-pay” new births in the country dropped by 57 per cent during the first full year of the global crisis, between April 2020 and March 2021 — from 5,698 the year earlier down to 2,433. 

Observers have stressed that the practice of coming to Canada to deliver a baby is legal and cautioned that its frequency has been overblown by critics, drawing focus at times more for reasons of racism than for pragmatic concerns.

All babies born in Canada receive automatic Canadian citizenship. 

The Liberal government has said it’s committed to investigating the issue of foreign nationals taking a shortcut to obtain citizenship for their children by giving birth in Canada, but no policy recommendations or changes have been made to date.

Under normal times, it’s hard for researchers to pinpoint the number of visitors who came here with the main purpose of giving birth, because the data would also capture non-residents who delivered babies while working or studying in this country. 

But the pandemic’s unique circumstances brought with them novel data.

As Canada has imposed restrictive measures against the entry of non-essential travellers but not international students and temporary foreign workers, the data for the first time gives a more precise picture of the extent of those coming to Canada to deliver babies.

“This really provides you with what Nobel Prize-winning economist David Card called a natural experiment, where there was one variable that changed and it affected one group disproportionately,” says researcher Andrew Griffith, whose findings will be published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy on Thursday.

“This basically confirms that when you don’t have visitors’ visas, you have a major drop in birth tourists because that’s how they come in.”

Based on hospital delivery data from the Canadian Institute of Health Information, a Crown corporation, Griffith looked at the number of times the cost of delivering babies in hospitals over the past decade was paid out of the patients’ own pocket.

The number surged yearly from 1,863 in 2010 to a peak of 5,698 in 2019, before it nosedived last year, which coincided with a 95 per cent drop in the number of visitors’ visas issued by Canada.

In comparison, the number of international students fell by only 25 per cent, while the number of temporary foreign workers actually increased by 5.5 per cent.

Griffith estimates that the percentage of “tourism births” has now reached one per cent of all births in Canada in an average year.

“This is really a question of the integrity of the citizenship program. If you come here as a permanent resident, you have to meet the residency requirements, you have to meet the knowledge requirements, you have to meet the language requirements. There’s a whole process that you have to go through to be Canadian citizens,” said Griffith, a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and Environics Institute.

“This is legal but it’s still a loophole that allows basically fairly affluent women and families to shortcut the process, find a backdoor entry and without going through the standard process of becoming a Canadian citizen.”

The citizenship afforded to these Canadian-born children allow them to automatically access health care, local education and tuition fees, as well as other government benefits.

While any visa restriction against pregnant women visiting Canada would be difficult to administer and enforce, Griffith said Ottawa could change the citizenship act to require at least one parent to be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada for citizenship to be conferred to a Canadian-born child, as Australia does.

The former Conservative government explored similar legislative changes in 2012, but the idea was abandoned due to opposition from provincial governments, which are responsible for the administration of birth certificates, a key document for citizenship. The number of people coming to Canada for the express purpose of delivering a baby was estimated at just 500 at the time and such changes were considered not worthy of the hefty administrative costs.

“We have more accurate data now,” said Griffith. 

In a 2019 survey by the Angus Reid Institute, 64 per cent of Canadians said a child born to parents who are in this country on tourist visas should not be granted Canadian citizenship, and 60 per cent said changes to the citizenship laws are necessary to discourage birth tourism.

Critics have argued that any requirement of one parent being a Canadian citizen or permanent resident could lead to children, such as those born here to refugee claimants, to be stateless.

“Anything to deal with immigration and citizenship basically has some form of discrimination. Who do you let in? Who do you not let in? What are the criteria to allow somebody to become citizen,” said Griffith.

“Is it too rigid? Is it too open? You are always going to have the debate over how you cut the line in the right place.”

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/12/16/its-critics-call-it-birth-tourism-but-is-the-practice-real-covid-19-is-providing-clues.html

My Policy Options article which formed the basis for the reporting: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/december-2021/birth-tourism-in-canada-dropped-sharply-once-the-pandemic-began/__;!!AlmGDlt8!iF8vkNntsOxOaoiOptdZnIP6_nTznLbhJ0nHgByjTRO0V5pBnecrGb7ZGeXR858$

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with ,

#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 5 January Update and impact of Omicron

2022/01/06 Leave a comment

Back from my holiday break, three weeks later, the steep rise in infections due to Omicron (likely undercounted given testing constraints).

Vaccinations: Some minor shifts but general convergence among provinces and countries. Canadians fully vaccinated 78.3 percent, compared to Japan 78.7 percent, UK 71 percent and USA 62.9 percent.

Immigration source countries are also converging: China fully vaccinated 86.4 percent, India 45 percent, Nigeria 2.2 percent (the outlier), Pakistan 33.5 percent, Philippines 46.8 percent.

Trendline Charts:

Infections: Effects of Omicron becoming more apparent with steep rise in all provinces, led by Quebec.

Deaths: No relative changes.

Vaccinations: Ongoing convergence among provinces and G7 less Canada and narrowing gap with immigration source countries. Nigeria remains the laggard.

Weekly

Infections: Atlantic Canada ahead of Australia and Japan.

Deaths: No relative change

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , , ,

My articles and issues in 2021, focus for 2022

2022/01/05 Leave a comment

While a bit self-indulgent, thought it might be interesting to do a recap of my articles and commentary over the past year. 

A major focus has been the ongoing work with Dan Hiebert and Howard Ramos regarding the impact of COVID-19 on immigration and related programs (weekly comparison of Canadian provincial infections, deaths and vaccinations compared to other G7 and top immigration source countries: India, China, Philippines, Pakistan and Nigeria) and compilation of monthly IRCC operational statistics across immigration, citizenship and visitor visas, with partial results for settlement given no recent public datasets.

Citizenship 

Birth tourism in Canada dropped sharply once the pandemic began (Policy Options, 2021)

Likely my most significant article, my analysis shows the impact of the “natural experiment” of the drastic fall in visitor visas issues and related travel restrictions on the number of non-resident self-pay hospital deliveries, confirming that birth tourists form more than 50 percent of non-resident births. My position has evolved from minimizing the issue some 10 years ago, to noting the need for ongoing monitoring and consideration of various approaches to reduce the practice to now advocating for a change in the Citizenship Act as the “cleanest” solution. 

Amid languishing numbers, Canada’s citizenship process needs to be modernized (Policy Options, 2021)

Given the ongoing weaknesses in citizenship program management, ranging from wide fluctuations in annual numbers of new citizens to limited and delayed data sets, this article makes the case for extensive modernization of citizenship operations (some of which has started or accelerated due to COVID).

Immigration 

Increasing immigration to boost population? Not so fast. (Policy Options, 2021)

Increasingly frustrated by some of the simplistic arguments advanced in favour of increased immigration by the Business Council of Canada, Century Initiative and others, I raised some needed questions that governments and policy makers need to consider and advocated a Royal Commission or equivalent to undertake a fundamental review of immigration policies that would take a broader perspective than a larger overall GDP. Some of my thinking was developed in my earlier Why the Canadian government must review its immigration policy (Open Democracy, 2021) and some was reiterated in The Need for a Longer Term Perspective on Immigration, Citizenship and Multiculturalism (Canadian Global Affairs Institute, 2021).

Will the pandemic make Canada less attractive to newcomers? (With Howard Ramos, Policy Options, 2021)

At the beginning of the work Dan Hiebert, Howard Ramos and I set out some of the questions we were asking regarding the impact of COVID on immigration, tracking both  COVID numbers in G7 and immigration source countries along with monthly tracking of the impact on immigration and related programs. While the end of the pandemic is not yet completely clear, we do have a good sense of how the government has reacted in terms of policy changes (e.g., massive shift to “two-step immigration”), modernization (more online applications, virtual citizenship ceremonies etc) and operations (backlog increases).

Multiculturalism 

Racism and the need for a national integration commission (Policy Options, Philippine Canadian Inquirer, 2021)

Similar to my frustrations regarding immigration policies, much of the commentary and analysis over racism tended to overly simple framing of the issues, whether visible minority/not visible minority, Black and White differences, with limited discussion of the diversity within and among groups, the discrimination and biases that exist within and between groups, and the need for a better understanding of the neuropsychological basis for racism and discrimination. Again, I advocated a Royal Commission or equivalent, given the importance to social inclusion and cohesion, with a strong focus on lessons learned on what works.

Diversity and Employment Equity

Will the removal of the Canadian citizenship preference in the public service make a difference (Policy Options, 2021) andDiversity and inclusion: public service hirings, promotions and separations (The Hill Times, 2021).

The collection and publishing of disaggregated public service data for employment equity groups (official and likely to become official) provides the granularity needed to assess the different groups in terms of representation by occupational group, including hiring, promotions and separations. With four years of disaggregated data, visible minority representation has increased at three times the rate of not visible minorities, one that may increase further given the removal of Canadian citizenship preference. The other notable finding, in the context of the understandable focus on anti-Black racism, is that representation of Blacks in the public service is reasonably strong compared to a number of other visible minority groups and at the EX level, greater than South Asian, Chinese and Filipinos.

Contrasting pre- and post-pandemic public service survey results (The Hill Times, 2021)

Although we only have two-years disaggregated data for the Public Service Employee Survey (PSES), this provides a comparison pre- and post-pandemic. As one would expect, visible minority groups report more instances of harassment and discrimination than not visible minorities, with Blacks reporting more than other visible minority groups. Most striking for me in analyzing the data was the degree of scepticism if not cynicism regarding the government’s anti-racism initiatives, particularly for Blacks.

The Year Ahead

The big news of course is the release of the 2021 census data, providing a wealth of information to assess and analyze in terms of immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism. 2021 data also includes religious affiliation, providing another aspect to understanding diversity in Canada. So I expect to be busy!

While the government remains committed to its immigration levels plan, how it handles the backlog in all areas remains to be seen. In one sense, in order to deliver on its 401,000 number, privileging two-step immigration meant large backlogs on other immigrants, an issue that opposition parties will correctly focus on.

With respect to citizenship, while I would like to see some action on birth tourism (or at least some serious work!), the government needs to release the revised citizenship study guide (announced in 2016!) and eliminate citizenship fees (2019 and 2021 platforms). Whether the government will feel compelled to respond to some pressure regarding the first generation transmission of citizenship remains to be seen.

.  

Filed under Citizenship, employment equity, Immigration, Multiculturalism

← Older posts

Newer posts →