Evidence Mounts That Reducing Immigration Harms America’s Economy

2021/04/02 Leave a comment

Some useful recent studies, particularly with respect to H1-B visas and skilled workers. Less convinced by some of the general demographic arguments, similar to those made in Canada by the Century Initiative and others. Shout-out to Canadian Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, authors of the book Empty Planet, making the same broader arguments (with some of the same fallacies):

Donald Trump’s immigration policies were harmful to America’s long-term economic future. That becomes clearer as one compares the Trump administration’s actions to the projected increase in the number of immigrants under recently introduced immigration legislation. The U.S. Citizenship Act, developed by the Biden administration, would aid long-term economic growth by increasing the number of legal immigrants by 28%. In contrast, Trump administration policies would have cut legal immigration in half. The immigration policy path America chooses in the long-term will make a significant impact on economic growth and future labor force growth, of which immigrants are a vital part.

Economic growth or growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is necessary for a country’s inhabitants to improve their standard of living. “GDP growth [economic growth] is made up of growth in the workforce plus growth in labor productivity,” according to Robert S. Kaplan, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “Unless slower workforce growth is offset by improved productivity growth, U.S. GDP growth will slow.”

The Trump administration’s immigration policies harmed long-term economic growth by reducing labor force growth and potential productivity growth through restrictive policies.

High-skilled foreign nationals are important to productivity growth. Yet the Trump administration increased the denial rates of H-1B petitions, causing many long-time H-1B visa holders to leave the United States. The administration also blocked the entry of H-1B visa holders and published regulations that employers believed would make it nearly impossible for many foreign-born scientists and engineers to work in the United States.

“When we aggregate at the national level, inflows of foreign STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] workers explain between 30% and 50% of the aggregate productivity growth that took place in the United States between 1990 and 2010,” according to economists Giovanni Peri (UC, Davis), Kevin Shih (RPI) and Chad Sparber (Colgate University). Research by economist Britta Glennon found rather than saving jobs, H-1B restrictions “have the unintended consequence of encouraging firms to offshore jobs abroad.”

While the Biden-supported U.S. Citizenship Act may have a difficult time becoming law, it serves as a marker for changes to legal immigration by increasing both family and employment-based immigration. The bill would have a positive impact on labor force growth by raising immigration by 28% a year after a transition period.

“Increasing legal immigration by 28% a year would increase the average annual labor force growth in the United States by 23% over current U.S. projections, which would help economic growth and address a slower-growing U.S. workforce,” according to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). “The average annual labor force growth could be even more than 23% compared to a scenario of no immigration increases because the Bureau of Labor Statistics currently projects the U.S. labor force will grow by 800,000 a year, and that baseline growth may be lower after 2029 without the increase in immigration contained in the bill.”

“In contrast,” the analysis continues, “if the United States continued the Trump administration’s policies that administratively reduced legal immigration by approximately 49%, average annual labor force growth would be approximately 59% lower than compared to a policy of no immigration reductions, according to an NFAP analysis. Under policies that reduced legal immigration by half, in 40 years the United States would have only about 6 million more people in the labor force than it has today. Admitting fewer immigrants results in lower economic growth because labor force growth is an important element of economic growth and immigrants play a major part in both current and future labor force growth.”

A recent National Foundation for American Policy study by Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at the University of North Florida, shows the positive impact of immigration.

“Analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data finds international migration was the only source of population growth in rural areas as a whole during most of the 2010s,” writes Zavodny. “International migration is strongly related to employment growth in both rural and metro counties. Each additional international migrant is associated with an additional 1.2 jobs in rural counties over 2010 to 2018. The estimate for rural areas suggests that international migration adds to total employment well beyond the jobs filled by international migrants. International migrants may have a larger impact on employment because of the jobs they fill. International migrants may work in jobs that otherwise would go unfilled by local residents and thereby enable businesses to expand.”

Due to declines in fertility, immigration keeps the United States from experiencing negative population growth, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

New economic research finds that negative or falling population growth may yield harmful economic outcomes beyond slowing labor force growth. Fewer available minds may mean fewer solutions to our problems. What if the breakthrough advances in mRNA made by Katalin Karikó, an Hungarian-born immigrant to America, never happened or occurred years later because Karikó was never born? How would that have affected the development of vaccines and other potential solutions to medical problems?

In a recent paper, “The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population,” Charles I. Jones, a professor of economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, writes, “What happens to economic growth if population growth is negative? We show below—first in models with exogenous [external] population growth and then later in a model with endogenous (internal) fertility—that negative population growth can be particularly harmful.” He asks: “How do idea-based growth models behave when population declines?”

In sum, with fewer people, “knowledge and living standards stagnate.” Jones writes, “If knowledge were to depreciate at a constant exogenous [external] rate, it is easy to show in the simple models at the start of this paper that this would lead to declining living standards in the presence of negative population growth, an even more dire outcome.”

“We refer to this as the Empty Planet result,” writes Jones. “Economic growth stagnates as the stock of knowledge and living standards settle down to constant values.”

Immigration can prevent population decline in the United States and allow America to grow—if U.S. elected officials choose the right policies. “Among great powers, the coming population decline uniquely advantages the United States,” according to Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, authors of the book Empty Planet, the title to which Charles Jones referred. “For centuries, America has welcomed new arrivals, first from across the Atlantic, then the Pacific as well, and today from across the Rio Grande. Millions have happily plunged into the melting pot—America’s version of multiculturism—enriching both its economy and culture. Immigrants made the twentieth century the American century, and continued immigration will define the twenty-first as American as well.

“Unless. The suspicious, nativist, America First groundswell of recent years threatens to choke off the immigration tap that made America great by walling up the border between the United States and everywhere else. Under President Donald Trump, the federal government not only cracked down on illegal immigrants, it reduced legal admissions for skilled workers, a suicidal policy for the U.S. economy. If this change is permanent, if Americans out of senseless fear reject their immigrant tradition, turning their backs on the world, then the United States too will decline, in numbers and power and influence and wealth. This is the choice that every American must make: to support and open, inclusive, welcoming society, or to shut the door and wither in isolation.” It is a significant choice.

Source: Evidence Mounts That Reducing Immigration Harms America’s Economy

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Ibbitson: It’s time for Canada to focus on expanding our population

2021/04/01 Leave a comment

As regular readers will know, I am not convinced that the arguments of the Century Initiative take into account the shorter-term impact of COVID on immigrant outcomes and the longer-term impact of automation and AI in their support of vastly increased immigration.

But the range of well-known people they have mobilized in their advocacy is impressive.

Their National Scorecard on Canada’s Growth and Prosperity is yet another approach to measuring how well Canada is doing with respect to overall socio-economic outcomes.

I do find it odd that a newspaper would take such a high profile advocacy role, essentially organizing a promotional event rather than a discussion more inclusive of diverse perspectives. Preaching to the converted rather than engaging those who need to be engaged.

That being said, the idea of a white paper makes sense, but its mandate needs to take a broader perspective on immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism than just justifying increased immigration levels.

And should we not also consider how to manage an aging population, not just focussing on increasing it?

On Brian Mulroney’s watch, Canada almost tripled the number of immigrants coming to Canada each year, from fewer than 90,000 people to more than 250,000.

Now Canada’s 18th prime minister is calling on Canadians to embrace what he calls “a new national policy” that would commit this country to achieving a population of 100 million by the end of the century.

“If we are going to maintain … our internal strength and our growth and our capacity and our outside influence, we need more people – a lot more,” Mr. Mulroney said Tuesday at a forum presented by The Globe and Mail and by Century Initiative, which champions the goal of a Canada that is 100-million strong by 2100.

Increasing the population by more than 60 million people would be “an historic and challenging initiative,” Mr. Mulroney acknowledged in an interview. After all, it took more than 150 years to get Canada’s population to 38 million. More than doubling it in about half that time would require much greater political and popular will than exists today.

Hence his proposal for “a white paper which indicates the need for 100 million people by the turn of the century.”

A white paper is a document through which a government puts forward a major policy proposal. If there is sufficient support, after consultation with experts, provincial governments and the broader population, it becomes settled policy, maintained by future governments whatever their partisan stripes.

Criticism of a white paper can be more important than the white paper itself. A deeply flawed white paper in 1969 that essentially called for the assimilation of First Nations into the general population helped give birth to Indigenous activism.

Conversely, a white paper on immigration produced three years earlier, which called for the final dismantling of racial barriers to accepting newcomers, led the Pearson government to invent the points system, which rated applicants based on how well they matched what the country was looking for, regardless of race.

High levels of race-blind immigration, embraced by both Liberal and Conservative governments, gave us the Canada we live in today. But the pandemic has restricted recruitment, and once the shortfall has been made up, there remains this vital question: How many people should live here?

A white paper on population, followed by a parliamentary committee travelling across the land, would encourage discussion, build momentum and, no doubt, focus opposition, which deserves to be heard.

Ideally, both Liberals and Conservatives at the federal level would express support for a target of 100 million through votes in the House and Senate.

If so, “that would become the new objective of Canada in this area,” Mr. Mulroney said, “and all governments would be bound to strive to achieve it.”

Such a goal would push Canada ahead of Germany and France and Britain in population, and probably ahead of Japan and South Korea and Vietnam as well.

That’s because the economic insecurity generated by the pandemic has exacerbated the decades-long trend of fertility decline. Low fertility, coupled with resistance to immigration, has led to population decline in dozens of countries.

Canada’s willingness to aggressively recruit newcomers leaves us better positioned to weather the demographic storms ahead than just about any other country. Taking immigration from 300,000 a people a year to a million, along with enhanced supports for child care and parental leave, would reduce labour shortages and help pay for the health care and pension needs of older Canadians, while boosting creativity and innovation. Imagine the contribution that a Toronto that was the size of New York or London or Tokyo would make to this country and to the world.

That said, the pandemic has completely disrupted how we live and work. The patterns of the past may never return. All sorts of assumptions – about downtowns and suburbs and rural areas, about commutes – may have to be rethought.

And as fertility continues to drop, the greatest obstacle to achieving a population of 100 million might be, not internal resistance, but a shrinking pool of available immigrants.

Nonetheless, Mr. Mulroney urges us to embrace “this indispensable cause.” For him, “this is a great dream of Canada, and it requires leadership to bring it true.”

Let the discussion begin, and let it begin with a new white paper on population.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-its-time-for-canada-to-focus-on-expanding-our-population/

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Ottawa to extend eligibility criteria for Yazidi refugees: Mendicino

2021/04/01 Leave a comment

Good:

Ottawa is adopting a new policy to help more Yazidis and other survivors of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant reunite with their families in Canada, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said Tuesday.

Mendicino said it will allow more Yazidi refugees to join extended family members, including siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

The Yazidis and other groups who survived abuse, torture and even genocide at the hands of ISIL are among the most vulnerable refugees in the world, he said.

“Guided by compassion, we are now redoubling our efforts to reunite their families.”

The Immigration Department said the new policy will help Yazidis and members of other communities in Northern Iraq to start new lives in Canada.

These refugees were victims of threats or acts including sexual slavery, general enslavement, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, family separation and forced displacement, the department said.

Canada has welcomed more than 1,400 survivors of ISIL from Northern Iraq since 2017.

This includes 1,356 government-assisted refugees and 94 privately sponsored ones. Women and girls comprise the vast majority.

The Yazidi newcomers have been primarily resettled to Toronto, London, Ont., Winnipeg and Calgary where Yazidi communities existed and adequate support, including medical, social and interpretation services, was in place.

Source: Ottawa to extend eligibility criteria for Yazidi refugees: Mendicino

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#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 31 March Update

2021/04/01 Leave a comment

The latest charts, compiled 31 March, in the context of a likely third wave.

Vaccinations: Change from last week: Slight decline in gap between EU countries and Canadian provinces. USA overall ahead of California, New York, France and Quebec ahead of Germany, Ontario ahead of Sweden but Sweden ahead of Canada and Canada less Quebec, British Columbia ahead of Alberta and Prairies.

Trendline charts

Infections per million: The previous trend of a flattening curve is seen in G7 countries and most provinces appears to be changing for the worse.

Deaths per million: Most Canadian provinces continue to flatten the curve, Quebec most dramatically. Overall G7 death rate continue to surpass Quebec’s by an increasing margin.

Vaccinations per million: While the gap between G7 and Canada remains despite the arrival of more vaccines, one can see that Canadian provinces have been ramping up. The increase in vaccination rates of immigration source countries driven by China and India.

Weekly

Infections per million: Some minor shifts: New York ahead of USA and California, Germany ahead of Alberta.

Deaths per million: No relative change.

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ICYMI: Canada’s schools draw fewer international students due to pandemic travel rules

2021/03/31 Leave a comment

Seeing this in the monthly stats:

Many international students have postponed or cancelled their plans to study in Canada since Ottawa decided last month to limit entry options to the country to just four airports and require international travellers to pay for a mandatory hotel quarantine.

Denise Amyot, the chief executive officer of Colleges and Institutes Canada, said a $2,000 hotel bill is the cost of half of a semester for many students.

“(They) don’t have that kind of means,” she said.

If a group of international students are heading to New Brunswick, for example, Amyot said they might arrive in Toronto, where they would go to a hotel for three days as part of a 14-day quarantine.

Then, because they will be moving to another province with its own rules, they will have to quarantine again for 14 days when they arrive in New Brunswick.

“This is nonsense. It just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “It means that for the spring and summer, we have a large number of deferrals.”

Amyot said the number of international students at Canadian colleges has declined by 20 to 30 per cent in the 2020-21 academic year compared to 2019-20.

“It has varied across the country, and we had larger declines in smaller cities and rural and remote areas.”

She said many international students are deferring their plans to study in Canada since the federal government funnelled all international flights to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary or Vancouver and began requiring travellers to quarantine at government-approved hotels.

“Those two measures that the government has put in place are jeopardizing the number of students arriving,” she said.

Amyot called on the government to exempt international students from the three-day stopover requirement.

The office of Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said in a statement that any decision to ease or modify border measures in Canada will be based on scientific evidence.

“Entry prohibitions, coupled with mandatory isolation and quarantine, continue to be the most effective means of limiting the introduction of new cases of COVID-19 into Canada at this time,” the statement said.

Even before the new entry restrictions were imposed, the total number of all international students in Canada had already declined by about 17 per cent last year, to 531,000 students at the end of 2020 from 639,000 in 2019, according to an analysis of Statistics Canada data.

Paul Davidson, the chief executive officer of Universities Canada, said the overall enrolment of international students at Canadian universities has declined by 2.1 per cent this year compared to last.

“It’s against a backdrop where typically the number of international students at universities has grown at over 10 per cent in each of the last five years, so it is quite a setback,” he said.

“We have 96 universities at Universities Canada, and 51 of those institutions saw a decline in the international students … Overall, 26 institutions saw a loss of over 10 per cent of their international students.”

Fewer international students in Canadian post-secondary schools means less revenue for these institutions, which will affect domestic students, said Amyot.

“It means that there will be less programs that can be offered,” she said.

“It’s not only a matter of dollars … There are some programs that are very popular with international students, but not so much for domestic students, and that’s especially in more technical areas linked to engineering or mining … Now (these programs) won’t be offered, because there’s not enough students.”

Amyot said the decrease in international student numbers will eventually create a gap in the labour force in Canada.

“(International students) also come with skills,” she said. “It means that there will be a gap because we won’t be able to count on those students, and who will suffer? The industry, because there will be a labor shortage.”

She said Canadian colleges and universities have used innovation to allow international students to complete their studies online.

Robert Falconer, a researcher at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy, said international students studying online at Canadian schools from their home countries might lose interest in immigrating to Canada.

“They might decide, after getting their Canadian degree, that they’re not going to really bother coming to Canada because they’ve never been, they don’t have prospects here and no social network or job opportunities.”

Amyot said education institutions had quarantine plans in the fall for their international students, letting them go to their quarantine locations safely. Local public health authorities and the provincial and federal governments approved.

“It was working very well for the fall intake, but now with this new measure that was taken in place, everything is in the air,” she said.

Davidson said all international students, from kindergartners to PhDs, contribute about $22 billion a year to Canada’s economy.

“It’s a major contributor to Canada’s economic growth,” he said. “The decline in international student numbers is having a widespread economic impact in Canada.”

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said the government has encouraged international students to stay in Canada during the pandemic.

“While other countries told international students to go home during the pandemic, we went to great lengths to support them and create a system that allowed them to continue their studies,” Alexander Cohen said in a statement.

The department has tried to make it easier for international students to apply for work permits after they graduate, including counting the time they spend studying online toward the period of time needed to make them eligible, for instance.

Davidson said the United States is reducing barriers to immigration for international students and the government of the United Kingdom is marketing to international students and expediting visa processing for them.

“This is a competitive landscape we’re working in,” he said. “The government of the U.K. is offering guaranteed visa approvals (for international students) in about three weeks, which is much faster than Canada.”

Source: Canada’s schools draw fewer international students due to pandemic travel rules

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Nanny state? Hardly. Canada has left its foreign caregivers in a stalled system that’s derailing lives, critics say

2021/03/29 Leave a comment

Likely more than COVID slowdown at play:

The system that is supposed to help foreign nannies and care workers build a new life in Canada is, simply put, a hot mess.

That’s the conclusion of caregivers, their advocates and their lawyers, two years after reforms were brought in by the federal Liberal government.

Just how bad are things?

Until this past November, over an 18-month period, not a single work permit was issued under two new pilot programs. Meanwhile, there’s a backlog of at least 9,100 applications for permanent residence. That matches the kind of numbers that government saw back in 2017, when the processing time was known to be as long as five years.

Some say new data shows applications were moving at a snail’s pace even before the COVID-19 lockdowns reduced the immigration department’s processing capacity last year.

There’s more.

The system is ensnarled in six overlapping programs. Critics say the pathway for foreign caregivers is far from clear and secure, and that added language and higher education requirements may end up slowly phasing out what has been a unique immigration approach that set foreign caregivers apart from other temporary foreign workers.

“We’ve said time and again these changes were not going to work,” said Vilma Pagaduan, a longtime advocate for foreign caregivers in Toronto.

“Things were bad even before the pandemic.”

For decades, Canada has relied on foreign caregivers to look after our children and elderly.

To entice foreign workers to take up the jobs that few Canadians were willing to do, the Live-in Caregiver Program, which ran from 1992 to 2014, provided what’s called an automatic pathway to permanent residence, allowing them to pursue permanent status here in Canada in exchange for the work they put in and the sacrifices they made.

The scheme has gone through multiple changes since 2014. The former Conservative government eliminated requirements that workers live with their employers, but imposed new language and education standards as well as an annual cap on the number of caregivers who could take advantage of the program.

It also raised the employers’ application fee.

The fee was later removed by the Liberal government, which in 2019 introduced the two new pilot programs. The Liberals changed caregivers’ work permits so they could freely change jobs as long as they stayed in the caregiving occupation. The government also moved to grandfather those caregivers already in the system so they could pursue permanent residence in spite of the changing requirements.

Under the Conservatives’ and Liberals’ reforms, temporary foreign workers who were already in Canada but did not come here through the caregiver programs could also apply to the programs and access the pathway for permanent residence if their experience fit.

When the Liberals announced the changes in early 2019, they said they had reduced the backlog in processing caregiver permanent residence applications by 94 per cent and shortened the processing time to 12 months.

Immigration officials said the changes had been made after extensive consultation with the community.

“Caregivers provide a vital service for many families and, like any other worker in Canada, they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity,” said department spokesperson Rémi Larivière.

“We value their critical contributions, which is why we’re removing barriers and keeping families together by allowing their family members to work and study in Canada.”

But the latest numbers don’t show the success story for which many might have hoped.

Ottawa received a total of 13,230 permanent residence applications from foreign caregivers between January 2019 and November 2020, according to new data obtained by Vancouver immigration lawyer Steven Meurrens.

Only 4,140 were processed and the approval rate was 74 per cent.

And, among the applications received, 4,206 or 32 per cent came under the Liberals’ two new pilot programs. Officials processed only 279 — or less than seven per cent of them. Some 69 per cent of those were approved.

As of Nov. 27, the total number of permanent residence applications in the backlog stood at 9,094 applications — surpassing the 9,000 cases in the backlog in 2017.

The permanent residence backlog does not even include someone such as Merynold Magallanes, who came under the old Live-in Caregiver Program.

The Filipino woman was brought to Canada by an Oakville family of five in 2013 before any of the changes to the caregiver programs. She applied for her permanent residence three years later after fulfilling her two-year full-time live-in employment requirement.

She was refused in 2017 because of a consultant’s mix-up, and her divorce paper and police clearance certificate were missing from her application. She reapplied in 2018 but pulled out because she was told the elder of her two daughters was too old to be a dependant child and should be dropped from her application.

Magallanes then enlisted the help of a lawyer and submitted a third application in August 2019. Over the years, she’s kept renewing her work permit to maintain her status in Canada and keep her hope for permanent residence alive.

That decision has cost her years with her family.

“I have only visited my two daughters (now 23 and 24) once since I came to Canada in 2013 because I need to save all my money to support my family in the Philippines,” said Magallanes, who also provides for her widowed mother, her nieces and nephews, and occasionally her siblings.

“We work hard so our kids can have better opportunities here. Life is easy in Canada if you work hard. Back home, life is hard even if you work hard.”

Pagaduan, the advocate, said caregivers working in Canada suffer from prolonged family separation as they await the processing of their permanent residence applications.

The work itself is no picnic. Sometimes they have to put up with abusive work conditions due to their precarious immigration status.

The changes made to the caregiver scheme are confusing and the new requirements for post-secondary education and language tests have created additional hurdles and further bureaucracy, she noted. Furthermore, language test results, medical and police clearances do expire and have to be redone if applications are not processed in time.

“Applicants need to get their credentials assessed and must pass the English test. They have to keep renewing their work permits until they get permanent residence,” said Pagaduan. “All these cost money.”

Unlike the previous programs, the Liberals’ two pilots do offer the opportunity for caregivers to bring their dependants with them to Canada from the outset and mean that they are no longer restricted to working for one specific employer.

“These pilots make it easier for caregivers to quickly switch employers, provide open work or study permits for their immediate family members so that families can come to Canada together and create a clear transition from temporary to permanent status,” said Larivière, the department’s spokesperson.

“We will continue to work closely with the caregiver community to make further improvements to the system.”

However, Vancouver immigration lawyer Deanna Okun-Nachoff said that these improvements are meaningless if no foreign caregivers are getting their work permits to come to Canada under the new programs.

“The program has been there since June 2019,” said Okun-Nachoff, who helps a lot of caregivers in her legal practice.

“I have not seen one work permit approved and I have applied for many.”

According to the government data, the immigration department received 1,055 new work permit applications under the recent pilot programs in 2019 and 2020 (up to November). Only five were processed: four were withdrawn and one was refused.

Meanwhile, 4,234 work permits were issued to general temporary foreign workers who were listed as caregivers under their occupation code. These could be work permit holders who initially came as international students or were admitted in other occupations.

Given that the programs are a pathway to permanent residence, immigration officials said work permits under the current pilots can only be issued after permanent residence eligibility has been thoroughly assessed. Hence, the processing speed is compromised.

“As you know, global migration has been upended by the pandemic. Yet we’ve taken quick action and come a long way since the onset of the pandemic, while also managing lockdowns at processing offices within Canada,” Larivière said.

While the old live-in caregiver program took a long time for applicants to get permanent residence due to the overwhelming demand, Okun-Nachoff said it was the most straightforward scheme: one automatically qualified when the two-year live-in requirement was met. The permanent residence grant rate hovered above 90 per cent then.

Critics say the Conservatives’ program was flawed because caregiver work permit applicants were admitted without being assessed under the new education and language requirement they needed to become permanent residents. Hence, many only found out later that they couldn’t qualify for permanent residence.

While the Liberals’ changes were meant to address these problems, the new programs are “mind-bending” and muddied the whole caregiver scheme even further.

“People complained about the changes made by the previous government, but what we’re seeing is worse. Before they were able to come in, now we can’t even get them in (under the caregiver programs),” said Manuela Gruber Hersch, a co-founder of the Association of Caregivers and Nanny Agencies Canada.

“An aging population and lack of national child care are two of the greatest challenges of our government, so why are they not prioritizing the caregiver programs?”

The bottleneck in processing work permits for overseas caregivers could lead to caregiver shortages in Canada as in-Canada caregivers become permanent residents and seek other job opportunities, Hersch warned, and it would ultimately kill the designated caregiver program.

Last year, as a result of the pandemic, Canada saw the overall number of permanent residents admitted to the country nosedive by 45.7 per cent, to just 185,130, from 2019, far below its 340,000 target.

Last month, in anticipation of another potential shortfall, Ottawa invited 27,332 people in one draw to apply for permanent residence — five times more than its previous high of 5,000 — 90 per cent of the invitees were already living in Canada.

Francia Rafallo, who came to Canada in 2017 under the Conservatives’ caregiver programs, applied for permanent residence under the interim pathway in 2019 and has been waiting in queue since, so her husband and their two sons can join her here.

She says it’s an affront to the caregiver community that their immigration applications are not being prioritized even though the pandemic has shown caregivers are providing an essential service to Canadians.

“Canada has accepted a lot of other immigrants, approving international students and other workers. It is unfair that foreign caregivers are left behind,” said Rafallo. “We are taxpayers, too, and we are not treated equally and fairly. There’s been no improvement.”

York University professor Ethel Tungohan, who has researched extensively on labour migration, said it’s short-sighted for Ottawa not to prioritize caregiver applications — whether it’s for permanent residence or work permits — especially in the wake of the pandemic.

Many caregivers do become personal support workers and even nurses, she said.

Tungohan, who is the Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activism, has been part of multiple consultations under both the Conservatives and Liberals but said there’s always lip service paid to the value of care work.

“What this whole exercise is showing is that regardless of the government in power, care work remains undervalued. These changes that are put in are meant to improve the lives of caregivers. It’s sad that they are actually making it harder for them to come and get citizenship,” she said.

“All caregivers want is to be treated like other immigrants to Canada and be able to come and live with their families.”

Source: Nanny state? Hardly. Canada has left its foreign caregivers in a stalled system that’s derailing lives, critics say

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New tool could help immigrants decide where to live in Canada

2021/03/27 Leave a comment

Of interest. Useful experiment and it will important to see how much it is used and the extent that it improves immigrant outcomes:

Researchers are working on a new tool that will help newcomers identify which Canadian city they are most likely to be successful in.

Most immigrants end up choosing to live in one of Canada’s major cities. In fact, more than half of all immigrants and recent immigrants to Canada currently live in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, according to Statistics Canada.

However, there may be better opportunities for these immigrants elsewhere. Perhaps a film director or a tech worker may be suited to Toronto, but a petroleum engineer may not.

Since 2018, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has been working on a research project alongside the Immigration Policy Lab (IPL) at Stanford University that may pave the way for this tool, dubbed GeoMatch, to come to fruition.

The project attempts to repurpose an algorithm that is used in resettlement efforts, to work for Canadian immigration. It uses historical data to help immigrants choose where they might thrive the most, IRCC spokesperson Isabelle Dubois told CIC News.

“The study suggested that prospective economic immigrants who followed the GeoMatch recommendation would be more likely to find a well-paying job after they arrived,” Dubois said in an email.

“Currently, newcomers tend to gravitate to cities they’ve heard of— which tend to be the largest. Yet such a tool could help change that by promoting different localities across Canada, beyond major urban centres like Toronto and Vancouver.”

According to their website, GeoMatch uses machine learning capabilities to make its predictions. It considers factors such as previous immigrants’ work history, education as well as personal characteristics. It then finds patterns in the data by focusing on how these factors were related to economic success in different locations.

GeoMatch may then be able to predict an immigrant’s likelihood of success in various locations across Canada.

“Research suggests that an immigrant’s initial arrival location plays a key role in shaping their economic success. Yet immigrants currently lack access to personalized information that would help them identify optimal destinations,” said a report published by the IPL.

The report reiterates that the approach is motivated by data that show an immigrant’s first landing location is influential in their outcomes.

“We find that for many economic immigrants the chosen [first] location is far from optimal in terms of expected income,” the report adds.

The report suggests that many economic immigrants choose Toronto simply because that is all they know of Canada, but they may be in “the wrong place” for their skillset. For example, Toronto is ranked number 20 out of 52 regions in terms of maximizing income in the year after arrival. This means that for many immigrants, there were 19 other regions where they would have likely made a higher income.

Immigrants may, of course, choose not to use the tool. However, it is worth mentioning that GeoMatch takes into consideration not just “data-driven predictions” but immigrants’ location preferences as well.

Source: New tool could help immigrants decide where to live in Canada

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There’s an Immigration Crisis, But It’s Not the One You Think

2021/03/27 Leave a comment

Good long interview with MPI’s Andrew Seles with a good overview of the substance and politics of immigration in the USA:

It’s become the Old Faithful of American politics: Every two or three years, there’s a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. It follows a predictable script: White House aides shy away from the term “crisis,” lest it suggest they’re to blame. Leaders of the opposition party repeat the term ad nauseam, spreading the perception of a crisis through sheer force of will. Media coverage features the same tired clichés: sensationalized “caravans,” b-roll of border fencing and windbreaker-clad TV reporters doing live hits from the Rio Grande or some dusty, mud-cracked vista. The immediate crisis passes, but the underlying problems go ignored, all but ensuring another crisis in a few years’ time. Lather, rinse, repeat.

“When something keeps happening to you over and over, you should ask why,” says Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that studies immigration. “Every two or three years, we get a spike of migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border. Yet we deal with this each time as though it’s a separate incident that can be controlled, rather than looking at the larger forces at play.”

Source: There’s an Immigration Crisis, But It’s Not the One You Think

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Supporting Canada’s COVID-19 Resilience and Recovery Through Robust Immigration Policy and Programs

2021/03/26 Leave a comment

While I have a great deal of respect for all the people involved in this useful overview and discussion of the issues, disappointing that no serious discussion about the advisability of the government plans to increase immigration to catch up for the 2020 shortfall, given that we know from previous downturns of the short and medium-term “scarring” of immigrants who arrive during economic downturns.

Of course, some of the specific recommendations (e.g., the annual levels plan should include temporary residents as well) are long overdue:

“Canada has been seen globally as a leader in immigration and integration policies and programs, and as an attractive and welcoming country for immigrants, refugees, temporary foreign workers, and international students. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed some of the strengths of Canada’s immigration system, as well as some of the fault lines that have been developing and have deepened over the last few years. In this briefing, we provide an overview of Canada’s immigration system prior to the pandemic, and the policies and programs in place to support immigrant selection, settlement, and integration. We then discuss the system’s vulnerabilities as revealed by the pandemic, and explore a post-COVID-19 immigration vision. 

Canada’s immigration process has been highly selective, garnering support from the Canadian public for its strong focus on highly skilled immigrants and the economic contributions they can make, while overlooking the fact that many temporary foreign workers in Canada who are deemed low-skilled are in fact involved in essential work. Canada has created a bifurcated migration system with high-skilled migrants becoming permanent residents, and migrants deemed lower-skilled becoming permanently temporary. Yet as the pandemic has revealed, many temporary foreign workers, including agricultural workers, are essential to the functioning of our economy and the food security of our country. The pandemic has also highlighted the vulnerability of a variety of permanent and temporary resident groups in Canada (e.g., refugees, refugee claimants, temporary foreign workers, international students, immigrant women), the drive for family reunification and the constraints therein, the benefits and particular challenges of regionalization, and the difficulties involved in meeting targets for Francophone immigration and sustaining these immigrants in Francophone minority communities in Canada. To address these issues requires a consolidated re-evaluation of Canada’s immigration program and policies, engaging Canadians in these discussions.

It is also the case that despite Canada’s focus on bringing in highly skilled immigrants, a long-standing problem in Canada is the underutilization of these immigrants’ skills, leading to a waste of human capital. This has been especially salient during the pandemic in terms of internationally educated healthcare professionals. Many immigrants in health-related occupations have experienced deskilling, which is particularly noteworthy given the large number of jobs in health occupations in Canada that are unfilled. With the urgent need for health workers to be mobilized for testing, tracking, and provision of health services during the pandemic, it is time to revisit the need to more fully use the skills of immigrant healthcare professionals who are in Canada but not working in the professions for which they were trained.

Canada has a highly respected settlement sector that provides a variety of services to immigrants and refugees settling in Canada, and these services have also been deemed essential during the pandemic. These services have traditionally been provided in person and the pivot to online delivery has not occurred without difficulty. Agencies often lack the equipment and digital expertise to provide all services online, and immigrant and refugee digital literacy and access to technology is at times lacking. It is also the case that the pandemic has highlighted a variety of additional services and supports that are required during, and beyond, the pandemic. The pandemic has also underscored the lag between eligibility for settlement services, which is organized around a historical norm of direct entry of immigrants as permanent residents, and Canada’s current immigration regime, in which more newcomers enter with temporary status, with the hope or intention of transitioning to permanent residents. The need for international students, temporary foreign workers, and refugee claimants to receive some of these services has become especially salient at this time.

The settlement and integration of immigrants also requires the support of Canadians, and public attitudes toward immigrants in this country are not fully immune to xenophobia, especially at a time of higher unemployment and when uncertainty and feelings of threat dominate. It is thus essential to closely monitor Canadians’ attitudes toward immigrants, temporary residents, and immigration, and to proactively engage in efforts to promote positive attitudes while reducing the racism that these groups may experience.

This report provides a set of recommendations for action by the federal and provincial/territorial governments designed to optimize immigration to Canada: see Appendix A. At a broad level, these include: 

·       A public education program on immigration (to promote an informed public), followed by a comprehensive review, whether in the form of a Royal Commission, task force, or other mechanism, to engage Canadians in a discussion of the future of immigration to Canada, and a recalibration of its policies and programs to meet Canada’s own current and future needs and its global responsibilities

·       Immigration planning and federal settlement funding that takes into account both permanent and temporary residents

·       Expanded pathways to permanence for temporary residents

·       Targeted policies and programs that address the needs of vulnerable permanent and temporary resident groups

·       Special consideration of Francophone immigration

·       Public campaigns and civic engagement program expansion to promote positive attitudes toward immigrants, refugees, and immigration among established Canadians and to promote smaller jurisdictions to newcomers 

·       A coordinated network of national promising practices in the incorporation of skilled immigrants in the workplace

·       Research to drive evidence-based policy and program redesign during the pandemic and beyond

·       Leadership on the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration

As of the third quarter of 2020, Canada’s population growth has stopped, and all future growth will solely rely on immigration. Over the next three years, the Canadian Government intends to bring to this country the population equivalent of the Province of Manitoba through permanent resident streams. Additionally, Canada will continue to accept many international students, refugee claimants, and temporary foreign workers for temporary residence here. The importance of immigration for Canada will continue to grow and be an integral component of the country’s post- COVID-19 recovery. To succeed, it is essential to take stock, to re-evaluate Canada’s immigration and integration policies and programs, and to expand Canada’s global leadership in this area. The authors offer insights and recommendations to reinvigorate and optimize Canada’s immigration program over the next decade and beyond.”

Read or download the full report:

https://rsc-src.ca/en/research-and-reports/covid-19-policy-briefing/supporting-canada%E2%80%99s-covid-19-resilience-and-recovery

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Un peu d’humanité s’il vous plaît, M. Legault

2021/03/26 Leave a comment

More on the “gardian angels” by Quebec opposition members:

Marie (nom fictif), le téléphone dans la main droite et sa petite fille de deux ans agrippée à son bras gauche, tente désespérément de récupérer les passeports de toute la famille détenus par Citoyenneté et immigration Canada (CIC) afin d’obtenir une copie certifiée de toutes les pages des précieux carnets et de les acheminer au ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration (MIFI) à Québec. L’épisode est kafkaïen. La tâche de récupérer tous les documents exigés par le MIFI afin de compléter le dossier du programme des « anges gardiens » est titanesque. Peu importe, elle fera tout pour avoir accès à ce certificat de sélection du Québec (CSQ) béni qui les conduira, elle et ses enfants, à la résidence permanente.

Une résidence permanente pour Marie, veuve d’un préposé aux bénéficiaires mort de la COVID-19, lui permettra de sortir la tête des eaux troubles de la pauvreté. Ça voudra dire pouvoir envoyer ses enfants de deux et trois ans en garderie et, donc, travailler comme préposée aux bénéficiaires, métier pour lequel elle a étudié, et contribuer à la société québécoise. Ça voudra dire aussi ne plus avoir peur d’être expulsée en Haïti, qui sombre de plus en plus dans l’anarchie. L’anxiété est à son comble.

Marie a soumis sa demande en décembre, dès l’ouverture du programme des anges gardiens visant les étrangers au statut précaire qui ont prodigué des soins au printemps dernier dans le domaine de la santé. Et tout traîne toujours.

Même si ce programme est pancanadien, le gouvernement Legault, en raison d’un accord avec le gouvernement fédéral en matière d’immigration, demande une liste différente de documents à fournir. « Les exigences du MIFI sont inadaptées à la crise », nous dit Me Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, spécialiste en droit de l’immigration. Et pourtant, pour Québec, tout va bien, Madame la Marquise.

La lenteur avec laquelle la CAQ traite la régularisation des « anges gardiens » n’est pas seulement honteuse, elle nuit à la société québécoise.

Dans un article de Radio-Canada, on apprenait la semaine dernière qu’en deux mois, seulement 3 dossiers sur 721 ont été approuvés au Québec. Tandis que dans le reste du Canada, ce sont 459 dossiers sur 932. Pourquoi ? Par manque de volonté politique ou incompétence dans sa mise en œuvre ? Les questions se posent et cela n’aide personne.

Ce qui est absurde dans tout ceci, c’est que ce manque d’humanité, cette bureaucratie digne des 12 travaux d’Astérix du gouvernement de la CAQ, n’a rien de bon pour le Québec. Elle laisse des gens dévoués dans une grande précarité avec tous les dommages collatéraux que cela implique. La précarité est synonyme de pauvreté et d’exclusion sociale. Leur situation les rend vulnérables à l’exploitation de toutes sortes. L’incertitude quant à leur statut crée aussi un climat anxiogène qui se transmet à toute la famille, et la santé mentale en prend un coup énorme. Tout ce désespoir accable les ressources communautaires, qui sont déjà à bout de souffle.

Le gouvernement se doit d’accélérer le processus de traitement des demandes du programme. Il doit aussi l’élargir et l’ouvrir aux travailleurs de la santé qui ont travaillé au-delà du 14 août 2020. La guerre contre la COVID-19 n’est pas terminée. Ces gens-là donnent encore à manger aux malades, les nettoient, les aident. Certains ont même contracté le coronavirus. Il faut les considérer.

Le gouvernement doit finalement accepter la main tendue d’Ottawa qui souhaite élargir le programme à d’autres travailleurs essentiels de la santé, comme les gardiens de sécurité et les gens responsables de l’entretien, entre autres.

La ministre, Nadine Girault, doit imposer un leadership fort. Ce n’est pourtant pas le cas. Ce manque de vision nous désespère. Le sentiment d’exclusion qui est en train de se développer nous conduit tout droit vers une intégration toute croche. Mauvaise intégration, pauvreté, exclusion : les ingrédients pour un gros gâchis. C’est très mauvais pour le Québec.

Si le gouvernement a décidé d’en prendre moins, il devrait peut-être en prendre soin.

Paule Robitaille et Christine St-Pierre, Respectivement députée de Bourassa-Sauvé, porte-parole en matière de lutte contre la pauvreté ; et députée de l’Acadie, porte-parole en matière d’immigration

Source: Un peu d’humanité s’il vous plaît, M. Legault

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