Brexit fuels brain drain as skilled Britons head to the EU

2020/08/04 Leave a comment

Not surprising:

Brexit has sparked an exodus of economically productive people from the UK to European Union nations on a scale that would normally be expected only as a result of a major economic or political crisis, according to a detailed new study.

Using a combination of official statistics across the EU and in-depth interviews with people living in Germany, the study found huge changes in migration patterns of UK citizens since the 2016 referendum, which contrast with largely stable ones among nationals from the 27 EU states remaining in the bloc.

The report, a collaboration between the Oxford in BerlinResearch Partnership – a project made up of Oxford university and four Berlin institutions – and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, also found a “seismic shift” in the number of UK citizens already living abroad who had decided to go a step further by obtaining EU member state passports since 2016, showing how Britain’s vote to leave the EU pushed many individuals into long-term decisions.

Source: Brexit fuels brain drain as skilled Britons head to the EU

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Americans, Go Home: Canadians Track U.S. Boaters Sneaking Across The Border

2020/08/04 Leave a comment

Ironic reversal of travel restrictions and related requirements, with Americans being for likely the first time being the ones targeted and thus some of them resorting to irregular or illegal transit:

Canadians are typically seen as pretty friendly people, and until the coronavirus pandemic, most were happy to welcome Americans.

But when the coronavirus began to quickly spread in March, the U.S. and Canada shut their shared border to all nonessential traffic.

Since then, Canada’s border patrol has effectively prevented caravans of Americans — and their RVs and their campers — from surging across the border as they normally do each summer.

But Americans can be crafty.

Some have managed to enter Canada by telling border patrol officers that they are on their way to Alaska. This is known as the “Alaska loophole.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police fined several Americans who were hiking near Lake Louise in Alberta. Lake Louise is not on the way to Alaska.

Fed up, Canada announced last week that it is cracking down on Americans who apparently don’t know which way is north.

The Americans are coming, the Americans are coming

Foreigners are also arriving by boat, often on sailboats and luxury yachts. Many seek refuge in British Columbia’s protected inland waters and marine parks, which are home to pods of killer whales and abundant wildlife.

But the number of American pleasure craft arriving from Washington state has alarmed Canadians living just across the border.

For George Creek, a former insurance agent, whose home overlooks Nanaimo Harbor in British Columbia, it has been a call to action.

“A number of us that are retired boaters and still members of the Council of BC Yacht Clubs started looking at the number of American boats that were crossing our border, in spite of the prohibition by the federal government,” says Creek, president of BC Marine Parks Forever.

And they can do so from their living rooms.

Under international maritime law, every passenger boat must be equipped with an automatic identification system that is to remain on at all times. This allows for tracking boats in real time and helps prevent collisions in fog and bad weather.

Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can click to see what kind of vessels are sailing, where they’ve recently been and which country they are from.

And plenty are from the United States.

Creek estimates that right now some 30 to 40 American pleasure boats are cruising through British Columbia’s pristine waterways.

Lately, however, many have gone dark. Creek says that the Americans have figured out that they are being tracked through their transponders.

“They’re turning them off as they cross the border,” says Creek. “We see them on the computer, and at a particular point a few minutes later, they’re not there anymore.”

The maritime posse of retirees knows the boats didn’t suddenly turn around, or sink. That’s because Canadian boaters up and down the inland coast call and radio in the location of suspicious vessels, i.e., American boats. They report sightings to the RCMP’s marine division, though it’s unclear if any arrests have been made.

“The biggest petri dish in the world”

American yachts sneaking across the border makes Creek, and a lot of other Canadians, angry.

There is widespread alarm at how fast the coronavirus has spread through the Lower 48 and what many Canadians view as Americans’ flagrant disregard for mask wearing and maintaining a safe social distance.

A poll conducted by Nanos Research found that eight in 10 Canadians want the border to remain closed to nonessential U.S. traffic because of fears of the coronavirus.

“When I called the U.S. the biggest petri dish in the world, that was not just off the cuff,” says Creek.

Creek is particularly concerned about the tiny isolated communities, such as Refuge Cove on Desolation Sound, where boaters stop for fuel and food. Many are home to First Nations people and have no medical facilities.

Canadian boaters recently got riled up after a large yacht from the U.S. stopped at one of the small outposts for supplies.

“They wandered the dock,” says Creek bitterly. “Three or four adults and the rest were teenagers with no social distancing, no masks, and went through the store as if they were just shopping at Walmart.”

To boaters sneaking into Canada to enjoy its marine parks and secluded coves, George Creek wants you to know: You are being watched.

Source: Americans, Go Home: Canadians Track U.S. Boaters Sneaking Across The Border

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Ottawa offers cash, more promises of reform for migrant workers in the agriculture industry

2020/08/03 Leave a comment

While the changes never go far enough for the activists, nevertheless the funding and related initiatives should result in improvement:

Ottawa will spend $58.6-million in efforts to improve the health and safety of temporary foreign workers in the agriculture industry, amid criticism that the government has not done enough to protect migrant farm workers.

The added funding is aimed at increasing inspections and improving employee housing. The government also said it will consult with provinces, employers, workers and foreign partner countries in the coming months to develop a “co-ordinated national approach” – mandatory requirements on employer-provided accommodations to ensure better living conditions for workers.

Advocates, medical experts and workers have long warned that poor living and working conditions are threatening workers’ health and safety – with these risks only heightened with the pandemic. More than 1,300 migrant farm workers have tested positive for COVID-19 in Ontario alone, according to a Globe and Mail survey of local public-health units, and three have died – one of whom was just 24.

A Globe investigation into the outbreaks in June revealed the unsafe conditions experienced by some farm workers. Interviews, photos and videos showed crowded bedrooms, broken toilets, cockroaches and bed-bug infestations. Workers cited a lack of access to PPE and pressure to keep working, even when suffering with symptoms of COVID-19.

And while the federal government is ultimately in charge of the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program, The Globe’s subsequent reporting found a lapse concerning in-person inspections and little enforcement of the rules at the height of the pandemic meant to protect workers.

“We look at the tragedies that have hit the temporary foreign workers’ community with deep sorrow. This is something that is on Canadians,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday, adding that there are “lots of changes that we need to make.”

In an interview with The Globe in June, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said the federal government was planning an overhaul of the TFW program. On Friday, she said there are still “reported cases of inappropriate behaviour and unsafe working conditions.”

Workers, health professionals and rights groups said the measures still fall short, and don’t address systemic problems embedded in the structure of the program, where a precarious work status leaves workers unable to protect their rights for fear of being fired and deported.

Gabriel Flores, a farm worker in Ontario who tested positive for COVID-19 in May, said in an interview Friday that workers need “permanent residency, because we need to be able to defend ourselves and defend our rights and … be able to do something for our living and working conditions so that we can be healthy, be safe and work in decent conditions.”

Workers need a “comprehensive” solution now, he said, adding that more new programs and money won’t make a difference to workers if they don’t have the power to access them.

New measures announced Friday include $35-million for infrastructure improvements to living quarters, which also cover temporary emergency housing along with PPE and sanitary stations.

The government will also contribute $16-million to improve responses to allegations of employer non-compliance and strengthen inspections; the government will add “up to” 3,000 more inspections, which could potentially double the number of inspections this year. However, it didn’t say how many of these will be in person, or unannounced. And $6-million is slated for outreach to workers through migrant-worker support groups.

Despite some positive steps, such as acknowledging the need for pro-active enforcement of workplace and housing standards, “the changes announced today do not go nearly far enough,” said a statement by the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group.

Workers’ visas are still tied to their employers, which causes barriers in accessing safe working conditions, it said. “We encourage the federal government to address vulnerabilities workers face that arise from the conditions of their employment, specifically by instituting permanent residency on arrival and ending tied work permits.”

In B.C. Natalie Drolet, staff lawyer and executive director of the Migrant Workers Centre, said the government’s response is “too little, too late and is only a Band-Aid solution” that fails to address systemic problems such as their precarious work status.

In Ontario, Santiago Escobar, national representative at United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, said housing must be improved “as soon as possible,” and for these measures to work, migrant farm workers need stronger labour rights, so they can join a union, have collective agreements and better labour mobility.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ottawa-offers-cash-more-promises-of-reform-for-migrant-workers-in-the/

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

The Man Who Made Stephen Miller

2020/08/03 Leave a comment

Good long and interesting read:

In December 2012, with the Republican Party reeling from a brutal election that left Democrats in control of the White House and the Senate, the conservative activist David Horowitz emailed a strategy paper to the office of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.

Horowitz, now 81, was a longtime opponent of immigration and the founder of a think tank and a campus freedom-of-speech advocacy group. He saw in Sessions a kindred spirit—a senator who could reawaken a more nationalist fire in the Republican party. The person he emailed it to was a Sessions aide: Stephen Miller. Horowitz, who recalled the episode in an interview and shared the emails with me, had known Miller since the aide was in high school.

Horowitz encouraged Miller to not only give the paper to Sessions but to circulate it in the Senate. Miller expressed eagerness to share it and asked for instructions. “Leave the Confidential note on it. It gives it an aura that will make people pay more attention to it,” Horowitz wrote. The paper, “Playing to the Head Instead of the Heart: Why Republicans Lost and How They Can Win,” included a section on the political utility of hostile feelings. Horowitz wrote that Democrats know how to “hate their opponents,” how to “incite envy and resentment, distrust and fear, and to direct those volatile emotions.” He urged Republicans to “return their fire.”

Horowitz wrote that hope and fear are the two strongest weapons in politics. Barack Obama had used hope to become president. “Fear is a much stronger and more compelling emotion,” Horowitz argued, adding that Republicans should appeal to voters’ base instincts.

It is perhaps the most compact crystallization of the relationship that propelled Miller, now a senior policy adviser and speechwriter in the Donald Trump administration, to the White House and of the importance that relationship has had in the administration. The friendship between Miller and Horowitz began when Miller—who did not respond to interview requests for the book from which this article was adapted—was in high school and continued throughout his career. Tracing it reveals a source of Miller’s laser focus on immigration restriction, which has over the past few years resulted in a ban on travel from mostly-Muslim countries and a policy that separated families crossing the border into the United States to seek asylum. If you want to understand the language Trump uses to talk about immigrants and his opponents, or the immigration policies he has put into place, often via Miller, you have to also understand David Horowitz, and the formative role he played in Miller’s career and life.

Miller met Horowitz shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when Miller was a teenager growing up on the Southern California coast. He was going through a period of family turmoil. A few years before, they had moved out of a million-dollar home in a wealthy white neighborhood to a slightly smaller house in a more diverse neighborhood. Miller’s father Michael was having financial troubles and fighting several legal battles related to his real estate company, including a fight with his brother whom he permanently separated from the family with a no-contact order in a settlement agreement. Rather than attending a private school the way Michael’s youngest son later did, his oldest son Stephen found himself at a diverse public school, which celebrated Día de los Muertos and Cinco de Mayo.

When his father was tangled up in lawsuits, Miller found comfort in a number of conservative California-based talk radio show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh complained about multiculturalism and the poor, whom he called “the biggest piglets at the mother pig and her nipples” in his book The Way Things Ought To Be. Miller read the book and later cited it as a favorite….

Adapted with permission from HATEMONGER: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda by Jean Guerrero. Copyright © 2020 by Jean Guerrero. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Source: The Man Who Made Stephen Miller

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , ,

Foreign Students and Online Instruction: Canada’s Approach

2020/08/03 Leave a comment

An Intern for the largely anti-immigration Centre for Immigration Studies, has praise for the Canadian approach to international students during COVID-19 (and of course, there is also an anti-immigration “industry”:

Last week, ICE announced that new incoming foreign students will be denied entry to the U.S. if their institution plans to deliver solely online coursework. Such a regulation makes sense; new international students can engage in virtual learning and come to the U.S. once they have a reason to be on campus. However, the announcement only arrived after the agency succumbed to special interests regarding the larger current student visa population, which is now free to enter and remain in the U.S., regardless of whether students are studying in-person or remotely.

As a sophomore at Dartmouth College, some of my closest friends in university are F-1 visa recipients, and I have directly seen how international students enhance the campus community. But the Department of Homeland Security must look after the national security interests of the U.S., which are undermined when over one million foreign students are able to study virtually off-campus, and the federal government cannot track their whereabouts. That said, ICE’s initial decision was abrupt, leaving many in precarious situations. For example, some of my some of my international peers, who had already returned home, feared that studying remotely in their native country could result in the cancellation of their F-1 visas.

Perhaps, instead of entirely backing down and resorting to complete non-enforcement, the United States should have handled the student visa situation through a more measured approach to reconcile both national immigration security interests, as well as international student well-being. And it seems such a policy is being implemented in Canada.

Despite having a dismal record on immigration issues, Justin Trudeau’s reigning Liberal government is handling the Canadian foreign student situation with prudence. Last week, Canada’s federal immigration department announced that international students will not be allowed into the country until their institutions reopen. Entry will be only permitted on an individual discretionary basis, if one can prove they need to be on campus. Most Canadian public universities are delivering entirely virtual instruction, with the exception of a few specific STEM programs that feature an in-person lab component. This Canadian policy stands in accordance with the correct notion that entry into a country should be permitted only to those who have legitimate reasons to do so; only when international students have a reason to be on campus will they be permitted to study in the country.

Marguerite Telford, the Center’s Director of Communications, drew an analogy to tourist visas to explain this idea. Despite closing their doors to visitors, many museums are offering virtual tours. Issuing a student visa to someone studying at a virtual institution is akin to a country granting a visitor visa to a foreigner planning to attend a virtual museum tour: something that is unnecessary and preposterous. Canada has adopted this belief in shaping its student visa policy; however, it has simultaneously enacted several measures to mitigate any concerns of foreign students.

Canada has ensured that they will not have their visas rescinded for temporarily continuing their education abroad virtually. Further, foreign students already in the country have not been instructed to leave; if they do voluntarily, however, they will not be granted re-entry until on-campus instruction resumes at their institution. Of course, Canada’s decision is not entirely uncontroversial, given it has upset the usual migration advocates, who are urging the government to designate every foreign student as “essential”. However, viewed through a rational lens, the policy represents a pragmatic middle ground: international students outside of Canada will only return when their campus reopens and they have a clear reason to do so, but they will not be penalized on visa grounds for studying virtually from abroad, and those still inside the country can remain put.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada has pragmatically handled its student visa situation by balancing national security and international student interests – an approach the U.S. should have likewise adopted. However, in America, negotiation is difficult when interest groups, such as the higher education industry, refuse to co-operate. Unfortunately, the government’s response should not be to completely kowtow. Strong immigration policy entails making tough decisions. Until then, we are stuck with capitulation without compromise – and that does not put American interests first.

Source: Foreign Students and Online Instruction: Canada’s Approach

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Struggling language schools launch bid to bring 40,000 foreign students to Canada for fall semester

2020/08/01 Leave a comment

Bad idea. Economic interest of one sector, not without criticism over the quality of language training, versus the health risk to Canadian residents given that some source countries such as Brazil continue to mismanage COVID-19 with dramatic increases in infection rates:

Facing financial ruin due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada’s language schools have proposed an ambitious plan to bring 40,000 foreign students to Canada over the next few months to learn English and French.

The Study Safe Corridor initiative, which is awaiting approval from the federal government, would see Air Canada provide charter flights to bring COVID-screened students from countries such as Turkey, Japan, South Korea and Brazil.

A number of Canadian hotels have agreed to offer “full-service quarantine packages” for the students during their 14-day isolation period. A health insurance partner is involved in the plan as well.

The language students — who range in age from teenagers to people in their 30s and 40s — would be required to sign contracts to guarantee compliance with health regulations, which include financial penalties if rules are broken.

“We needed to come up with something that would be a game changer,” said Gonzalo Peralta, executive director of Languages Canada, which represents 200 schools across the country.

“We believe that if sports teams are allowed to function in this way, then international education should be allowed as well.”

The federal government gave the National Hockey League permission to resume its season and hold the Stanley Cup playoffs in Canada, allowing players from 18 teams from the U.S. to enter the country. The teams have agreed to follow strict safety protocols while playing in Toronto and Edmonton.

Economy would benefit, group says

Languages Canada and its members have asked the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship for the same consideration.

“We’re not looking at professional players being paid millions; we’re looking at people who are building their lives and looking toward the future,” Peralta said. “We know that borders cannot simply reopen; that’s unthinkable at this time. But we do know that life needs to continue.”

His organization says the Study Safe Corridor would inject $533 million of export revenue into the Canadian economy by March 2021, benefiting not only the schools, but also the airline and hotel sectors, homestay programs, and the tourism and hospitality industry. As well, 9,000 education jobs are at stake.A Languages Canada member survey showed that as many as 75 per cent of schools will be out of business by the end of the year if they’re not allowed to reopen. Some have already closed permanently.

Initiative raises health concerns

Emrah Oyman, executive director of operations at Toronto’s Mentora Language Academy, said online classes aren’t a suitable replacement.

“The big selling feature is the cultural component,” he said. “If you take away the face to face, you may as well just go on to YouTube.”

Oyman and his colleagues are confident that the safety measures of the Study Safe Corridor will minimize health risks. “This plan is bulletproof,” he said. “It’s very robust.”

But some are concerned about the health risks of bringing so many foreign nationals to Canada.

Dr. Anna Banerji, an infectious and tropical disease specialist who teaches at the University of Toronto and works part-time at a COVID-19 assessment centre, said she is opposed to the initiative.”The virus is surging around the world,” she said. “People are dying of this. A lot of people have sacrificed a lot to keep us safe. Why would we take the risk of people coming from all around the world into Canada?”

Part of Banerji’s work during the pandemic has been to speak with people who have tested negative for the virus but are still exhibiting symptoms.

She said she’s not reassured that students would be tested before being allowed to fly. “We have a high degree of false negatives,” she said.

In her view, language studies are not essential during a global pandemic. “These students have the rest of their lives to learn a language. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

As for the fate of the schools? “Now is not the time to do this,” Banerji said. “Maybe they can reopen next year.”

Students are keen to come

Pedro Hammer of Brazil said he is eager to return to Canada to continue his English-language classes and believes the Study Safe Corridor is a good approach.

“Especially in Brazil, we are dealing with a pretty hard situation in regard to the coronavirus, and I think the safety measures are a must,” he said via a WhatsApp call from his hometown in the southern city of Curitiba.

The 18-year-old was a student at Mentora Language Academy until February, when his visa expired. Then the coronavirus hit, and he’s been unable to renew it to return.

He said it’s his “dream” to get back to Canada.

“At the moment I arrived in Toronto, I knew it was the place for me,” Hammer said. “I fell in love with the city. It was a life-changing experience.”

Hammer is taking a business management course in Brazil but said his dream is to eventually emigrate. “My main goal is to go to Canada, to Toronto, to grow a family there and maybe grow a business as well.”

Many students are keen to resume studies, said Mentora’s Oyman.”Our day-to-day operations are heavily related to education agents when it comes to new students, and they’re all across the world,” he said.

“They’re giving us market intelligence; they’re telling us the students’ concerns. And they are absolutely receptive to the idea of the Study Safe Corridor.”

Gonzalo Peralta of Languages Canada said many foreign students opt to stay in Canada and pursue higher education. It’s another economic benefit of language schools, he said, but added that there’s more than money at stake.

“It’s also about promoting our identity to the world and our Canadian values. It’s very, very important in that regard.”

Peralta said his organization hopes to receive the go-ahead from the government soon.

“Now is the biggest time for enrolment, over the summertime. And then in September, those are the two big intakes. We have missed the summer. So this is basically the equivalent of Christmas to the retail business.”

The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, as well as the office of Minister Marco Mendicino, did not respond to emails sent by CBC News asking for comment.

Source: Struggling language schools launch bid to bring 40,000 foreign students to Canada for fall semester

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Dismantling and Reconstructing the U.S. Immigration System: A Catalog of Changes under the Trump Presidency

2020/08/01 Leave a comment

Most comprehensive list I have seen to date, with the assessment that some of these will ensure given the comprehensive and interlocking nature of the changes:

Through bold, sweeping changes as well as less-noted technical adjustments, the Trump administration has dramatically reshaped the U.S. immigration system since entering office in January 2017. Now well into its fourth year, the administration has undertaken more than 400 executive actions on immigration, spanning everything from border and interior enforcement, to refugee resettlement and the asylum system, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the immigration courts, and vetting and visa processes. This reports offers a comprehensive catalog, by topic, of those actions, including their dates and the underlying source materials.

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 gave the administration new openings to push forward many of its remaining immigration policy aims. This period has seen bans on travel and a pause on visa issuance for certain groups of foreign nationals and a further closing off of the U.S.-Mexico border that has effectively ended asylum there.

Much of the White House’s immigration agenda has been realized in the form of interlocking measures, with regulatory, policy, and programmatic changes driving towards shared policy goals. Though these largely administrative actions could, in theory, be undone by a future administration, this layered approach, coupled with the rapid-fire pace of change, makes it likely that the Trump presidency will have long-lasting effects on the U.S. immigration system.

Source: Dismantling and Reconstructing the U.S. Immigration System: A Catalog of Changes under the Trump Presidency

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Canada’s troubles with China are only temporary, says former ambassador: ‘Chinese people and Canadian people are good friends’

2020/07/31 Leave a comment

How unseemly and unethical, cashing in on his brief time as immigration minister and as Canadian Ambassador. And revealing his conversations with the current Minister (or presenting them as such) is equally shameful:

Canada’s troubles with China are temporary and relations with the rising superpower will return to sunnier times, including borders once again open to immigration and investment, John McCallum, the former ambassador fired from his position last year, has told clients of a major Chinese immigration company.

Mr. McCallum served in the federal cabinet, including as immigration minister, before he was named Canada’s ambassador to China in 2017. He was fired in 2019 after repeatedly speaking in support of the release of Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive accused of fraud in the U.S. and arrested in Canada, where she is in the midst of extradition proceedings.

But his experience and connections have made him a coveted speaker for Wailian Group, a Shanghai-based company with a 20-year history of smoothing the path for people to immigrate to Canada. Last fall, Wailian paid to have Mr. McCallum speak to clients in five Chinese cities, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the person because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

On Saturday, Mr. McCallum delivered remarks to another event organized by Wailian, this one online, in which he pitched Canada as a worthwhile destination for people from China, and cited his friends in the current cabinet to offer reassurances.

“Basically, I think China-Canada relations will be good going forward,” Mr. McCallum said.

Canada’s economy needs Chinese students, tourists and investors, he said, and the Liberal government is eager to reopen Canada’s borders to large numbers of new arrivals. He based his comments in part on a recent conversation with Marco Mendicino, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, who “plans to admit large numbers of immigrants to Canada in 2021,” Mr. McCallum said.

The government has not publicly disclosed how the pandemic will affect plans to admit 341,000 new permanent residents this year, and 351,000 next year. The global spread of COVID-19 has dramatically slowed the pace of immigration, with many visa and biometrics collections offices closed around the world. At a parliamentary hearing in June, Mr. Mendicino would only promise a “comprehensive update in the fall” on anticipated immigration levels.

Information about the government’s plans, however, is of keen interest to those seeking to immigrate, and to companies such as Wailian, whose business is built around ushering clients through the complexities of the application process.

Mr. McCallum offered reassurances that COVID-19 will create only a temporary pause in Canadian acceptance of new residents. “The Canadian government remains extremely positive about continuing high levels of immigration,” he said, citing his conversation with Mr. Mendicino.

He was equally optimistic about the prospects for Ottawa and Beijing to resolve the “substantial problems” that have arisen following the arrest of Ms. Meng, and China’s subsequent seizure of two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, in what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said is an “obvious” effort to put pressure on the Canadian government

The current frictions “are less long-term in nature than the U.S. challenges with China,” Mr. McCallum said. While the U.S. and China wrestle for what he called “top dog” status, “Chinese people and Canadian people are good friends,” he said. He pointed to a history that goes back to Norman Bethune, the ideologically communist Canadian doctor who came to China to treat Communist forces and who was famously eulogized by Mao Zedong. Canada also sold wheat to China in the early 1960s, in defiance of the U.S.

Today again, “economic interests will drive Canada and China to continue to work together,” Mr. McCallum said. For example, Chinese students “cover a lot of the costs” for Canadian postsecondary institutions, so “the last thing in the world Canadian universities would want to do would be to lose their 140,000 Chinese students.”

Similarly, Chinese tourists “spend a lot of money, create a lot of jobs. And they are most welcome in this country,” Mr. McCallum said. On investment, too, he said. “I think Canada will be open for Chinese investment in all but the most sensitive sectors.”

Mr. McCallum made no mention of the broader reassessment of China that has prompted a series of liberal democracies – from Australia to Europe and the U.S. – to erect new barriers to Chinese investment and apply new scrutiny to the motives of Chinese students and researchers with ties to their home country’s military institutions.

Less than six months after he was fired as ambassador last year, Mr. McCallum became a senior strategic adviser for McMillan LLP, the law firm.

He first made a public appearances for Wailian last October and November, when he came to China to deliver remarks and pose for photographs. Over two weeks, he appeared at Wailian events in Qingdao, Beijing, Suzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen. In each city, he spoke to a room with dozens – in some cases more than 100 – prospective clients for Wailian. The company paid for his attendance through an agreement with McMillan, according to the person familiar with the events.

Wailian promotional materials identify Mr. McCallum only as former ambassador and immigration minister, with no reference to McMillan.

Mr. McCallum in turn has called on his federal government connections.

Mr. Mendicino spoke with Mr. McCallum in mid-June, Kevin Lemkay, the minister’s spokesman, said in a statement. He “reached out to Mr. McCallum as a former colleague to discuss immigration and refugee issues,” Mr. Lemkay said, adding: “At no time did Mr. McCallum ever mention this company [Wailian] to the minister.”

Under Canadian law, Mr. McCallum is barred from lobbying the federal government for five years after leaving office. He said his conversation with the minister did not constitute lobbying. Mr. Mendicino “approaches me from time to time for general discussion as a friend and former minister,” Mr. McCallum said in response to questions from The Globe and Mail.

Still, the former ambassador’s comments risk giving a wrong impression, said David Mulroney, who previously served as Canada’s top diplomat to China.

“I would find any public reference in China by Mr. McCallum to a conversation with a current Immigration Minister very troubling,” said Mr. Mulroney. Such a reference could be seen in China as an indication of “continuing guanxi or connectedness, the idea that the former office holder retains a continuing degree of influence. Canadians in that position, like Mr. McCallum, should be very careful about business relationships in China for this very reason.”

Wailian describes itself as a major immigration company, with some 500 employees across 12 Chinese cities. Reached by telephone, a representative for the company described Mr. McCallum as a special guest.

Critics equate past friendly policies toward China to “appeasement” and say it is time for reconsideration of how Western countries interact with the rising superpower.

“It has become impossible to remain ambivalent on China,” said Guy Saint-Jacques, who was Canada’s ambassador to China before Mr. McCallum’s appointment.

Mr. Saint-Jacques pointed to China’s management of the early outbreak of the pandemic, its treatment of the largely Muslim Uyghur population, its imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong and “the way they have treated Canadians and Canada. To turn around and say, ‘Well, this is just a bump in the road and things will get back to normal’ – I don’t understand how someone can say this.”

In his comments to the Saturday event, however, Mr. McCallum called on long-standing arguments for why people from China might choose Canada as an immigrant destination, citing its quality of life, its beauty and its open attitude toward people arriving from other countries.

He was careful to point to its appeal to the well-heeled who might consider Canada a destination for profit as well as immigration. Canadian free-trade agreements make the country a favourable place to relocate to, he said, while “with the United States becoming less friendly to China, I think that increases the attraction of Chinese companies to invest in Canada.”

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadas-troubles-with-china-a-bump-in-the-road-will-soon-smooth/

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

China’s Muslim Uighurs Are Stuck in U.S. Immigration Limbo

2020/07/30 Leave a comment

Yet another consequence of Trump administration immigration policies and practices:

Kalbinur Awut came to the U.S. in 2015 from China’s far west for graduate study. Soon after arriving at the University of Rhode Island, she applied for political asylum. A member of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority, she had been harassed in China for wearing headscarves and was briefly detained after she applied to study overseas.

When she signed into a website run by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services this month to check her status, the same old message greeted her, with her wait time the only update: “Your case has been pending with USCIS for 1,796 days, not including delays,” it said.

China’s treatment of Uighurs exploded into the American consciousness around two years ago with reports that China was rounding up around a million Uighurs in what appeared to be concentration camps in the western region of Xinjiang.

Roughly around the same time, changes in U.S. asylum policies slowed the process for many of those claiming risk in their home countries. As a result, while the Trump administration is targeting China with various Xinjiang-related sanctions, hundreds of Uighurs like Ms. Awut are in U.S. immigration limbo with asylum bids hung up for years.

Applicants say that they are grateful the U.S. lets them work while awaiting a decision, but that their options are limited as prospective employers or landlords can be wary about their legal status. Lawyer charges and fees to renew work permits and temporary legal documents like driver’s licenses are a constant worry. Their quasi-legal status also leaves them at risk of deportation.

USCIS said its backlog for those seeking asylum, which provides a path to permanent residence and citizenship, was about 340,000 as of last September, the latest figures available, which equates to several years worth of cases. A few hundred Uighurs are in that queue, among Syrians fleeing civil war, Rohingya forced out of Myanmar and Hondurans fearing gang violence, according to lawyers.

Lawyers say the holdup is most acute in USCIS’s center in Arlington, Va., near where the majority of Uighurs in the U.S. have settled. Rights groups put the number of Uighurs in the country at less than 8,000.

Many Uighurs whose applications have been held up came to the U.S. to study or for work or holiday, then filed for asylum as Chinese authorities tightened control in Xinjiang and it became clear that having international ties was cause enough to get locked up.

Among those in limbo is Tahir Hamut, a poet and filmmaker who applied in late 2017 and has spoken to The Wall Street Journal about the detention camps and his family’s harrowing escape from China. Shortly after one article was published, Mr. Hamut said, his younger brother disappeared in Xinjiang and two female relatives got called in for police interrogation.

“Since the situation in our homeland is so hard right now, the Uighur people in the United States are facing a huge psychological stress,” he said by telephone from Fairfax, Va., as his 18-year-old daughter Asena translated. Mr. Hamut said he used an appearance two years ago at a religious-freedom event chaired by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to request faster application processing, but hasn’t seen results.

His daughter said the family’s uncertain legal status makes her ineligible to join the U.S. Air Force, despite spending two years in a high-school Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. She is giving up hopes of affording her dream schools, George Mason University or Virginia Tech.

“I’m thinking of changing my plans, going to a community college,” she said.

President Trump last month signed a law aiming to punish top Chinese policy makers and companies associated with repression of Islamic minority groups, including Uighurs. The State Department has targeted Chinese officials, including Chen Quanguo, China’s top appointee to Xinjiang and a member of the Communisty Party’s 25-member Politburo.

The U.S. has also blocked certain imports from Xinjiang and placed goods on watch that might be produced with forced labor.

Uighurs overseas applaud such actions as long overdue. But unprecedented political recognition has done little to get asylum applicants out of their immigration logjam.

The Trump administration has rarely made exceptions for applicants from any particular country, including Cubans or Venezuelans, whose governments are the target of tough U.S. policies. U.S. congressional efforts to welcome some Hong Kong residents after China enacted a national-security law in the territory would run on a separate track from the asylum process.

Beijing has defended stepped-up policing and what it calls vocational training centers in Xinjiang as necessary to combat extremism. It denounces sanctions by the U.S. as interference in China’s domestic affairs.

Lawyers say Uighurs have traditionally had very little problem winning asylum in the U.S. “Uighur cases have an astonishingly high approval rate,” said Rockville, Md., lawyer Brian Mezger. Nearly 100% of the Uighurs he has represented over more than two decades have obtained asylum.

In a pivotal change to the asylum system, U.S. immigration authorities in early 2018 adopted a type of last-in, first-out system to prioritize interviews with the newest applicants. The idea was to weed out those the administration said had in past years mainly sought ways to work legally in the U.S. and didn’t have a clear claim to asylum.

The effect was to push existing applicants to the back of the line. A 32-year-old Uighur woman in Boston said she and her husband have been waiting for an interview since 2014—and have had a son in the meantime—while an application by her younger sister after the policy changed in 2018 was approved in three months.

USCIS said that its broader efforts to control frivolous and fraudulent asylum claims are paying dividends and that the most recent numbers show its backlog is growing less quickly.

Like other Uighurs interviewed, the woman in Boston said she and her sister didn’t come to the U.S. intending to stay but both grew anxious as friends and family members back in China were increasingly harassed and sometimes detained, making their own returns to China all but impossible. “We do not have a country, and our life is jeopardized if we go back,” she said, fearing problems for her parents in Xinjiang if she speaks out.

Ms. Awut, who lost teaching jobs during the pandemic, is for now living with her son at the home of a friend near San Francisco. She said Chinese police sometimes attempt to question her via the social-messaging platform WeChat but that she has been unable to connect with her mother, brother or sister since 2016.

“I don’t know if they are alive,” she said.

Source: China’s Muslim Uighurs Are Stuck in U.S. Immigration Limbo

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Drover: Parliament should invoke Notwithstanding Clause to reverse judicial overreach

2020/07/30 Leave a comment

To date, haven’t seen any commentary in the mainstream right of centre press (Postmedia). Further to the right, True North published this piece by Devin Drover, a member of NL Strong (affiliated with Ontario Proud) and former NL Conservative staffer, with minimal legal understanding and the realities of current US immigration and asylum policies under the Trump administration:

Judicial activism in Canada has continued to be on the rise in the last decade.

Our unelected judiciary appear to be favouring their own interpretations of the Canadian Constitution rather than a firm commitment to historical precedent and the text of the document itself.

The latest example of this comes from the Federal Court.

Last week, a federal court ruled that the law underpinning the Safe Third Country Act is a violation of our Charter-protected guarantee of life, liberty and security of the person. This interferes with Parliament to make their own foreign policy decisions.

The Safe Third Country Agreement, which took effect in 2004, is an agreement between the United States and Canada which recognizes that both countries are safe places for refugees to seek protection. The Agreement requires that Canada refuse the claim of an asylum claimant who arrives at the land ports of entry along the Canada-US border by requiring them to pursue their claim in the US instead – the country they first arrived in.

Through this decision, the Federal Court has attacked parliament’s ability to make decisions on Canada’s foreign affairs.  Appealing to what they deem the “spirit” of the legislation, they have ruled that the United States is a country which is now unsafe for refugees to return to – a dangerous precedent to set which can have negative consequences for our relations with our greatest foreign ally.

Trying to apply the Canadian Charter to asylum claimants upon return to another country – yet alone an allied country – is a massive overreach that goes far beyond the intention of who the Charter was intended to protect. It is not up to the courts to consider how non-citizens are to be treated in a different state – specifically a democratic one with their own firm commitment to the rule of law. It is certainly not the role of courts to determine they do not enjoy how the United States treats refugees upon return.

That is not to say one must endorse the United States treatment of refugees in opposing this decision. But we must endorse a commitment to an interpretation of the Charter which focuses more on protecting the ability for democratic lawmakers to exercise their rights, rather than judicial overreach and activism.

In the wake of this interference of Canadian foreign policy by the Federal Court, some legal commentators have gently shrugged and suggested Canadians should just wait for the Federal Court of Appeal to weigh in – if they choose to at all.

Nonsense.

The Charter does not exist to allow the courts to slide into areas of governance where they do not belong.

Parliament should assert itself as the guardian of separation of powers by invoking section 33 of the Charter – the aptly named Notwithstanding Clause – immediately to enable legislation to correct this judicial overreach.

In doing so, Parliament can tell the judiciary to stay in their lane, while ensuring that important lawmaking is done by those elected to do it.

Source: DROVER: Parliament should invoke Notwithstanding Clause to reverse judicial overreach

Filed under Immigration

← Older posts

Newer posts →